The Study and the Routine

We are in the sixth month of this year of 2025, and five weeks and one day into our living during the great depression study.  I hope that many of you are starting to get your feel of where you are going with the study and some of you are reading along to see what happens, I want to know too.  

It takes awhile to understand what needs to be done and to figure out how to get our home to a point that we can feel a change to understand what the home would have felt like during the early 1930s.  

We peel away the use of modern things and detox our mind so we can form our own thoughts. 

It also requires us to change to a simple functional home and a budget based on spend less than we earn each month. 

Our railroad dining car plates that are oval shape.

This was my lunch the other day when Charles was out of town.  I cooked a small hamburger patty and made a simple gravy and onions to put over the one potato I peeled and boiled and mashed.  

This is Clara's Great Depression Poor Mans Meal without the tomato sauce.  Hot dogs, potatoes and onions.  

I was asked in the forum about routine.  In the 1932 diary of Sarah she often spoke of her morning chores and her evening chores.  

I am forming new routines as we move forward and understand the necessity of having a routine since more work is needed than living with the modern easy button.

Last evening as I washed up the dishes with my lightbulb hanging over head, I thought about how I am feeling more comfortable now as I continue to let go of the old way, which was actually the new way.  My thoughts have flipped to seeing the year of 2025 as the old way. I see the 2020's as the financial drain years.  There is no better time than now to learn how to live more simple as they did in the 1930s.  

Charles and I have been living more simple than many people but the real time we are living today needs much more discipline.  It does not matter how you get there, a great depression study or whatever it takes as long as you know how to make it through the bumps and gully's in life.

My perspective has changed to knowing that I do not want to go back to the  way we lived before we started our history studies.  We had gradually gone along with all of these modern items that made other people wealthy and cluttered our home, and not only bulky items, but the many items that cost money to use on a monthly basis.

I have a new evening routine as I hang my washed items that are more lightweight inside to dry overnight.  This photo is the next morning.

When I look at the laundry hanging just before I get into bed, I feel our ancestors and imagine that this was what they did. Who knows, maybe they are prodding me along. It is summer and we use a fan at night to help us sleep during warm weather so while the air is being circulated I might as well hang laundry. 

Last night at bedtime Charles teased me as I was hanging the laundry all around the bed on the makeshift clothes lines. He said that it feels like we are living in a New York flat in the 1930s with laundry hanging everywhere.  He actually likes it this way. :)  Charles is a very reasonable man and he can see how all of these studies have helped us financially. 

I have gone to washing laundry more often so there is not much to wash and hang and this helps me physically. 

I do not want to live the generic way that most people live today.  Our life is very interesting and the challenges are good for us.  

I have enough health challenges that could keep me in bed, but with the history studies that connect me to the past I find strength. It is something that I can actually do something about.  I have found that changing one thing makes me want to change another.  Have you found this yourself? 

I do have a evening tasks as Sarah (In the diary) would have.  After the dishes are done, I wash the dog and cat bowls and the water bowl.  

In 1932 Sarah would bring in water for the next day.  She prepared in the evening for the next morning.  We prepare our water for the next day but in a different way.  We are at the end of the line so to speak with our water line and we get sediment in our water so we filter our drinking and cooking water. 

Charles or I will prepare the stove and fill the kettle to make morning coffee and tea. We each check to see if the kettle is full and whoever is not busy doing something else fills the kettle. 

I hang a fresh drying towel for the next day.  The evening dishes are toweled dried if there are a lot of them, or air dried overnight if there are not a lot.  It depends on how close it is to bedtime. 

This evening I hung the items to be ironed the next day. 

As I am finishing up the tasks, removing something from the freezer for the next days meal, checking to make sure the doors are secure and everything is turned off.  I walk through the house with my personal fancy light bulb. I made it vintage by using a lace sock that I had, and it has a hook so I can hang it anywhere I go. I imagine that I am walking through the house with a candle or oil lamp as some would have used, only this is much safer and costs nothing to use.  

As I had shared in the forum this past week, the 1930s does not have to look dreary and we can have fun with the study.  The goal here is to learn how to live a simple life, save money, and again spend less that we take in. 

Early this morning Charles and I went outside to see what we could pick from the garden.

We added two small cherry tomatoes...

Daylight was just breaking but one of the female zucchini blooms had opened and needed to be pollinated so Charles took an art brush and took pollen from the male bloom and pollinated the female bloom.  We have only seen three bees all spring, two of them were sick and our first healthy looking bee has just found us.  I want to go to the county extension office to talk with them to find out if anyone else has this problem with no bees this year.  

The only two zucchini that we have harvested so far are the two that we pollinated with the art brush. We hope the one that was pollinated this morning will make it too.  All the others have shriveled up and died.  

You can use a male bloom and pinch off the bloom and use it to pollinate the female, but we use the small art brush so to leave the male bloom in case a bee finds the plant and will do a better job than us. 

It has not made any difference of the time of day, there just are no bees.  The blooms are only open for a short time.

We are getting cucumbers so either I got lucky this year and planted a type that self pollinates or other insects are pollinating them.  Tomatoes self pollinate so we do not have to worry about them.

This is our first Cherokee Purple Tomato for this year.  It still has a long way to go but it looks healthy.

This is one of the Zucchini's that we pollinated with the art brush.

I made an egg custard pie this week, one of Charles favorites. 

The changes are coming slowly, and the meal planning is going slow because I am trying some of the recipes. I am also working on the budget again and shopping differently.  It takes time to live this way and we need to take it slow because every small change makes a big change when living more like the past and trying to save as much as possible. 

It is not just that we spend less that we earn but also to save as much as possible.  We never know when we might need that savings money. 

I hope to see you up in the forum, I love all the great ideas and stories that everyone brings in to the forum and we have a wonderful group of people.  You can come and just read, or comment after a short sign in, it is free to do. The sign in is to help keep us safe from spammers.  

For those doing the study, let us know how your week was last week and anything that you have discovered or changed.  Those that are not doing the study or already live this way, we would like to hear from you and some of your life experiences of living  a simple life as was done long ago.  Has anyone tried any of Clara's meals? 

Grandma Donna