Comments On Article: Peek Week Thursday, This Life Of Mine

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Grandma Donna, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful account about your life so far. 

Your family home being lost to fire must have been a terribly traumatic experience for you all.

It has been so lovely reading a new post from you each day. I imagine it must be taking up a lot of your time to do so.

The photo I'm including is one of my favourite photos of my grandmother Ruth and her younger sister Moira from around 1930. They lived in the bush in northern New South Wales without electricity or running water. My grandmother disliked this photo as it was during the great depression and she had bad memories of doing without from this time and felt that they looked very scruffy in this photo. I love it because it has captured the essence of life in the bush from this time.

I love the pictures you and Michelle K shared! I think if we pay attention we can learn so much just from watching and listening! I loved hearing my grandmothers and great grandmothers talk about their lives. I hated using the outhouse…. Shiver… I always knew there was a SNAKE down there waiting…. ???? I always made my cousin go with me because one could run for help if the other got in trouble! Ha! 

Thank you for sharing.  I enjoyed your story.  

I imagine there must have been a major sense of a "before" and an "after" in your life with the house fire. A colleague of mine just lost his house in a fire. Insurance will cover the home, but I know he and his family have a long road ahead and we started a fund at work. Thankfully he and his family were safe, but it must be so upsetting to lose everything in an instant. I try to remember that I can't take it with me and live somewhat minimally.

Your red hair was lovely... and I love seeing the short 60s hemlines! Your maternity dress was adorable.

This is such a valuable retelling of your story G Donna ????. My belief: a very real part of why we as a society are in trouble is because we/they were not wise enough to turn around. I don’t really blame folks because it’s been taught that it’s normal or “the American way.”  We paid the last of our debt (mortgage) about 6 years ago and have done everything possible to avoid any debt since then.  If folks were taught to avoid debt and to save for the things they need/want, they’d be in a lot better situation.  
Our grandparents sure were treasures- I miss mine too ????

Thank you for sharing this. 

We have a small home. We like it. My husband and I often talk over dinner how we chose not to overspend like so many others. So we've had many friend & colleagues who lived much bigger than us. I'm sure they wondered why we didn't eventually buy a huge home. We can take care of what we have because it's not too big.

Thank you for sharing your story.  As a long time reader, I remember parts of your story, but this was a nice summary of what makes you who you are.

My upbringing was somewhat different.  In both my family and my husband's family, all of "our people" mostly were born and raised within 50 miles of here.  My husband and I moved around within a 8 mile radius of where we grew up, and are in fact living in one of my grandparent's house that my grandfather built.  My dad built our house.  He was a real do-it-yourself person, and was always working on building or fixing something.  Sadly, those skills escaped me.  My Mom was definitely not the homemaker type, but I did learn to sew from her.  I figured out how to cook on my own at a relatively young age as I made dinner because my Mom worked once we were in school.  As a young adult, I taught myself to do the boiling water canning method, but I never learned to use a pressure cooker.  Maybe I should try that too.

I do remember both my grandmothers being good cooks, and I always looked forward to visiting them.  Both sets of grandparents lived in town (which were small towns, but oh how they have changed over the years!  I do not remember either of my grandmother's canning, but I know they did.  Both had gardens, but that was long before I arrived on the scene.  My maternal grandparents saved their wartime correspondence from WWII.  My mom and her sister were young when grand-pop was drafted, not too long after they had bought their house.  Wow, was my grand-mom busy!  Painting everything, sewing all their clothes, sewing clothes for others for extra money, gardening and canning huge amounts.  Makes me feel like a real slouch!  But when I was her age (in her letters), I did more then i do now, 

We are doing ok, but have been really stepping up saving where we can.   We are not big spenders, I cook most of our meals, I need to step up taking care of the house and would like to garden more.  My husband is good with maintaining and repairing the cars and taking care of the yard etc.  I love to hang out the laundry and wash the dishes by hand.  That may sound funny, but we live in a neighborhood/town where absolutely no one hangs out wash, most people I know use a dishwasher, many people hire a lawn service to mow their lawn, and people have no idea how to do basic maintenance on their car.

Thank you for your blog!  I have gotten a lot of ideas from reading it over the years, and I like the ideas shared in the forums.

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Donna so fun to read this and I remember that red headed friend at the SOH.  My daughter in law gave me a subscription to Storyworth last Christmas.  Each week I am sent a question about my life.  Things like, "What is your first memory" "Your first job" "What was your favorite meal".  I write my response add an old picture or two and send it in.  My kids have access to my responses and they love reading my old stories.  At the end of the year I will be sent a book full of 52 stories about my life.  I hope your children are keeping copies of your stories.

I'm so glad you had the life experiences you had and that you generously take the time to share them. Everything was modern in my life growing up, so I wouldn't know these things without someone telling and showing them to me. And they are so valuable!

I wish we had more limits like the TV going off at night. I used to mail our mortgage payment, but the post office kept losing it and I had to pay for tracking. With the economy so shaky right now, I don't want to spend the extra money for tracking and now I pay the mortgage online because there's no office to go to to pay it. How do I get away from the Internet? It's always on and always there and necessary in many ways. I couldn't buy some things I need without the Internet. But I wish the Internet would go off at night! 

I'm getting used to cooking when the electricity rate goes down at night. A few nights ago I made a three-hour slow cooker rice pudding, the next night I made some beans for beans and greens, the next night I made a buttermilk cornbread, and last night I had some milk that was getting old so I made a scalloped potato casserole. I'll cook some carrots later and pick some lettuce and green onion from the garden for a salad, and that will be our dinner tonight with the scalloped potatoes and some cornbread. I like waking up in the morning and having food ready for the day, even if it was hard at first to cook at night when I wanted to relax and read.

