Living Like the Past

This is the early morning view from our kitchen sink window. I like to watch the birds taking baths and getting a drink of water in the birdbath that is seen top right in the picture.I try to do my best to not discuss news or politics on my blog posts because we all get enough of it and it is terribly distressing. Sometimes I want to go on a rant just like everyone else. I feel that we are watching a sink hole that has no ending to how far it spreads and it just seems no end to the shocking things people do or say. I am actually scared at times at where this all is taking us. I am not scared for me but for the young people. This is all that I want to say about this be ......

As I am doing this post it is the last day of March (1944). We are still tweaking things in the house and moving a few things around but that will most likely be something that will continue for quite awhile. I went through and cut up some of the most worn kitchen towels to use as paper towel replacements.As many of you know I normally change out the tablecloth each month. I started to put my Easter cloth on but the family is scattered this year so I put one of my most vintage cloths because I like it.The weather has been warm and breezy so I have been able to keep the windows open longer at a time. The only problem with opening the windows this time of year is the po ......

First I want to share this beautiful flower that we have growing in our yard. We have several different kinds of mums and I do not know all the official names but this one is larger and beautiful. These three photos are stages of the blooms I took.Starting to open...I hope this brightens your day, it does mine. I have been thinking about how much tending it takes to run a household and keep a yard and garden tidy.If we want to harvest the garden.... We have to prepare the soil, plant it and tend it.We tend to our laundry. Some of our work in the home has priority. Laundry is on that priority list.Sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, dusting.... important to tend to to ......

The hummers are back! We spotted our first hummingbird a little over a week ago. They leave just before winter and we are always excited to see them when they come back.This morning I spotted this one on a branch at our back porch. Last year during a hurricane I ran out and grabbed branches and zip ties and tied the branches to the ironwork on the porch because a hummingbird was trying to stay safe on our porch but there was hardly any safe area for her to perch. She stayed on the branch throughout the hurricane into the next day when it was safe to leave. I did not remove the branches from the porch and this morning I see this young hummingbird perched on ......

Have you ever had a light bulb moment? How about many of them at the same time?The kind of light bulb moment I am talking about is when something suddenly makes sense. That is what I felt when we started living more like the past. For me it was the thought why did we ever stop living this way? Long ago we reached the tipping point but people kept going because that is what people do.A few months ago there was a car accident in front of our house. The police had to block the road. Cars could see ahead of them that they needed to take another street or turn around but most of them didn't. They looked confused, like what am I going to do? My ......

As many of you know we started off March painting the kitchen. After that I needed to slow down and give my body a rest before going on to another big project.Today I am posting about our simple life as we live like our generations did in the past. If I sit down to peel potatoes or carrots and such I will use my enamel pan in my lap and a peeler and paring knife for slicing but if I stand at the counter I use our flannel cloths that I made for kitchen use. I picked plaid so if the stains get bad it will not matter. We need old cloths in our home that are allowed to get stained. We have an old enamel pot that is filled with scrap cloth that has been cut into ......

A lot has been going on outside while I have been stuck inside for the last 9 days painting and organizing our kitchen.Everything is getting so pretty outdoors, blooms and buds...Including the blueberries BUT... Now they are saying expect a frost :( and there is no way I can cover all these beautiful blooms. I can only hope for the best.Elizabeth is saying come this way.... So I have spent the last week on ladders, removing cabinet doors, putting on cabinet doors, removing cabinet doors, putting on cabinet doors. Yes there was a problem! I painted the kitchen 4 different colors of yellow before I got it right. The first yellow looked anemic, the second looked li ......

What is going on with our weather? It is suppose to be winter and here we are mid February in the 80's. Looks like spring, this pear tree is blooming....The azaleas are blooming... I apologize for this longer post but I wanted to blend the reason for gardening and the budget together.So I thought about it.... Maybe my garden shoes will make it one more season LoLWhat do you do when it is still winter and it is 80 degrees? You start grey gardening.I call it grey gardening because much of everything is still grey because it is actually winter but the weather is warming. I started doing what I could in the yard last week and Charles and I worked out in the yard all weeke ......

Some people that visit my blog reminisce about the old days, some say it is like visiting a neighbor or a grandmother long ago. Some talk about the memories it has brought up. Then there are the younger ones that feel like they were born in the wrong generation or the young ones that don't feel comfortable with the way the world is and want something more but are too young to have memories of long ago as we older folks have.Some feel homesick and just like how I felt before I figured out what was bothering me.Many of us have memories of home, wherever that might have been. Some have good memories and some not so good but what I want to talk about is how to fill that void and find that place ......

I took a look at what I was doing this time of year last year and I was mending and patching tablecloths....This is the one that I patched and added flour sack cloth to the sides to make it fit the table.I did an article about switchel...I was also planning for the spring garden...What was going on at this time of year in 1944 was people were being urged to step up on their victory gardens. This article above is a very interesting article for me to share with you for our history project living like 1944.The community of Harrisburg Pennsylvania was one of the many communities around the united states that helped to grow food during the war by encouraging their citizens to grow victory g ......

