Living Like The Long Winter ~ Being Determined

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“Then suddenly he shook his clenched fist at the northwest. “Howl! Blast you! Howl!” he shouted. “We’re all here safe! You can’t get at us! You’ve tried all winter but we’ll beat you yet! We’ll be right here when spring comes!” ~ The Long Winter p. 288

Instead of moving on to Little Town on the Prairie I just keep coming back to The Long Winter. I asked myself why I keep doing this and the answer was simple, because of the determination in the book. In The Long Winter, the Ingalls had to exhaust all their resources to battle the fierce winter if they wanted to stay alive. I think rereading through this book it’s hard to imagine such a time. When we think of winter we know we have our furnaces and the stores nearby to collect supplies. We don’t really have to worry about a time like this.

Pa and the Ingalls family made it through the long winter because they were determined to do so. Do you ever have one of those weeks where it feels like everything is going wrong…all at once? The washer breaks, the dishwasher floods the kitchen, you get an unexpected medical bill in the mail, you find out someone needs glasses, and you get a flat tire on the way home. You know what I’m talking about, one of those weeks. You tell someone about your woes and they reply back, “Well, life isn’t fair!” and you think, yep, and that’s exactly what I’m going to tell you next week when it happens to you, and you can see how it feels.

Nope, life’s not fair, and sometimes it can just bring you down. I was looking through some inspirational quotes today and even though I know they won’t pay the bills, fix the washer and dishwasher, fix the flat, or pay for glasses, they might just help you try and be able to see past the dark to the rainbow on the other side.

  • “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results” -Willie Nelson
  • “Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there” -Norman Vincent Peale
  • “There are always flowers for those who want to see them” -Henri Matisse
  • “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” -Winston Churchill
  • “If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it” -Mary Engelbreit

Make sure you check out the entire Living Like Little House series!

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5 Comments

  1. I’m going to borrow a couple of those quotes….

    One of mine is: Focus on the positive !

    and “Life is a matter of Attitude!”…
    meaning have a good attitude so you have a good life 🙂

  2. I love The Long Winter. It is my favorite book out of the series I think. I reread it a couple years ago when we had all those blizzards. When I read that series I really think about all we take for granted when just a few short generations ago people were truly living for survival.

  3. …and I thought I was the only one who reread The Long Winter!! I, too, loved how they did whatever it took to survive and how Pa could sense that he needed to have his family ready for anything that was to come.

  4. Yes, I will be borrowing some of these quotes as well. I often think how easy we have it these days, yet we consider it difficult. Thank you for the positive words.

  5. The Long Winter is my favorite book of the series, too. My five year-old daughter listen to the audiobook over and over. We especially enjoyed listening to it while we were iced in a few weeks ago.