Even Though We Ain’t Got Money

There was a popular song way back in the day called Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins.  The most well-known lyrics of the song went like this: Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey, everything will bring a chain of love. In the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything will be alright.  

I couldn’t help but smile while listening to the song again. My late husband, Lawrence, always told me when I went shopping, money is no object. I would laugh and reply, yes that’s true, we don’t have any so it’s really no object. It wasn’t that he didn’t earn a fairly good living because he did. It was just that with 6 kids, 5 of them being boys, they pretty much ate up a big chunk of our income. I guess you could say they really took a bite out of a dime. Sorry I couldn’t resist!

Because our budget was spread pretty thin some things we either had to do without or figure out how to do it ourselves. I wanted the kids to have great birthday parties, so I learned to decorate cakes and throw some awesome DIY celebrations. To this day I don’t believe they ever felt deprived because they were part of a big family. On the contrary they all say you haven’t done Christmas until you’ve done it with our family. As time went on and the kids grew up and left home money wasn’t so tight anymore and it became easier to purchase ready-made rather than making it myself. Until recently that is.

My only daughter is expecting a little girl in November. She and her hubby currently live in North Carolina but came to Texas last month for a visit and some of her friends gave them a baby shower while they were here. I told them I would help with it and set out to come up with some fun decorations. I was asked if someone was making a diaper cake for them to which I replied, not that I know of and I certainly don’t know how. Well what do you do next? Look on Pinterest of course and my daughter in law found not only a diaper cake but a jeep diaper cake. For those of you who may not know what a diaper cake is, it looks like a cake, but it’s made out of diapers and baby things. The dad to be is a huge Jeep guy who owns one and my immediate response was, oh they have to have that. My next response was no way when I saw the price was $130.00.

I recently wrote that DIY has an entirely different meaning to a widow. We have to learn to do things ourselves that we did as a couple. Some are just little things like for me bringing in the groceries or making the bed. We shared those chores along with meals and dreams and laughs and life. But there are other reasons to be a do it yourselfer and one of those is money. It seems I’ve come full circle on this one. It’s not that I can’t have some things, but it just may take a little effort on my part. Although in retirement I ain’t got money what I do have is time and You Tube. So, I proceeded to find a diaper jeep tutorial and did it myself. Not only was it affordable this way but it was fun. I was inspired to make several other decorations and had a blast while doing it. You know what else it gave me confidence. I can do this. I can make it work. Even though I ain’t got money everything will be alright.