Living Like the Past

I decided to go with our vintage good china for the Christmas Meal but set it informal.Homemade yellow cake with boiled chocolate frosting.Homemade rolls..Squash Casserole.For those that were wondering if they had turkey for Christmas in 1943, yes they did. This is an ad from December 1943.I got busy and never took pictures of the carrot salad, chicken or mashed potatoes and gravy, cabbage, cornbread and cranberry sauce. In our family we only buy gifts for the children. Our meal is a bit of a Christmas present to ourselves. Being together and remembering why we celebrate Christmas is what is important to us.I will post a recipe for the chocolate cake and the squash casserole, the other ......

Merry Christmas Everyone!There is a lot to do now that it is two days before Christmas. Yesterday I moved the dinning room table and chairs out and gave the floor a good scrubbing.I put on a coat of wax to make it shine...I am trying to figure out if I want to mix or match the table setting this year. We have mismatched dishes because I just love old dishes because they remind me of the past and family.This is my very favorite dish of all the dishes we have.These are very pretty too, I have two of these.But then there is the china from long ago and which we used even when I was a child. My mother passed it down to me and I passed it down to my daughter then due to the boys in the house it ......

Before going to the grocery store or the meat market I eat a bite of something so I will not be hungry when shopping because if I am I will wander off my shopping list. This is a slice of banana bread that I am eating.So this day we went to the meat market and I want to show you what we do when we get home.We open the package of meat and divide it into equal parts.We use a small scale to get an idea of how much we want to put in each package. place it on to wax paper or natural wax paper as I have here...Flatten it out so it will thaw much faster... This is not a hamburger patty. This is seven ounces of ground meat that we will use to make supper. We may use this for a no named di ......

These are just random pictures from around the house...I made a crochet hook bag...This is it rolled closed..I watched a gecko battle take place, they actually had a fight and chomped on each other...Another chair I designed and painted. It would have not been made without the help of my husband and his skilled wood work.The Horton Mill Bridge...A winter ice storm....It was very pretty and also very dangerous....Our Johnson Bros dinnerware...The babies and grandbabies in the storm closet due to a severe weather alert.Our Shabby Cabby Camper...The girls love hanging out in the Shabby Cabby...My husbands treadle saw...Pinching off the lower tomato leaves so I can plant the tomato deep in the d ......

I decided to post pictures that I have not used and some I have used to post a look back.A pretty Cardinal before going to the birdbath.Some July Herbs....A basket of cilantro....A table that I designed and my husband built, then I did the artwork. It is just a hobby.Bootsy (left) Bell (right) hanging out in the windows in their travel cages.A vintage car on the side of the road....Fresh bread in the oven...A light dessert. Dark Chocolate, strawberries, bananas and yogurt.Bell Eating Boiled egg, she loves eggs.A put together cabinet with an old window and lumber that my husband built and I painted.Just a small flower I painted on the floor..Laundry on a sunny day...Skittles....Poached eggs.. ......

I know my posts have been coming slowly, I am trying to balance out doing our one year 1943 history project and posting on my website. Of course we all know that home computers were not around during that time.We can only simulate what we can of how people lived during 1943. At this time I am thinking about all our changes since our project and how we will continue to do many things from the 1940s after our history project is over because we feel better living like this.While I was recouping from a flu like illness I had a lot of time to think. My husband took this picture because it is a rare thing for me to be in the bed during the daylight hours. This is Katherine laying beside me enjoyin ......

The other day I got out the meat grinder to grind some beef to make a casserole for supper.After I ground the beef I thought about the vintage items that are in the kitchen that have been around for a very long time.This can opener has been around since the early 1950s and is the best can opener compared to anything made today in my opinion.This rolling pin and corn creamer are great kitchen items.The old colander and hand mixer. These items were made to last.Cast iron skillets are used around our house all the time. We don't fry things much anymore but we use these to make biscuits and cobblers, pancakes and we put our bacon in the pan and put the pan in the oven. It seems to cook better th ......

We are now five months into our history project living like 1943. We are quite comfortable when you consider 1943 verses 2015 almost 2016. We may continue to live like 1943 when the experiment is over, more on that later....Winter is near and much cooler weather has set in. The sun is staying further away from my clothesline and the daylight hours are much shorter. I have this feeling that things will be getting quite interesting at the clothesline.I have been washing the table runners and doilies and unpacking the Christmas items. More on that later too....I have been doing an experiment with a organic and non organic sweet potato. I am guessing here you can tell the organic is on the right ......

A good book for when you are resting from all that cooking and getting the house ready for the holidays.Since we have been living our 1943 one year history project I have finally learned to settle my brain down so I can read a book. I have never in my life been able to concentrate to read a book until now. My new book is called A Basket Brigade Christmas by Judith Miller, Nancy Moser and Stephanie Grace Whitson.It is Inspired by the true story of the Basket Brigade Women of Decatur, Illinois.It is when the country was embroiled in civil war and the year was 1862.There has been much to do around the house and we just finished with Thanksgiving and moving on to the Christmas season. ......

Keeping a well stocked pantry is one thing, using that food before it goes out of date or spoils is what must be kept balanced when keeping a stocked pantry.I removed the old pantry post because it was almost six years old and a lot has changed in the last six years. Mostly learning more about what is in processed food.If you don't have a pantry you can convert a closet into a pantry.My goal with our pantry is to have the basic ingredients to make the basic foods that we eat.There may be times when we need our pantry to carry us through.I believe in food storage but only the amount we can keep rotated properly and not have food to go bad. I would like to say that getting our pantry to the st ......

