Living Like the Past

As Charles and I study and attempt to move further back in time to live more Like people lived in the past we find that we need to improve. We now realize how wasteful we have been throughout our life. From spending, to food waste to garbage waste. If we follow along with the time then we belong to the wasteful society. If we follow along the old fashioned way we will be less wasteful but even in the past they were not perfect. We can romanticize the past and try and make it perfect but it was far from perfect.However, if we combine what we know now with what they did not know then we can do so much better living like the past with better solutions to pro ......

Have you ever given much thought about where your food, electricity and water come from?There were people trying to invent electricity in the mid 1800s possibly even before but in 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. That was 138 years ago from this year I am writing this article 2017. When you think about from the beginning of time 138 years ago is not a long time. It took years to go from an invention of a light bulb and electricity to pulling electric lines along roads to buildings and homes. We do not have to go back many generations before us to find our family members that lived without electricity and running water. Now if someone lives without electricity it is called living o ......

Living more like the past takes time and we rid, replace, move things around and we slowly work it out. This wash bowl will be moved to a more appropriate place because I want it to be used for the intended purpose for which it was made. What is missing in this picture is the television that once rested on top of this chest of drawers. We are happy that the televisions are gone and it feels so very different when we get rid of something such as an electronic. There is a peaceful feeling of a time once before.When we made a decision to live more like the past watching television was at the top of our list of something that we needed to change. We do not miss watching te ......

Our Vintage Life is getting more interesting each day. We have no problems sleeping is the only way I can describe our life.Our diet has changed since the garden has been producing wonderful fresh vegetables and fruits. Doing things the old way takes longer to do most anything so there is always something to do. It is a good tired because everything we are doing has a purpose.I am always chopping something.Sometimes it is to put in jars to ferment or from canning or to go in the dehydrator.Then there is supper...My two new favorite meals is mixed veggies stir fried or stewed or grilled eggplant.We are eating very little meat these days and we don't miss it nor are we making ......

This past week I did some canning. I preserve food many ways, dehydrating, water bath canning, pressure canning, freezing (which I am trying to get away from) and fermenting which I hope to expand my knowledge on the fermenting.But this is our time to do canning because the fresh vegetables and fruits are ready now. Actually all year we can preserve food because we have different seasons for different vegetables and fruits.This past week I concentrated on making conserve, jam, relish and applesauce. I will make some more jam and applesauce and move on to whole vegetables and meat. The reason I made applesauce is because I use apples in some of the things I can preser ......

Living like the past in today's world has some advantages. In the past some of the chores were heavy and we have the ability to use things from our time but use them like they did in the past. We have better access to things but we do not want to abuse that since we want to live as much like the past as we can.Since Charles and I are trying to simplify what we are doing we do take the lighter side and that means using some new things the old way.Then there are the items from the past that are just better. A pastry cutter with a pie crimper on the other end, a tea strainer and an egg separator.Little by little we have been replacing our kitchen tools with quality tools from ......

A scrap pot I made from a thrift store find. It was an old fondue pot and a single lid from something else.As Charles and I keep walking our path to a more practical vintage life I realize that the best changes are some of the little things that make big improvements. Simplifying is hard work and it can take a lot energy but as we have worked our way back to a better time it just feels right. We keep having these moments of Why didn't we think of that before. It is usually something very simple.We are trying to keep only items that have a functional purpose.Some people may think we have lost our mind by wanting to live as people did nearly 100 years ago.& ......

Onion Bulb in Bloom...Our life got a bit confusing the last few weeks but we are getting somewhat in a better routine.Our move to a more Vintarian life, our Sensible Vintage makes us keep moving backwards and backwards for us is good since we are not moving forward. At least we are moving. :)We are trying to get a more settled life and one that draws minimal outside resources. In the past people lived minimal because the use of electricity was quite different than what it is today. In the past it was to turn on a few lamps in the house or possibly a few ceiling lights. Houses had to be wired first for the families to receive the new electricity. This toaster is too ......

Some of you that visit my blog regularly know that my husband and I live an old fashioned vintage life. Those new to my blog, we enjoy doing history projects and doing much research about days ago that are a bit more unfamiliar. We did the one year study living like 1943 so we could learn about ww2 rationing. We moved to 1948 so we could study how it was after the war ended and we found we did not like it there because this is when more processed food was ramping up and gadgets and the like. It was a feeling of been there done that so we decided to study the year before most of the war rationing started, the year 1942 which is where we are today. My heart draws me furt ......

Wow, May has been a whirlwind here in our home. We have been so busy with normal things such as gardening and housekeeping but adding in finding ways to live with less use of electricity and water makes for some sore muscles.By the way those balls in the photo above belong to our pets. Our little dog Bernadette collected those for that spot. I am guessing she wanted to dry them.The right tools and equipment is very important to live with less grid such as having a way to dry clothes when it is rainy outside.We are fortunate that we have some family living today that are in their 90s and have clear minds for us to ask questions but our family in their 90s all lived rural, ......

