Life Advice From The Hazmats
The wisdom of six amazing women.
Whenever I’m in a room full of women, I like to ask them to share some of their hard-won wisdom. In the case of The Hazmats—a Pennsylvania-based quilting group I recently spent an afternoon with—I went around the semicircle of six ladies and had them offer up a piece of advice they’d give their younger selves.
“Make time for people, because the people and the relationships are what is important. Work will always be there, house cleaning will always be there, but treasure your friends and your family.” - Gina
“I’m working on this right now: don’t be so worried about the future that you mess up today. It’s even harder to do once you start having health issues.” - Linda
“Take care of yourself, and do what you can when you’re younger because when you get older you can’t do it all. I’m glad I traveled with my sister. We went all over Europe and China and it was just wonderful.” - Kathy
“I would like to live a healthy life, have my eyesight be really good, so I can do anything I want to do, because I have too many unfinished projects; there’s a lot I want to do. And I just need time. You don’t stop wanting things as you grow older.” - Janet
“My kids were only thirteen months apart, and I used to just treat them like they were exactly the same. So my piece of advice to me would be to really step back and look at the boys and see that they are two different people and treat them differently.” - Penny
“Don’t sweat the small stuff. And much like what Gina said, nobody got to the pearly gates and said, ‘I wish I worked more.’” - Cass