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
Getting our Footing
We are all going through a very traumatic time being that we are having a very serious pandemic. At first many people went through denial, if more people studied the past I believe there would have not been as much denial. But then gradually things have been changing, sadly too much suffering an loss of life have happened and still happening. As people are finally coming to terms that we all have to do our part we should see some improvement but there are still those that will never do their part.Enough said about this...It is taking time for those of us that understand the seriousness to get our footing with all of this. I know that it has taken me many adjustme ......
Twisted Labyrinth Victory Garden
I normally try to reply to your emails but I have gotten behind. I have read all of my emails and I enjoy hearing from you and reading how you are doing and what is going on in your lives. I have been busy sewing masks for Charles and family and some of the workers that are out there working the grocery stores.The last several weeks we have been busy cleaning the last of the hurricane damage so we could open our walking trail in our yard. We have a small yard so I had to be creative how to make a walking trail so little by little we ended up with a twisted Labyrinth. We separated our yard for a Potager garden with paths and small garden beds. Then outside the potager g ......
Finding Balance
My blog has been around for many years now so I repost some pictures because they are helpful with a new post and because they are in much older posts.Life was so very different long ago. Many people today would think that this picture above is a picture of people on a camping trip.But it is not, it is a picture taken long ago of a family traveling and they have stopped along the highway to have their meal. When I was growing up whenever we took a trip to visit family that required many hours my Mother would always pack food for our trip. After I married this was still the common thing to do. Each state had pull off areas most always with a picnic table for those traveling t ......
Do Not Get Complacent
For right now, each day that goes by we should be doing all we can do to help protect ourselves and our family from getting the virus.I make sure to wear an apron when cleaning and doing laundry and then putting my apron in the wash or put it in a bucket to be washed. In ordinary daily chores It helps to protect our clothing. Right now is especially important to wear an apron.We are the home front, not the hospital, and our jobs are very important that we do things right if we have and only have to go out and then in our home, so we do not get the virus or become infected with anything and put more burdens on the nurses and doctors.We cannot become Complacent and we must keep washing our ......
Calling on the Home Front
Our Generations before us were very resilient because they understood better than any of us today the hard times that may come at any time.They lived a time before electricity and running water and yet they raised families, they grew food and preserved what they grew. For those of you new to my blog I welcome you. My blog is about living more like the past and my husband Charles and I love history. We have been researching for many years now and doing many experiments in trying to live as our generations before us. We do not believe we should live in the past but like the past to live a more sensible life. This photo above was my Great Grandfather, he was born in 1874.&nb ......
Don't tinkle on my tinkle paper
So here we are... never thought of this one before.... The rapidly growing virus. So we shift gears and get ourselves out of the shock of it all and get on with the things we can do. We are told not to panic but those saying that are probably just as panicked as most. We need to go home if we are not working and hopefully we have done like we have always been told to keep an emergency supply of food. We cannot go to the places that we normally go to. Our children need to be home and not hanging out. If at all possible a parent needs to be home.We can read and nap and play board games, we can do projects in the home we have been putting off doing. We need take care of ou ......
A time for Soup
It was curiosity that we decided to study the past. To learn how our generations before us lived. The more we learned the more we wanted to know. We found ourselves living one foot in history and one foot today. We started experimenting and trying the old way, to learn their skills.Never did I know when living like the past that this knowledge might be needed again.My blog is full of posts on all of these studies we did and how we changed our life, our house changed constantly as we removed the new and replaced things with the old. We wanted more purposeful tools instead of items just for decorations. We found the quality in the old discarded pieces of the past th ......
Stay calm and Run........
Above is Bernadette's past time, remove the cushions off the chairs in the house.Stay calm and Run, is that how you feel about now? I have to admit that I have been very concerned about all that is going on right now because the flu virus is still bad according to reports, seems the coronavirus is looming everywhere and we are going into storm season and just last night there were horrible tornadoes that ripped through the central area of Tennessee. That is far north of where we live but I have several family members that live in different parts of Tennessee. As far as I know they are all okay.I am trying to pay attention and remain calm and level headed about the viruses and ......
Non Disposable
Here we are in a concerning time with all the flu virus, coronavirus, elections, stock market declinning. We are being told different things each day.I am human and get concerned about these things but I go into Grandma mindset and start doing something about it early.Charles and I are all about studying the past and learning what our generations before us did. They went through some very tough times. If ever there was a time to do our best to resemble them now is the time.Common sense, that is what we need and leads us back to the past before items became disposable. I have always felt that it is important to keep a pantry or larder. To keep food put back for normal meals a ......
Life's Lessons
I skipped a week of posting to get some things done. I sewed a dress, then I made a new bobbin lace pillow to make lace on. I canned some chicken and beef and I made sure our medical cabinet was stocked and made a dress form.I did a lot of pondering....The last few days I have been back to researching and the flu virus being so bad right now has brought me back to my roots again. My Grandfather died from the 1918 flu and so I have done quite a bit of research about this time long ago.One of our Grandson's just had the flu and our daughter jumped into gear literally and quarantined him to his room as soon as he got the symptoms. She donned him and her in a face mask and to ......
