About gDonna
The photo is my son and myself. Now days you can get a photo made to look old like this one. This photo was taken when this was the new look.

Harry S Truman was president when I was born and world war II had ended. I grew up in a time when lunch was put in a brown paper bag and a sandwich was wrapped with wax paper. There was no such thing as pantyhose, we wore stockings that attached to the rubbery clippy things that attached to the girdle. Convenience stores were not common and when we took a trip we packed a picnic basket because many places did not have fast food. Highways had places to pull over and stop, some with picnic tables. Read more ....
 

Donna's Diary Posts

My Favorite Blog and Books
Recent Posts
Diary Readings July 16 - 22
We continue our 1943 diary readings of the diaries of Lil and Bob and Lena and her son Richard. To read the diaries from the beginning just look on my menu bar living like the past and look back to January 1, 2022. I type the diaries as they are written including spelling. We now continue the diary of Lil and Bob.Friday, July 16, 1943. Cloudy till noon. Done the ironing - Bob late - Had home grown sweet corn & chicken- yum yumSaturday July 17. Cloudy till noon - cleaned up house & baked cake & fried chicken - Bob up town to shop -Sunday July 18. Cool wind- Bob up town for chronicle - Ralph & Betty here in P.M. with their new baby girl by adoption.& ......
The things I learned
I have not taken many pictures the last two weeks because I had a doozy of an illness but I am finally feeling better. I was tested for covid, flu and strep, all negative. Second trip in to see the doctor and he did chest xrays and blood work. Eight days of fever, chills and sweats and pain all over, that was a long time for fever and it had the doctor and myself concerned. To me it felt like a relentless flu. Other than a lingering cough and fatigue I am on my feet and slowly getting back to doing things so no worrying about me, I am better. The above photo is our first and only apple on our young apple tree that was planted as part of our permacu ......
Diary Readings July 9 - 15 1943
We continue the 1943 diary readings of Lil and Bob and Lena and her son Richard. To read the diaries from the beginning look on my blog for the date January 1, 2022 for the first reading of these 1943 diaries. We will continue now with the reading of Lil and Bob. Friday, July 9, 1943. Warm, 91 on B Porch - 86 degrees in house - Baked apple pies & fried chicken - Out in grove in P.M. to get cool-Saturday, July 10. Hot day - 90 degrees - Cleaned house & V BLinds - Up town with Bob to shop.Sunday, July 11. Hot 95 degrees - Bob up for a Chronicle - No lawn cutting - Too hot.Monday, July 12. Nice cool day - Bob took dressed poultry to frozen food locker for ......
Slow and Easy
I am finally getting on the other side of clutter. It is not finished to the point that I vision it will be, but now I can walk through and see that the things I have decided to keep have purpose. I am at the point that if it does not have purpose then we do not need it or it will just collect dust. We can never truly finish putting a house in order because it is a daily clean up but we can put it in a better order and then go on with the things we want to do.I found that I have a habit of making life difficult for myself because I want to do so many things. I just want to learn everything I can and right now. As old as I am and I still want to learn but this is m ......
Diary Readings July 2 - 8 1943
We continue the 1943 diary readings of Lil and Bob and Lena and Richard. We start with Lil's diary and if you would like to start at the beginning look for the diary reading of January 1, 2022 on my Blog. Friday July 2, 1943. Fog & cold wind Baked Nut bread - Bob home 1:15.Saturday July 3. Fog & Cloudy till noon - wiped up floors, made Jello, worked Nuco - Bob up Town to shop -Emma rode home with him. Sunday July 4. Independance Day & still at war - Done some work in backyard. Bob burned the garbage & wrote to Kate. Monday July 5. Fine Holiday at home. Done some watering. Took a hair shampoo - Bob home all day washed car & cut lawn-Tue ......
Triple Digits and Food Prices
This new day brings another day of triple digits. The weather has been very hot and uncomfortable this week and we just made it to the first day of summer. Many people are feeling the financial squeeze due to price hikes and I think about all the people that cannot afford to pay their Utillity bills and do not know what to do. I think about Lil and Bob in the diary readings and it was 99 degrees in the house and it was rare during this time (1943) for someone to have any kind of air conditioning. People felt the heat but were knowledgable how to cool themselves.I can share what we do here in our home to keep our bills down in hopes that it will help others to manag ......
