[Insert Scathingly Brilliant Title Here]

I'm not crazy-picky when it comes to my food, but organic food rocks. It's even better when you can say, "I planted the tree that those apples came from." Better still, I know that the only thing fertilizing the apple trees is deer poop. The only insect protection is the local bird, bat and spider population. I climbed those trees. I loved those trees...I stepped on a huge snake at the base of one of those trees once, hence why (despite a lack of snake-fear) I always startle briefly when I see a snake on the ground.

( Extreme Rambling About Apple-pickin' )

Whew. Enough about that most likely boring to most people topic. I'm off to find an online recipe for good apple crisp.

Things come in threes. Today I managed to bite my tongue (so hard that it bled and swelled--leaving me with an oh-so-charming lisp), burn my hand (with my morning oatmeal--enough to leave blisters), and finally, I wrecked something in the arch of my foot while running tonight.

I desperately needed a good, long, soapy, bubbly, hot bath. Which got me thinking. Most adults don't take baths nearly as often as I do now. I can only theorize that this is because baths were a treat when I was growing up--we didn't have a bath tub (or rather, we had one, but it wasn't hooked up and was usually filled with implements of construction). This got me thinking about other unusual things I didn't have while growing up (for the better, mostly). Without further adieu, the top 10 things I didn't have while growing up:

1. Baths
2. Electricity upstairs--until I was maybe eight or so (we had to leave the bathroom door open so we could see when we went, and we had to pick out our clothes the day before school to make sure they matched).
3. A finished house (you took your shoes off at your own peril)
4. Close neighbors
5. Cable TV (or decent reception on the network channels)
6. Video game systems (although we did have a Commodore 64...and it rocked my world)
7. A little brother or sister (and I really, really wanted someone to pick on :( )
8. A dish washer, a clothes washing machine, or a dryer
9. Filtered water (heh, all three women in the house were blond...and our hair used to turn orange with rust and mineral buildup)
10. Central heat/air (wood stoves still rock...)

I think I'm a better person because of what we didn't have. Granted, we "had" a lot of things, and were very fortunate, but I'm just amused at the seemingly "normal" things absent from my childhood. What was missing from your life?