Once Upon a Time
A long while back I wrote about having a feeling of homesick even when we are home. For me, I learned that was a mixture of grief and fond memories of long ago. Now that I embraced our home to make it more warm and cozy and have little parts of the past in vintage pieces I feel more settled. I like to rescue old linens from long ago. This embroidered table runner is one of them. The edging is completely falling apart. The cloth has only two tiny holes that I can repair. Many years ago, someone sat with needle and embroidery thread and stitched every bit of these beautiful flowers and leaves and then laced an edge on the side. It ended up in a thr ......
One room Proper Part Two
I thought I would update on my One Room Proper cleaning that I started awhile back. I must say this has been the best discipline for me to clean this way. Even when I have been sick I still can keep up to a certain point. On good days I can make up for a day I did not clean.I will explain a bit more on how I am cleaning. This is just my way but hope that it encourages you to think about your own personality and way you do things and try and figure out a cleaning plan that helps you.First of all the photo above is our china cabinet I call walton because it is so tall. It looks quite different now because in December I did a major purge of dishes. It wa ......
Doing the Necessary
I am going to ask you a question. Are you doing the necessary? It is interesting the things that are unfolding as we study more history and what is going on in the world today. The picture above is a finger cover/bandage I made today by taking a white sock and cutting it into small pieces to make a soft finger bandage for my little finger. I can use that one sock and make many finger bandages for when I need something that has a little stretch of give. I made a simple blanket stitch around the bandage.Sometimes we need a custom bandage.Bandages are expensive now and after purchasing what I needed to take care of my finger it was quite expensive to buy gauze ......
Surprise AND Welcome to "1920" here at gdonna's
One thing for sure is we never know from one day to the next what will change. I was slicing ginger two days ago and my finger became part of the ginger. I am normally very careful but accidents do happen and I had a fairly serious laceration. I have learned my lesson to not get to comfortable in the kitchen with knives. It is difficult to type so I will get to the point.Charles and I woke up early this morning of Wednesday,January 2020 and shortly after we were out of bed Charles declared, We should be in 1920 !!! NOT the 1930's because 1920 would be 100 years ago since this is 2020. I have been preparing to stay in the year 1932. However Charles was excited ab ......
It Takes Practice and then some
To live a vintage life is not so simple when we live in a modern time as we do. It is something we have to learn and practice if we truly want to live vintage. We have to change our ways to undo bad habits that come with living modern.To live a simple life is not as difficult but to live more like the past takes continuous adjusting of things to get there. It is not a quick fix as there is a lot of decluttering of the home and the mind.But it is contagious because we are always looking for that one thing that would make this living like the past vintage life feel more real.The strange part is now that we have been researching about the past and living somewhat like they did in the past, now ......
Never quit being vintage
Each year for many years now, Charles and I have been doing history projects here in our home. We pick a year we want to study and to resemble, we started in the 1940's during ww2 and when we finished with that we moved to the 1930's. This year we have been studying 1932. We have been slowly setting our home to a more simple time, not knowing for sure what that time is but to resemble somewhat the times we have studied. This new year of 2020 we are staying put in the 1930's as we feel there is so much more to learn. All my life I have heard about the Great depression and how awful it was, and yes it was a terrible time for many and very serious as some people lost their lives ......
Never Quit Learning
I like to challenge myself to learn more and to do this as long as I can. We learn best by doing and by our failures and success. I learn best by getting my failures out of the way.We can challenge ourselves in many ways, learning to cook or bake, sew or knit, learn a new language a new trade. Learning to develop a routine. Here at our home I try to think ahead of where Charles is going each day and his needs. This day he was going to be busy and he had to leave early so I made an egg sandwich for him to take to work.I knew he would be rushed this day and may not get lunch until late.I cut his breakfast sandwich in half... (There is waxed paper under this sandwich) I always p ......
Moving through the Seasons
As the weather cools we change the type of clothing we wear and often the food we eat. In the past they certainly ate seasonal. Today we can purchase the same food all year around, at least in most places. But is that how we are suppose to eat?Charles and I had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Everyone was spread out and many in our family work right up to Thanksgiving day and then the day after making it difficult for travel. This year Charles and I broke tradition and started a new tradition. We ate Potato Cabbage soup for our Thanksgiving meal and I cannot tell you how many times we stated how much better we felt.I did make one special food item for Charles.I made a pie... ......
One Room Proper
Each day is different, we have 24 hours to fit in all that needs to be done and get our needed sleep. There are certain chores that are daily and some that are three times a week or twice a week or weekly. It helps if we get into a routine of some kind so we do not get overwhelmed with too much to do at one time.This is our life, each of us should arrange our schedule where we are not rushed. Some laugh and say well that is not going to happen. But why not? We do not have to do what everyone else is doing. If we take a room that is 12x12 and we are given a certain amount of items to go into that room but there are more items that will fit comfortably we must ......
Mid November Living like the Past
As some of you that follow my blog you will know that the first day of January 2019 we started a new history project and chose to live this year as if it were the year 1932. When we study a certain year, we normally start off the first part of the year with much research material that I post about and we slowly fade off as we get busy living the year we are studying. This record book is being used daily thanks to Charles steady routine of each morning doing his readings and recording how much water we have used and electricity, the temperature and humidity and notations of changes.Often I feel that I fail the years study as my post do not always reflect this year in the past.  ......
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