Diary Readings June 25 - July 1, 1943
We continue the 1943 diaries of Lil and Bob and the diary of Lena and Richard.We start with the Lil's diary, Lil and her husband Bob are in their seventies and Bob works lawns and does war duty by watching for air planes on top of a hotel. The year is 1943.Friday, June 25 1943. Fine day- Done the ironing- Bob fixed front door lock. Workds better - Ruby Armbruster in for short call.Saturday, June 26. Nice Day - house cleaning Vac'd rugs - Richard and marion in for a few minutes.Sunday, June 27. Warm 90 degrees in back porch 99 degrees in side. Cooler this eve- Bob walked up for Chronicle mowed lawns.Monday, June 28. Fine. Watered lawns all fo ......
Here at Home
This week has gone by very fast, I have continued with the organizing and putting the house back to a more romantic feel. For me, it is the linens that make the home feel homey.The smells of dinner cooking and the sounds of setting the table are part of what makes us feel like, this is home.Through all the sorting and moving things about I ran out of space because I was trying to make all the items have free space so it is easy to clean. The snack/tea trays and cups had no place to go but I do not want to give them up.So I decided I would leave them on top of the buffet and just cover them with one of our beaded milk jug covers.There is much history behind these beaded lace cove ......
Diary Readings June 18 - 24, 1943
We continue the diary readings of Lil and Bob and Lena and Richard. First we continue with Lil's Diary readings.Friday, June 18, 1943. Very cool today - Down too Larkspur a few minutes. Called at Deaks on way home.Saturday, June 19. Cool fierce wind - usual Sat Cleaning - prepared a chicken - Bob done the shopping.Sunday, June 20. Bob walked up for a Chronicle - cut lawns - spent rest of day reading, Chicken & dumplings for dinner.Monday, June 21. The longest day of the year - Done the washing B.M. called - Bob had car serviced & up town to shop. $1.00 ice. Tuesday, June 22. Nice& cool but High wind. Worked all forenoon in yard trimmi ......
I liked it better the other way
This old waterfall chest of drawers was in Charles wood shop holding tools and he is reorganizing and asked me if I wanted this in the house. Of course I did!For those of you that read my blog regularly, you know that I have been organizing in the house, gardening outside and also Charles and I have been working on converting an old wood shop into a tiny house about an hour away on some land by a lake. We are doing that to be able to stay over night or a few days at a time to help out a family member that is older than us. Also for a place to go when we want to get out of the city. When we are home we are living like the year 1943 and studying this time in history to f ......
Diary readings June 10 - 17, 1943
We continue our diary readings of Lil and Lena, both written in 1943. The readings for these two diaries started January 1 of this year of 2022. So to start from the beginning just find that post done on January 1 to start the beginning of these diaries. I type the diaries as they are written, little punctuation and mispelling. Lil and Bob are in their 70s and Lil is a housewife and Bob does odd jobs and lawn work and he does war duty by going to the top of a local hotel to watch for war planes.Thursday June 10, 1943. Nice day - Up Town to shop - Bob fixed the vac-cleanerFriday June 11, Fine day - out watering and digging weeds in a.m. over at Frahms to keep Jack ......
The Hamburger Patties
It has been a tough couple of weeks here at our house. Actually it has been much longer than this.I want to share my thoughts after going through our entire house, closets drawers, boxes and the bottoms of purses and bags and little boxes and big boxes. Am I finished with the house organizing? No, but in much better shape than it was.I have made a lot of progress and it all came down to just sticking with it and each day making sure that I made some kind of change to improve the situation. One thing that did work well for me is gathering things that were related. I have linens all together now, sewing items. I have all my soap making tools together in one ......
Diary readings of Lil and Bob, Lena and Richard May 31 - June 9, 1943
My schedule for diary readings have changed to Friday readings.Now we pick up the reading of Lil's diary. It is 1943 and world war 2 is really ramping up, this is about the home life of Lil and Bob and they are in their 70's and Bob has war duty and goes to the roof top of a hotel to watch for war planes.Monday May 31, 1943 Showers - Bob over at Sonoma. home at 1'0'clock Feeling some better today. B. Marshalll called. Tuesday June 1. 1st day of June - not a very good start but looks better this Eve. Bob home late 1-30.Wednesday June 2. Fine but lots of wind. Cleaned living room Bob home 1-P.M.Thursday June 3. fair. Hi ......
