Living Like the Past

We are going back in time in this post. We have a very old journal that was started in 1891 and continued through to the 1940s. As some of you know, Charles and I love history. After we started our journals we wanted to know more about the old journals. I was looking for an empty old journal to use with hopefully some blank pages I could use for a template. What I found was an antique dealer selling this old journal but it was used, very used. Charles said we needed to get this because it was part of history and we could learn from it. Little did we know how much we would learn.In the back of the book there was very light penciled in names, I could barely ......

I am becoming fond of fabric and clothing with small prints. At least now I know what it is that I like for the new dress and smock I want to sew.This is a small print tablecloth that we have that suggests spring.It is actually pieced where there was not enough fabric to make that section solid but it does not make a difference that it is pieced together. I have old aprons that have been pieced together and it sees the pieced ones are the ones I wear often.Little by little as we live more like 1942. My husband and I are finding what is important and the things that matter. These two letter openers belonged to my mother and my husbands father.We are focused now and so gratef ......

Just a couple of weeks ago I mentioned a 1942 project I was going to do called a mending compact. It is in one of my early 1940s books and I was having an issue with yarn/threads of today verses 1942. Many of you emailed with suggestions and I thank you for all your help.I finally found a vintage worsted floss online and purchased it. I wanted to see it in person and compare it to what we have today and there is quite a bit of difference.It is a twisted yarn and 100% wool. It splits easily, it looks thick but it is not. When you stretch it out it is about the size of sock yarn but slightly different, more fuzzy sock yarn. I would say very slightly bigger b ......

We have been at this old fashioned 1942 life for six weeks now. It is still difficult to completely live a 1942 life when nothing around is is even a smidge glimpse of 1942. But we are continuing on, doing things our way.Each day there is normally something simmering on the stove or rising in the oven or a warm place on top of the stove. Today was stewed (boiled) chicken, mashed potatoes and boiled carrots. Removing dough from the bowl after the first rise...This dough I pulled into two pieces. One for loaf bread and one for rolls.I just pinch them off for the rolls...Roll and tuck the balls and then pat them down...Here they are ready to go into a warm area to r ......

Since we are living like 1942 I decided to do another library search to see what we could find about Valentine day 1942. It was a normal news day but then there was that Valentine Ad that showed a box of candy. I like the simplicity of the holidays in the past.There was an article about soup and how February is the month for soup. Hearty soup with chunky vegetables and slabs of homemade crusty bread.It was a story about a mother that would start early in the morning before her chores were done she would start a pot of soup boiling for their dinner. From the root pit in the hillside she dug up turnips, potatoes, cabbages and parsnips. She brought tomatoes from the sprin ......

I have several old household books. Since we are living like 1942 I am following along the best I can cleaning the house using methods from these books. Today I am cleaning the bedroom.I stripped the bed down to the Mattress cover and then removed objects from the room so I could deep clean the room.In most of the books the bedroom is given a lot of attention when it comes to cleaning. To sum it up the Bedrooms should be kept immaculately clean and fresh. Are your bedrooms immaculately clean and fresh? Mine is not immaculate :( but it is clean and fresh now :)Some things do not necessarily apply today such as renovating the mattress and pillows. The feather ......

We have passed one month living like 1942. Busy is an understatement because there are so many challenges living like 1942 when we are really living 75 years later.When I go out to the clothesline it gives me time to think. If you have never hung your laundry on a clothesline then you are missing an important experience.We have several generations now that have never hung their laundry to dry and do not even know anyone that does. Some cannot understand why we would want to hang out our laundry, especially our underwear. To be honest, at times there is a dread to go out to the clothesline, especially when it is cold, but once out there there is a peacefulness that comes over me t ......

I want to share with you this wonderful idea of keeping a gift cupboard. One of my blog friends, Jane, shared with me her gift cupboard. A gift cupboard is a place to keep homemade gifts or items on sale that we purchase so we don't have to run out to purchase a gift when the time comes for the need of one. An example she gave me is her daughter needed a gift to take with her on Christmas day. She went to the gift cupboard and picked a knitted facecloth and some homemade soap. These went into a small chiffon drawstring bag. She had a gift that was pretty and useful very quickly.She also keeps extra items such as bags and boxes and items on sale. ......

What a weekend we had. Severe weather kept us inside and on alert. Night time storms keep me awake and with weather warnings and siren's it was unnerving. This is Elizabeth and Bernadette in the storm closet. Katherine is under the blanket to the right. We are ok here with no damage to our house or property but many did not do as well. There was a lot of damage, deaths and injuries across the southeast and my heart feels for these families. I sat in my rocker in the hallway and attempted to crochet but my mind was distracted between the storms and menu planning.My husband Charles helped me to finish up the budget. I made adjustments to the char ......

I want to answer a few questions with this post and talk about where we are and why we are living like 1942. Yesterday my husband and I went back to the library to clip more newspaper information for our notebook. We go back and forth to the library to the reference room to use their microfilms to find the information we are looking for. When I say clip, the computer has a snip thing to click on and it will send it to a printer so we can take home the information we want for our notebooks that I have been making for the last three years.This was the front page of yesterdays 1942 paper. I have to enlarge it when we get it home but to us it is worth the time for the informati ......

