Find the Good Parts

Here we are in February and our apple tree is blooming.  We are having a false spring at this time and below freezing temperatures are coming again.  We will learn this year if our blooms that have been pollinated can withstand freezing temperatures. 

Life is a lesson for sure and there are a lot of lessons to learn. 

Our winter garden has done well considering the cold weather.  Our turnips have been uncovered all winter, I planted the turnip seeds in the fall in the month of August and they have gone through many stages as well as an attack of pests early on and I did a lavender spray and Charles picked off as many as he could.  When the freeze came the bugs were gone.  

I planted carrots in different parts of the garden and they are doing very good, these have been uncovered as well.

Parsley has been  growing under frost cloths since fall. I do not know if it would have done this well if I had left it uncovered. 

The garlic has been uncovered and gone through many freezes.  Saying that, we are zone 8b here so I can only speak for our area. The past couple of years we have had some unusually cold weather here with snow.

Cilantro loves the cold weather. The cilantro is in pots sitting in a cage and those are weeds growing around the pots.  

There are many herbs growing in the garden that grow very well in the cold weather.  We grow oregano, and thyme all year around and most of the herbs that we grow have more of a problem with heat than cold.  The lemon verbena shed its leaves just before winter and takes a winter nap but will come back in the spring as well as our lemon balm.  Rosemary and lavender do very well in the cold weather.  In our small green house I have new lavender growing that I planted in the fall as well as cabbage, parsley, lemon grass.  Those seeds were planted in August and they will be ready to plant out soon.  

Now it is time to plant the spring garden seeds.  I am a little late planting them but will get to that this week.  The tomato seeds need to be planted as soon as possible and I will keep them protected from the cold.  This is when our gardening gets busy because of bringing the seedlings in and out to keep them from the cold.  We do not need a gym around here. 

We have been very busy here at the house.  Charles and I continue to arrange our furniture so that we can function better in our home.  This takes a lot of time but time is going to go by and with us or without us so we better make the most of it. The kitchen is taking a good bit of thought because I have trouble bending down to get items out from below the cabinets due to dizziness.  I cannot reach very far in the upper cabinets and I do not need to be on step stools.  We will get this worked out soon. 

A raccoon knocked the top of our cement bird bath off the pedestal so Charles built a rustic top so we could set out dishes to  hold water.  The glass serving dish has been used as a bird bath for the past twenty years. It was on top of a wooden post with a wooden top for the glass dish to sit.  Charles replaced the top many times and then the post rotted.  It has been through all kinds of weather throughout all of these years.  It was never used for it's intended dinning table use for olives, celery and carrot sticks with dip in the center.  It has served the birds and wildlife all of these years a nice place to drink water or bathe. 

We are living through a very unsettled time and not only here in the U.S. but in many places in the world.  We should know enough to be informed and to keep ourselves and our family safe but we must do our best to stay mentally and physically healthy.  

I feel that I must keep my home, this place that is our refuge, just that.  Our home can nourish us and give us rest, it can be our place to use to the best purpose it can be.  So we use every bit of it inside and outside even if it is just a small porch or balcony.  

Sometimes living a simple life is difficult to understand.  

If an egg carton is cumbersome, sometimes it twists, or the top of the carton is awkward, just use a bowl.

Sometimes a ham and cheese sandwich saves the day when cooking a meal is just too much. 

Find the good parts.

We are studying the year of 1942 and when we read the news we learn about the war, the bad things happening in the towns and cities of which the newspaper comes from.  But there are good parts too, but we must find them.

There is much that is bad today, but there are good things as well.

We have a choice.

I could have made plain pancakes, set them in the plate, put them on the table and we ate them.  

But why not make them special, take a moment to set the table special. Plate it in a special way.  Charles great grandmother made a lifetime impression on him by teaching him to cook and she set a formal table even if she was the only one eating.

My children often talk about growing up and the good memories because we were the house that made things special.  Who made it special?  I did.

I made them special and my grown adult children have those memories and they carry that into their homes.  My daughter often blames me for her too many extras of things because I gave everything a special name and so that makes it hard to get rid of something if it has a name.  

I remember the day my daughter talked about when we make things interesting and special in our home, and that it takes extra work. She did not realize that I was doing this until she had her own family and was missing those special things. She realized that was what she wanted for her son and husband and those fun times in her home and to have this it was now up to her. At that time she didn't know if she had that in her but she found out that she does and has made many simple things special since that time and so that will affect another generation.  It does not take a lot of effort to make a pancake meal feel special. :)

I have poor ventriloquism skills but I did my best making their toys talk.  My daughter, the youngest, is 53 and she still has Redberry, her red bear has lived with her since her ride home from the hospital when she was born.  

We were the fun house where the neighborhood children played..  They knew they could come to our house to get patched up from a scrape or fall, to find cookies and milk or a cold drink.  They could bring their dolls to our house for repair as I had a special place in the room that I did sewing and made a doll hospital area in the corner with a homemade incubator.  Word got out and I loved their wide eyes as I brought the doll or stuffed animal back to health.  This was also time when the children understood if I had to get on to them they would be in big trouble when they got to their home.  This was the era of it takes a village to raise a child and the parents appreciated the help.

