Author: Jennifred Jones

Hands On!

Jennifred Jones

My heritage were the ‘hands-on’ folk. We made stuff! Good stuff!

It didn’t all start out as good stuff. As we learn the stuff goes through a progression from bad to better to pretty good to ‘that’s great’!

Mom’s side had the wagon master in her lineage. There were produce gardeners, writers, musicians, decorators, shop keepers, sewers.

Dad’s side were cabinet makers, craftsmen, painters, metal workers in casting and tools even on the railroad.

Mom became an interior designer doing anything to help make your house a home. Dad became a professor teaching shop class, metal work, drafting, slide rule (what’s that?) and at home helping in the cabinet making department for mom’s business.

My older brother had his own hobby shop for years. Now with 2 college degrees, he chooses to work with his hands in maintenance…electricity, plumbing …steam heat is his specialty! Get him down there with the boilers, radiators and pipes and he’s in his niche!

Younger brother took up cabinet making and makes his living restoring old houses, boats and furniture. Beautiful work!

Both brothers are deep thinkers, avid readers and good problem solvers.

Now my own flock of kids – all grown – are hands on entrepreneurial sorts as well.

The wonderful thing about hands on, hand made, is you are looking at what you make as you make it. You see its flaws and promises. You adjust as you go, and it will be unique! That’s what we people want!

So to all you hands on peoples out there…keep up the good work. Share your skills so we don’t lose your craft. Keep growing and improving. The world needs what you have to offer. What you are doing may seem small in your eyes, yet every nut and bolt is needed to hold the bridge up.

What can I make better today with my very own hands?

The Need to Be Needed!

Jennifred Jones

Some may think it’s selfish to feel needed.

I believe it’s part of our drive for purpose. We want to know something we did mattered in someone else’s life…that we were noticed. (I also realize it can become backwards and cause people problems, dependencies etc. etc. etc.)

But! What I’m getting at is this need to make something of value to someone else. It’s like a gift that no one else could or did make and they are happy to receive it. They like it and they like you for giving it to them. That makes us happy. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

People need what we can provide for them in a good honest way!

I want to raise this idea up a notch. In our relation to God, it’s different. He made us, but he doesn’t need us. He wants us. He doesn’t need anything of ours. It’s all his anyway. But we’re his kids and like any earthly father, he wants us. That’s a big difference between the need and the want. The want comes from choice. The need comes from a necessity.

We not only need to be needed, but we want to be wanted.

God wants us. Let’s want him back.

The Trail

Jennifred Jones

Each of our lives comes from a trail and leaves a trail.

Great Grandpa from northern Illinois was a wagon master on the Oregon Trail back in the 1800’s. My relatives along with others made the trip to Oregon City, Oregon. Some stayed, some came back, and some went back again.

We all have/need/want a known past; a place of belonging; to know where we ‘fit’ into the history of things. Did me or my family make a difference? What happened? What were the struggles and triumphs? What did they learn? What can I learn from my past? What do I have to pass on to my future families?

We want to belong to a tribe/clan/group. We want our ‘identifiers’ – this is my heritage -where I belong!

Some of us don’t know our past or had a bad past we don’t want to pass on. There is still a good future ahead for you. We can, beginning today, start a new trail to leave behind. In essence, we can create a new and better ‘past’ for ourselves and our families yet to come. Our past is not limited to what we don’t know or didn’t like. We have the opportunity to begin again, make better decisions, think up new ideas of what we’d like to see – and start now! We don’t have to wait to begin making a new trail to leave behind. We can clear the way so others can follow learning from what we went through.

So pick you a good past… something you might like to have lived, by picking and living a good present and future. You are the wagon master of your life.

Giddy up!