Being that it is the first month of us living like 1942 we are treading water instead of swimming. But we are in the water :)We are adjusting our ways and breaking habits and some habits are not easy to break such as the size of our servings.We are cooking from our 1940s cookbooks. The macaroni dish is called Creamed macaroni.I did not take pictures when making the creamed macaroni... my husband was helping out with the cooking this day because we are both anxious to get the budget finished.Something important in the book I am using to set up our budget says that meal planning is a very important part of keeping groceries within the budget. So in a couple of days I will b ......

So I finally settled on doing a budget after doing much reading.This is how the older budgets looked. They are set up in sections. Income, Payments on Debts, Savings, Shelter, Taxes, Operating Expenses, Special expenses. In the Shelter section and keep in mind this is based on the 1930s and 1940s, Rent, Mortgage, Taxes, insurance, improvements, repairs, transportation to businesses, which consider the time and they way they traveled. And other.Operating expenses were electricity, gas, fuel, telephone, Garbage collection, water, ice (which was for their icebox as many did not have refrigerators), services, repair, furnishings, household supplies, laundry and other.Ther ......

One of the hardest things for me with living like 1942 is breaking my addiction to news. After the type of election we had this past year and all the disturbing news I have had a hard time breaking away. So I have started listening to 1940s music and that is helping me quite a bit.I find I myself tapping my feet quite often:)We purchased a couple of CD's since we do not have record player anymore. I am still reading through the 1940s cook books trying to work out some menus and for now I am just keeping to basic food. This is rice, ground meat with onions, corn and green beans. I know it is heavy on the starchy foods but it is homemade so that counts.I am still organizing d ......

I dug this bedspread out of our old trunk. It fits very good in our new year of 1942. It is quite interesting as we find our way back in time how many things have changed and how it seems that 1942 is better than the current time for many reasons.Our 1930s couch is a tough old couch. It was recovered with something that came before plastic. It is tough whatever it is. I decided I will crochet cushion covers just to make it not as cool and slidey.I am going to start with a granny square and make it the size of the tops of the seat cushions then crochet the sides of the cushions and add some elastic to the bottom of the sides to make it draw at the bottom. I will ......

Cheerioats were introduced in 1941. The name changed a few years later. One thing we are learning so far is we cannot just jump into 1942. This is a slow process to go backwards. We learned a lot about 1943 the year before last but we focused on rationing.Now we are trying to live more like 1942 in our home and we thought we were fairly prepared but we are not because there are many things still to put away that do not fit into this era.Food will not be difficult for us because we already cook from scratch. I can say that presentation seems to have more importance in 1942 than the current year now.Yesterday I made an old family favorite breakfast dish from ......

The blog post that I did about getting ready for 1942 had this photo about an eight sided crochet pot holder.I want to thank all of you that searched for a pattern. Last night I received an email from Kathy in Japan and she found a pattern very similar and very vintage. The only changes it will need will be to the color of the threads. The design is very close. Also the round side ring.Here is the link to a free crochet website that has this pattern. http://freevintagecrochet.com/free-potholder-patte...Again thank you all for looking and thank you Kathy for sending the link so we can share this vintage pattern with others.Grandma DonnaAn older post from the past ......

It has been a busy time getting ready for 1942. We did rearranging and painting and organizing (we are still doing that) and reading.We finally put the house back together so we could enjoy our New Years Day.We woke up this morning and we had moved to 1942!We ate a light breakfast of toast, ham slices and Cheese. We were having a nice New Years Dinner and our Son and his wife were coming over to eat and play some domino's. Our Grandson was going to drive over but it was a two hour drive and we had almost 5 inches of rain since last night so for safety reasons he did not make the drive. We did miss him though.POT ROAST OF BEEF4 pounds of chuck, round or rump of beef1/2 ......

As some of you know we are getting ready to start our one year living like 1942. I have explained this in other posts so I will not go into that again.It is taking a lot of research to prepare ourselves to do this better than we did our year of 1943. As I am writing this article this evening it is December 28th. If it were December 28, 1941 then we would still be traumatized by what has happened to our Country. We were attacked at Pearl Harbor only 21 days ago. Our President Franklin D Roosevelt declared that the US was at war. Our study will be the homefront. We all have heard many war stories but the homefront is something that has less infor ......

Some people like crochet and some prefer knitting but there are some very useful things that can be made with yarn and a crochet hook. I did not want to put a rug under our table but the chairs scratch our painted floors. The stick on felt pads would not stay on so I decided to crochet booties for the chairs.. Bernadette decided to walk through when I snapped the picture, she looks like a cat to me. :)All I did was make a magic circle and crochet rounds until it was the size of the bottom of the leg then reduced it to bring the sides up.You can look up the magic circle on youtube and they have very good demonstrations how to make them. For the chair booties I ma ......

Few things in life are clear to us but one thing that has finally become very clear to me is I do not want to be a minimalist. For quite some time we have been downsizing our household things with the purpose of not having so much for our children to deal with when we have passed on. In the process of doing this we both have found that we like things around us.We cannot be a gardener without tools, I cannot be a seamstress without fabric, thread, and notions. I cannot be a cook without pots and pans, ladles and spatulas. I can be neat and tidy and have a clean house but a minimalist I cannot be. My husband and I enjoy our home and tablecloths, dinner napkins ......