Popping in to talk about changes
It has been very busy around here the last couple of weeks and have needed time away from my blog. I was losing control over the housework and I had to make time to sort and try to make more space for organizing. It is taking a lot more time than I expected.With all the work up at the tiny house we became overwhelmed with stuff because we had to empty the small building and a shed that was piled to the ceiling with years of stuff. I mentioned in a previous post that we are working on a tiny house an hour away so we can have a place to stay when we need to go up to help a family member. It is a small building that has been used to store no longer used items, broken items, things ......
Two weeks of Diary readings May 17 - May 30 and a message
First I want to let you know that I will be taking two weeks off from posting. I need extra time to take care of some projects here at home. There are many years of blog posts here on my blog. You can click on the menu and click living like the past and then scroll down to the bottom of the page until you get to the numbers and that will take you to years in the past. Number 15 is in the year 2017 and number 13 is 2018 etc. So I am doing two weeks of diary entries in this post. I type out the diaries as they are written mistakes, mispelling and all because this gives us a more accurate picture of the person writing the diary.I will now ......
The moment we make a decision...
Each one of us live in a different way, we enjoy different food, we have different styles and our home reflects something about us in different ways. Each day is full of decisions, what we are going to eat, what we are going to wear, what we are going to try to do today. But many people waste hours scrolling an electronic and procrastinating. This did not happen in the past because there were no such items. I have fallen into this trap a few times and I am fortunate to be able to take myself back to a time before we had these distractions and pull myself out of it. We have to make a decision, am I going to waste my day or do things that make a diff ......
Diary readings May 10 - 16 1943
We pick up from last week with the two diaries of Lil and Lena. Our first diary is about Lil and Bob. This week Lil is feeling very poorly so there are few entries.Monday, May 10, 1943. Too sick to writeTuesday, May 11, 1943 Same in bed most of the day.Wednesday, May 12, 1943 Up and down all day, Mostly down.Thursday, May 13, 1943 Worse today.Friday, May 14, 1943 Bob had Emma Call Doctor.Saturday, May 15, In bedSunday, May 16, Still in bed. We leave Lil's diary now, but do not worry, Lil does get better.Now we continue with Lena's Diary.Monday, May 10, 1943, 42 degrees. My washer was out so I washed by hand in the little tub and went and got my ......
Slow and Steady
Today is Tuesday and it is ironing day (among other things), I try to do certain chores on certain days but not always. If I skip ironing on Tuesday, it seems that everything else has priority and the next thing, it is the next Tuesday and there is double ironing so it is best to make Tuesday ironing happen. Charles and I moved May from the small laundry / bath house, to under the carport. It is cooler under this area and normally at least a small breeze. Doing the laundry in this fully shaded area will be much better. Since we bought our old washer several years ago now, we have found that these motors are tough and nothing like what is made ......
Diary readings May 3 - May 9
We continue the 1943 Diary Readings of Lil and Lena. To Read from the beginning go back through the menu bar and click Living like the past and that will take you back to the first reading starting January 1. We start with Lil and Bob's diary.Monday, May 3, 1943. Nice day - Worked Nuco sprinkled clothes for iroining Bob home late - Richard Sick with asthma.Tuesday, May 4. Fine. Done the ironing - Set 3 box woods in front from Frahms - Bob late. left car at s. oil S. Station. Wednesday, May 5. Nice day - Done some sewing, baked a pud - Bob home 1-50 Richard some better.Thursday, May 6. Fine - Cut & watered back lawn - Bob home at 1-30. Up ......
Update on History Study
We continue to study the homefront during ww2 and this year we are studying 1943. We are following along day by day reading the microfilms in the newspaper. We were using our public library research room but when we found we could join newspapers.com for a small monthly fee I started researching from home. I am not affiliated with this service other than a customer but this is a very good way to research history. We have other resources, history books and diaries. The diaries are a wonderful way to get a glimpse inside the home and Charles and I are very interested in learning about the keeping of the home and meals and the social life of the family lo ......
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