Technology has change everything, and now things are seriously going the wrong way and for children especially.  I have no answers for this but to make life what it needs to be even if others are not. 

It takes only a little extra effort to make things special.  To find the good parts of life and if we can't find them just make them. 

The vintage parfait glasses can sit in the cupboard and never be used, or become that small special dessert.  Vintage parfait glasses are very small as servings were small.  They hold just under 4 ounces, compared to six to 12 ounces today. 

Look for the good parts, the signs we are given such as the daffodils are markers of a new season coming. 

We don't block out the fact that bad things are happening, or things we learn about in history that were bad, but we need to find our balance and find those good things in history and the good that is going on today.  Sometime it may feel everything is bad but there is always good going on as well. Do not let our days pass without noticing the good things, sometimes we are just not looking in the right place.  If there are no good things then be that one person that changes that day into something good happened today.  

I listened to a man singing as he walked down the street today and it made me smile.

If you let the skin of a strawberry dry you can flick off the seeds and plant them and they will grow a strawberry plant. 

Find the good parts, learn all you can. 

Don't focus on the flaw on the bloom but the shape of the petals and the details in the center of the bloom. Learn if this is a self pollinating bloom or does it need a pollinator?  This is a English Dogwood tree bloom, it contains both male and female parts, stamens, and pistils, but it also benefits by cross pollination from insects.

What if we spent our entire life never expanding our knowledge of what is right there for us to see. All we have to do is look up, down, and around and find the most incredible creatures, plants and universe.  

 It is all about our perspective.  As many of you know that several years ago this metal duck came into our life and I named him Albert.  He oversees our garden, he is our weather gauge.  If he is wet it is raining, and dry it is not raining. :)  

He can help us to tell the time.

He will keep peace among the flowers. 

He measures the snowfall

And is always present when he needs to be.

If a metal duck can be so important, think how many other good parts of life we can find.

I encourage everyone to start finding the good parts no matter what the circumstances are and if you cannot find them then it is time to make them yourself. 

I recently read in the news that a woman was in a horrible situation, seemed no way out at the time, and a lady asked her, can I pray with you? At that time when there seemed no hope that one person reached out.  The distressed lady's situation did improve and even though the trauma she went through, the memory of the lady that asked to pray with her had that one moment of the good part of a terrible situation. 

Sometimes it may be us that needs to be the good part. 

For the forum, last weeks post brought in some very interesting conversations as most of the post do.  

There were some very good points made that provoked much thought about time passing and marking the events.  (Thank you Kimberly for bringing up that conversation)

It gave me much thought with Charles retiring just four and half months ago and we still have not gotten into a routine.  That is okay to not have a routine as of yet but we both have felt time rushing by us.  Kimberly wrote about how when children are in school there are many markers of time passing and how long time feels when you are a child and when we get older time seems to rush by.  

Some history study notes, I continue to read the microfilms from 1942 so to follow along day by day of the day and year of 1942 since we are synced here in 2026 with 1942.  I have learned that even though only a few things were mandatory rationed at this time here in the United states, voluntary rationing started after the attack on pearl harbor in December 1941.  All people did not cooperate but instead started hoarding which caused problems for the merchants.  Also the big picture became clear as shortages began to become a problem.  Some merchants started asking the hoarders to sell back the sugar so they could add to the store supplies. This was not just a problem in the United States but other countries.

People were starting to plan victory gardens to be able to get started as soon as weather permits.  

Here at our house in February of 2026 and studying February 1942 we are trying to do many things here at home to live similar to 1942.  It takes months to make changes for a history study that is living like that time.  

During 1942 people were making many changes as well, sons, husbands, family members and neighbors were going off to fight in the war and women were filling work positions and taking up new responsibilities of being the ones left behind to pay the bills and doing double duty. A small price to pay considering the other alternative of fighting a war.

They would have known that food rationing is coming at this point, the newspapers were putting out articles about the coming rationing. Since we understand they needed people to volunteer to ration until the time it would be mandatory, we are changing some of the food that we eat now in this study.  We are eating dried beans and rice more often and have enjoyed them since I soak and drain our beans for 24 hours before I cook them. This way they do not give us any stomach issues.  

I do not do the quick methods of cooking beans, I did try that but it is not the same as when they are properly soaked.  Quick cooking can make them mushy and the skins peel off as well as make the tummy gassy. 

As discussed on this blog before, our generations knew to soak different food items before cooking and through time and rushed cooking many things that should be soaked are not given this time anymore. 

I feel that beans and rice with fresh veggies from the garden or the store should help when the rationing of canned food, meat and so much more begins. 

I would like to know what meals you would cook if rationing would occur today as it did during ww2?  The list of rationed food is complicated because many things were added through the list and a few things removed.  It was a continuous change but can be found online with research.

We can talk about that up in the forum. 

Have you found any new information with your 1942 research?  

Any new projects or accomplishments this week?  I have been trying to sit down and finish another hot water bottle cover.  My goal is to have a cover for each of them.  The other is organizing drawer spaces. 

Grandma Donna