One thing that was the same in the past and now is there was laundry to wash and dry.There were different ways to wash laundry, today we have these HE machines that are suppose to save water and do a good job of cleaning the laundry but it does not. When I first married I did not have a washer and hand washed the laundry then a few years later we moved to a house that had a round wringer washer. I just loved that washer! It reminded me of my Grandmother's washer and I was happy.Soap was different in the past. Today much of our soap is synthetic and I do not care for the scents that are put in the laundry soap today.In the past the soap was mostly lye and ca ......

We have arrived to a new month and was time to change the tablecloth and accessories this morning. I chose the white crochet tablecloth and embroidered runner in the middle of the table.I like to add a touch of romance to our home. Romance does not have to be about dating or marriage, it can be dressing pretty or the way we style our hair. It can be about adding romantic touches to our home or making a nice blend of essential oils. Yesterday I made a pan cover and added weighted beads to hold the cover in place. I used some vintage flour sack cloth that I found last year at the thrift store. I like the pretty beads around the cloth cover and they are very useful ......

I read through many old articles about how to wash dishes. It turns out that in the past everyone had their own opinion how to wash dishes. People were very particular the order in which things were done.One thing that seemed to be important is to organize the dishes to be washed. They would have gasped if they walked into a kitchen and saw this pictured above.Most people believed in separating the items to be washed.As you can see we did not use our fancies this day, just a normal breakfast that morning, for lunch a day of warming up leftovers. If we cook we are going to mess up pots and pans and dishes, there is no way around it. This article, October 1935 reads ......

Here is a link to our song for the day, it is because we are getting back in the saddle again. :) (Not fully well but getting there)1941https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5F-O_19lSISo I am picking up with our historical journey of living like 1944, this article is about pin curls and paper dolls.Above are two army nurses setting up a beauty parlor behind the Fifth Army front in Italy. Two army nurses wear cheerful grins as they have themselves a beautifying time. Lieutenant Gene F Cornish strikingly attired in her long whatnots, hair in pincurls, wearing a sarong conjured out of her jacket turned backwards, is helping Lieutenant Helen Zasodil of Cicero, Ill. wash her crowning glory ......

I feel we are resembling the influenza epidemic of 1917-1918. Here we are 100 years later and we are in the midst of a flu epidemic.If you have emailed me and I have not responded to your email it is because Charles and I have Influenza A Strain and we have been and are still terribly sick. We are not out of the woods yet so I am asking you to please hold your emails until I post again to let you know we are better.I wish every state in our country would have started this Mask Ordinance as they did in San Francisco in 1918. Possibly we could at least slow this epidemic down. I feel people should be wearing masks now and those that don't want to look silly or think it ......

I finished knitting house socks for Charles. The cold weather and the warm fireplace was just too inviting to not sit down to knit.I used the free Bernat pattern and this is a link to this pattern. http://www.yarnspirations.com/patterns/men-s-lady-...We have enjoyed using our warm soapstone foot warmers. I snapped a quick picture of Elizabeth sitting on the soapstone between my feet. We have been heating the stones and using them such as Charles was doing some paperwork early one morning and I slipped a covered soapstone under his feet while sitting at his desk. I don't sit a lot during the day but when I do if there is a warm soapstone I will put it under ......

Our winter brings on the desire for warm ginger tea with lemon and wild honey. I want to balance out posting my research and our daily life as we are only into our second week of living like 1944.It has been a cold winter for us so far and this time of year where we live it is not normally cold for long spells but it has been this way and we had a few days of warm up but we are going right back to another cold spell.The warm things I have been doing is knitting and canning.We are sticking to our simple meals and starting to crave some of our routine food that we have been eating if we do not eat it for a few days. Sweet potatoes is one food we crave if we skip a few days.&nb ......

Have you ever wondered what people did to stay warm in the winter before electricity? Have you ever wondered how people stayed warm in their carriages or even cars before they had heaters? Our very cold weather had me wondering about what people did in the past. Then I ran across an article while researching our year of 1944 and I ran across a couple of articles about how people would keep warm since fuel including heating fuel was rationed.One article said,With the return of chilly weather and the accompanying fuel shortage, home nurses who have old people to care for need to take precautions to see that they are comfortable. Because they are less active their circulation ......

Living like the past and especially living like 1944 gives a much different perspective of where we have been and where we are going.As some of you know from my blog posts I lean towards the romantic home. I enjoy having the vintage things that have been around for a long time and I like to use those items for everyday use.It has been a very busy week here at our home in our new year of 1944. We are allowing ourselves a couple of weeks to tweak where we need to be with food preservation since we now found out by reading the 1944 news that there were a lot of victory gardens and canning going on in 1943 so we realized we were behind in our food stores of canning.So I got busy and ......

While I was doing research getting ready for our year of living like 1944 I kept coming across articles about bandage making. Regular meetings were being held and women were getting together in certain places to make bandages.The surgical dressings had my attention as I worked many years in wound care at the hospital and outpatient. I wanted to know more.When we did our year of living like 1943 I had several booklets and items about the war and one of them was this booklet filled with instructions how to knit for the men that were gone to war.I found that in the 1940s during ww2 women all over the country were working together with the red cross making bandages of all kinds and s ......