Black bean burgers.
Yu-ummmmm. I was so craving one. On account of my sister Mess Cat talking about making her own a few weeks back, I made up a recipe and cooked some last week. And they were some kind of good.
And I wanted more.
I went to the pantry in search of black beans. Are you kidding me? I ate them all already?
Well shoot.
This is what I get for not keeping a running grocery list like my Mama did.
All I could find were pinto beans.
I shrugged. Well, when that’s what you have…..
As I was mixing them up, I thought about something Mama said all those years.
They weren’t black bean burgers, but we’d “make do.”
And I laughed.
Maybe that’s why Mama said she was flexible. She had a lifetime of “making do.” In the first year she and Daddy moved to Peach County when I was quite small, they didn’t have a stove.
Just think about that. No stove. No microwave. She had a little electric hot plate that she used to cook on. A whole summer of this. And then they got their first stove. She was happy about her new stove, but she’d gotten by–because she made do.
When one of vehicles went kaput and they couldn’t get another one right away, I remember Mama driving Daddy to work so she could pick us up from school later. They made do.
She sewed a lot of our clothes in the early years, and she made do with what fabric she could get.
When it came time to make something and she didn’t have a certain ingredient, she would figure it out and make do.
Sounds like she was into sacrificing, doesn’t it?
But she wasn’t. She was so joyful most of the time. Not Pollyanna exactly, but probably a first cousin. She could find joy in the simplest or smallest of things. She did it with grace and a thankful heart.  On Mama “making do” looked like appreciation and ingenuity.  And her example of making do is a gift that I’m just now really growing to appreciate.
Because of her, I don’t take things sitting down. If I have it in my head to do something, and I don’t have exactly what I need, I can come up with another way to make it happen and “make do.” I think “making do” might be the mother of creativity. Making do has created some pretty awesome school projects and costumes over the years. Don’t have something? Okay, let’s take what we have and make it work.
Tonight I’m thankful for a Mama who taught me the gift of making do. I think it’s close relations to “appreciating what you have.” A few of the thrifty folks out there have a tagline–“shop at home first.” Mama was all about that way before it became the “thing” to do. Making do was all about being frugal, a good steward, and being responsible.
Making do–it’s not a sacrifice, it’s a beautiful way of life.
And by the way, the pinto bean burgers more than “made do.” They were delicious.
Love and just enough to make do to all.
Chicken Trolls 
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