As some of you know from my last article Charles and I are trying to live with minimal electric and water. We do not have city gas, we are an all electric home in the city. I am hemming a blouse while sitting in front of the window for light.I have concerns for our young adults today. Many of them are struggling with starting off on their own. Many if not most of them do not have any exposure to how things were done in the past. They don't know how to do without many things that they could do without because they have had them around them since they were born so they don't know how to reduce their bills.Since we have been living like the year 1942 it has caused us to think ......

This photo is of me in the 1960's when my husband and I were living in Dill city (not Dell City) Oklahoma. Dill city is close to Burns flat where Clinton Sherman Air force Base was located. That base was closed after we did our tour in the military. I was expecting our son Tim and this was our dog Shakey. He always had one ear up and one ear down. He is sitting on a brick that is on top of a air vent to a storm/root cellar. I am wearing a homemade maternity dress that was sewn on a treadle sewing machine that was generously given to me by an elderly couple that lived close by. She had gotten a new electric machine and I was tickled to get this treadl ......

We had a few sweet potatoes left over from the potatoes we grew last year so I put a few in water to grow some slips.You would think with all these roots in the jar it would be ready to plant but sweet potatoes are a bit different.We want to pinch off the stems that are growing from the sweet potato and make slips out of them.This would be a slip and now I will root this and when it has roots I will plant this in the dirt, not the original sweet potato. The slips make sweet potatoes.So I put the original sweet potatoes back in the original jar on the left and put the slips that had roots in one jar and the ones that did not in the other.Now they will sit on our kitchen window ledge to ......

For the end of our fourth month living like 1942 I want to share with you a very special knitting pattern and discuss what we have been doing this month. I cannot show you the completed wash cloth because this is it. I started knitting and have found this to be just beautiful and so I wanted to share it with you right away.During world war 1 and world war 2 people at home wanted to help the fighting soldiers and they would knit socks, sweaters and vests for those fighting in the war. They knitted stump wraps and other items for wounded soldiers and knitters in a red cross unit during ww2 got the idea of knitting these wash cloths for the servicemen in hospitals. Later ......

The handkerchief case...This is part two of Vintage accessories. My mother had the most beautiful accessories. When I was a child I loved to peek into my mothers dresser drawers. I was respectful of the lovely things in her drawers and I knew not to move them from where they were kept.I was a child and I knew that when I became an adult then in time I could have these lovely things. Time has changed many things and children of today have many grown up things given to them by their parents. The clothing that some children wear today is very inappropriate. If it was not appropriate when I was a child it is still not appropriate today.The jewel on the handker ......

I have had a request for further information for the napkin cover and I will include the knives and forks cover as well.If you would like to make one I will give you the measurements so you can make one.You start out with a rectangle piece of fabric 25 1/4 inches up and down by17 inches side to side.It is 25 and 1/4 inches long.17 inches.The bottom flap goes down 8 inches and it is 9 inches across.The side flap is 9 inches and it juts out 4 inches. You would curve the edges.the top comes down 8 inches.You could cut it on the fold so it would be easier to make it even.This is how it folds. You would need to make your own bias tape to go around the edge or purchase it from the stor ......

Many years ago Charles and I stopped drinking sodas. Charles drinks coffee in the morning but drastically reduced his coffee intake. We mostly drink warm water every day.Some of you have asked me, why do we drink warm water? Charles and I became a convert to drinking hot/warm water years ago after reading and article then searching more information about the belief of drinking warm water being better for your body. So the story goes, Charles and I became addicted to drinking warm water. Yesterday I dehydrated some strawberries. They came off the dehydrator almost leaf thin and I decided these would be good for strawberry tea.I will keep the strawberries air ......

I recently read an article in the news about the difficult time that millennials are having and how it is so different for them to leave the nest so to speak. Many are ending up back at home with their parents.The article talks about college and large student loan payments and many not being able to get a good job after graduating from college.This made me do some thinking since three of our Grands are working jobs and taking college courses at this time.The time we live in right now is so different than how it was in the past but only because we make it that way.Many young people now do not understand, and is not their fault, that after we leave the nest we start at the starting point ......

Since it is getting gardening time in the USA it is also canning and dehydrating time too.We can also take advantage of something being on sale at the grocery store and preserving it so it does not spoil. I got out the dehydrator and dehydrated some carrots. In the past people dehydrated many ways, smoke, sun, some built wooden units with trays and ovens. Then came along the electric dehydrator. It is not a 1940s thing but food preservation but we spent the money on one years ago so I am going to use my electric dehydrator because it makes sense.The reason I am posting this is I want to remind folks that when dehydrating vegetables, most of the vegetables need to be bl ......

Sometimes those 1940s recipes just don't work out so well.I was going to do a post on Stuffed Eggplant from one of my 1942 cookbooks but...It just did not taste that great. I will post the recipe and you can make it at your own risk, Charles said the best part of it was before putting your fork in it.Stuffed Eggplant1 Eggplant2 tablespoons butter Salt and Pepper !/2 Cup water 2 Cups breadcrumbsCut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the center pulp, leaving the rind about one-half inch thick so that the shape may be firm. Cover the shells with cold water. Chop the pulp fine, season it with salt , pepper and butter, cooking a frying pan for ten minut ......