I believe that we should always be prepared the best we can to take care of ourselves and to not be completely dependent of modern conveniences. If not, we could be miserable for an extended time.This post is about oil lamps. We have oil lamps throughout our house and when we have a power outage we simply light up our rooms by lighting our oil lamps and we simply continue on without a lot of issues. There is a bit more to keeping an oil lamp than just letting it sit around.It is best to get to know your lamps. You can purchase these in many places and if you like to go to thrift shops they often have them for a small amount of money.It is very important to shape the wick otherwise it wi ......

The other day my husband and I went to the butcher to purchase our meat. It is a short drive outside our town and my husband knows how much I love the drive because it refreshes me. He took the side roads so I could snap some pictures. It seems that it strengthens me when I can visually refuel where my heart remains so wanting. As we go through life we lean and absorb knowledge from others and it seems to me that I learned the most from those that farmed or those that were more settled than me. They may have thought I was not paying attention but I was. Most of my life I have been a very busy person and by that I mean I do not sit down much and when I am sitting I am still doing something. I ......

Just to explain the title, we are four months in to a history project living like ww2, 1943 for one year. There are many posts about this under living like the past.This month we have had to reduce our butter use even more than before due to the increased ration points on butter. When we started our history project butter was 8 points and then in October it went up to 16 points. We know this because we are following the 1943 newspaper. We try to eat food that does not call for butter but now and then we have a small pat of butter. We are now cutting out the yolk of the eggs to lower our cholesterol, not due to rationing.I am still hanging all of our laundry and absolutely love a windy day an ......

My husband and I have certain chores to be done with each season. Fall and Spring means cleaning windows and washing blinds.We start with a bucket, a bar of soap, a water hose and really old shoes and a ladder.Unlock the windows, remove the screens and wet down the windows.We use a brush on a pole as well as a rag and scrubber.We clean our shutters at the same time and make sure to rinse the soap off the windows really well so it does not spot. We wash the screen too.We have a place that we wash our blinds. We use a part of our privacy fence.We hang the blinds on two screws.Just a simple way to hang them...Wet them down with the water hose....Scrub both sides...Rinse real good...We hang them ......

Finally a break in the heat! We are enjoying cooler weather and now today we have a nice breeze blowing through the house.I moved some of our books last week to this area in the sewing room which is also used as a middle bedroom with a twin bed.Elizabeth has claimed this spot on the end of the small bed so I decided to remove the bedspread and put a sheet over the bed.This is an old chest of drawers that I put some old mixed hardware on and it makes it interesting to me. I like it this way.Fall means it is time to shift things around a bit to get the fireplace ready for winter.I don't know if you read the post about this photo of the girl with the geese that I repainted because it was an old ......

Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles.For me when I think of what life was like when I was growing up I remember family. My Grandparents, Parents, Aunts and Uncles and all the fond memories that went with having them in my life. I remember aprons, and stew simmering on the stove, biscuits and iron skillets. I remember outhouses and chickens and gathering eggs. I remember Bibles and Hats, scarves and handkerchiefs, crochet and knitting, and old petal organs. I remember blacksmithing, fishing, rivers and old wooden bridges. I remember dirt roads and gravel roads, squeaky doors and wood plank floors, rocking chairs and peas and butterbeans in their laps. I remember wringer washers and open windo ......

Since we have been on our 1943 WW2 one year journey people have been asking me what products did people use back then so I am posting some ads from our library research and from our newspapers and magazines so you can see some of the products they used in 1943. Notice that the windex is sold as a liquid in a bottle then it is poured into an atomizer bottle (pump sprayer). In 1943 cloth diapers is what most people used. They came in a box of one dozen cloth diapers. Some areas of the country actually sold a new type of disposable diapers but very rare to see this. They did sell an insert that was disposable that helped to remove the BM. Cloth diapers were still being used in the 19 ......

I recently realized that carrying a handkerchief has become a very vintage thing. We live in such a disposable society that there seems to be very few of us that still carry a handkerchief.I still have some of my handkerchiefs from when I was a child and have purchased more through the years and this handkerchief has wiped away many a tear through time as well as noses.This post is how to wash handkerchiefs as instructed in 1913.This reads as;Handkerchiefs used by persons who have affections of the nose, throat, and lungs, as grippe, catarrh, bronchitis, and the like, should not be put in laundry bags or clothes hampers containing the family wash. The easiest and most sanitary method o ......

We are continuing our Around the World Posts. Anyone can join in and send photos about anything of interest that you would like to post about in your home, garden or the area you live. This allows us to be able to see our similarities or differences in the world. Just send me an email with pictures and description. This following post is from Cheryl in AustraliaHi Grandma Donna,First I want to say how much I enjoy your blog, it never fails to encourage or uplift me in some way.My name is Cheryl, and I live in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia.I thought I'd do something a little different in my post and share with you all how we dispose of our rubbish in my community.I'm betting there are l ......

Photo from upstate New YorkWe Continue our posts from people that visit my website. Please send photos and description how you do household chores or outdoor activities around your home from anywhere in the world so we all can see the similarities or differences.This following post is from Catherine in UtahCatherine is also doing the living like it is 1943 WW2 for one year. Catherine was actually the one to suggest living on ww2 rations (food and gasoline), my husband took us a step further to try and do as many things as we can to Live as they did during ww2 for one year. It has turned into quite an interesting history project.Hi, my name is Catherine, and I live in Farmington, UT. I love ......