I love the short dresses. I think they look very cute. And you were so cute in them! It's an inspiration to see the dress you sewed. I think I could make a simple dress like that, though with a longer hemline for today's styles. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story! 

This was beautiful. I have been a long time reader and this is my first comment. Your blog has been invaluable to me.

God bless you and yours.

Oh that was a lovely insight into your life! I absolutely love the line about turning around if you don't like where your life is headed, that is my new motto!! It may take time and patience (and hard work) but we can turn around if we want to. I have to laugh because I always find myself thinking of your pictures and posts when i am using water!! I always think, Gdonna would be able to do this task with far less water so I always try to do better. It kind of amazes me that I live in AZ and the worst offenders for wasting water seem to be the people whom have lived here the longest..(I am looking at you daily  sidewalk sprayers!!) I just shake my head. I cannot control anyone else but I can choose to live my life more simply and with less noise. Thanks again for the lovely post!

Thank you for the photos!  You are a little (not much!) ahead of me in years, but so much of your life is familiar to me.  I remember wearing some quite short dresses, too.  Thank you for sharing your life.  

We lived in a house in town till I was 16, but my grandfather owned a farm where he did not live - he had a hired hand onsite to do the daily chores, and my dad did the heavy chores - planting, plowing, harvesting, maintenance, animal husbandry, carpentry, etc., all around his full-time job.  We kids always went with our dad to the farm on weekends because we loved farm life.   We expected my grandfather to let our dad have or perhaps buy the farm.  To our surprise, our grandfather sold it without warning to someone outside the family.  So my dad found a very small farm with an 1896 house, barn, and fenced fields, and we moved there.  Farm life is my favorite life.  My husband and I have lived in the rural countryside, not on a farm, but on a nice little patch of land, for decades now.

My husband and I realized we had more debt than assets during our marriage, much like you and Charles did, and we buckled down and paid off our mortgage and vehicles ahead of time.  There is still some debt, on which I am paying extra, to be done in less than a year if all goes well.   

I'm fighting with undependable appliances, rising prices, terrible weather - we had snow in Florida, too, and this after 3 hurricanes in 13 months, a drought, and flooding tropical storms - and the knowledge that I will be retired in less than a year, but I am not going to panic.  We can all share tips, encourage one another, and get through this.  Thanks for a place to share!

I absolutely love Peek Week! How interesting. I always thought that if you grew up prior to 1980, then you really have a lot of fall back on.  Kids now do not unless they have mentor grandparents or their parents simplified a lot of things.  It's sad really. They've missed out on so much. I was at the store yesterday and a mom had her two kids in a cart watching cartoons on her phone. How can you ever teach your children anything if you do that. 

Thank you for the beautiful photos with this lovely post.  It's so important to share past ways I think.  I had a neighbor who died a year and a half ago at age 95;  I liked ask her about the past but there was a lot she didn't want to talk about.  My husband's uncle fought in and survived the Korean war but wouldn't speak of it;  he joined a pacifist organization afterwards so of course we understood his reasons.  

Thank you again, for your courage and generosity in writing.  

My goodness, gDonna: I, too, am a redhead! Nice to see and know another one of us! Yes, I am faded now too; but we still count!  That fire must have been quite traumatic. I think I know how you might look at it. I am still afraid of another round of fires here in California. Besides earthquakes, we now have some terrible fires all across and down the state. I got through the Tubbs fire and some near me that were very close; they are awful and terrifying. We are advised to be prepared, as fire season used to be in autumn; now it is all year round. The most frigheing this is that they are so powerful and unpredicatable.

Dear Grandma Donna, 

it was so great to read this post, and to learn a bit more about you...but especially to see some pictures of you :) .... and as I was reading it was like I had a revelation! I remembered being a small child, and how much I loved going to stay at my nana's. I loved the simplicity there. My grandfather passed when I was only 3 -4 years old, so I never really knew him, but my Nana was a great treasure in my life. She had a treadle sewing machine and made her clothes and knitted all her cardigans. She cooked from scratch and was a wonderful baker. We enjoyed a special morning tea there every Saturday morning. I also remember Nan only had a copper for boiling her sheets and a hand wringer for all her washing for many years. The copper had a small fire underneath t heat the water. Nan swore that no modern washer (which she was forced to get as she aged) ever cleaned the clothes as good as the copper :) Although fabrics were probably a lot better quality back then and would be able to withstand strong soap and boiling :)

Thanks for giving me a walk down memory lane tonight. I thoroughly enjoyed this post. Blessings to you and Charles, and to the lovely cats and doggies ~ Linda

Hello, Miss Donna.  Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us. That is one thing I love about your blog. It is pure inspiration.  You are such a wise practical lady. Thanks for all your efforts.  I look forward  to each post because it is a history  lesson  for me. Lol!

Grandma Donna Wrote, Hello everyone!  I am here reading along each and every post.  I cannot answer to so many comments and also I like to sit back and read you communicating with each other.  I do want to welcome Rose P to the forum, you finally made that jump to join us in the conversations with all of these wonderful people and we are happy to have you here.  Also to any other of you that are new here.  Give us a shout out if you are new.  Donna

LOVED this post! ♥ Donna, you are such a ray of sunshine.

Thank you so much G. Donna for the warm welcome. Your blog means so much in my life right now after our family has gone through a very big change.

XOXO

I loved reading this story of your live! Thank you????