I recently read a great book based on a diary found in an old house. The diary was of a 15 year old boy and the entries were from 1805. In making several things, benches, picnic tables, bird houses etc... I have felt good about each thing and proud to just sit on my bench. It reminded me of a paragraph from the book, I looked it up, I think it is so true. "We are apt to ponder why almost everything of the old days was initialed and dated. It was simply because almost everything was made by the one who initialed it; the date was added because everyone was so completely aware of the times in which he lived. In modern times when everything a person needs may be bought in a store, there are very few hand-made things left. So we are robbed of that rare and wonderful satisfaction that comes with personal accomplishment. In past times, nearly every single thing a person touched was the result of his own efforts. The cloth of his clothing, the meal on the table, the chair he sat in, and the floor he walked upon, all were made by the user. This is why those people had an extraordinary awareness of life. They knew the wood intimately; they knew the ingredients of food and medicines and inks and paints because they grew it and ground it and mixed it themselves. It was this awareness of everything about them that made the early American people so full of inner satisfaction, so grateful for life and all that went with it. Nowadays modern conveniences allow us to be forgetful, and we easily become less aware of the wonders of life."