Old Fashioned Organizing

Charles and I start our day early, when all is well I get up around 4:30 and Charles about a half hour later. I spend my early time looking at my schedule, starting coffee, and a quick check of messages and quick chores, breakfast, feeding the girls, and so on. The schedule is not rigid but I like to get several things done before 6:00 a.m. because that helps my day start off on better footing. I started setting out the cleaning items that will be used the next day to decrease laundry. If I do not do this I use too many cloths and rags during the day. One day I realized that somehow I had become a cloth & towel waster causing extra laundry. If I wa ......

As the Covid pandemic worsens where we live, Charles and I have realized that there is an area that we forgot about concerning living a more prepared life. Hospitals in our state are struggling, we have had record numbers that are breaking record numbers and no more room for incoming patients, shortages of nurses and doctors and it is so bad now here that military help has come to our largest hospital in our city because there is no available civilian help. Our state has now joined a list with other states that have had to ask for refrigerated portable morgues. These morgues are for situations there are mass casualties. Our state doctor said unfortunate ......

For those of you that are new to this blog, my husband Charles and I study history and we pick a particular year and try to live like that year for one year. We do not try to look the part or or pretend, I in particular have a desire to know and understand what it was like long ago in the home. Charles has always loved and studied history.I have fond memories of life before it became complicated as it is today with modern things all about us. I do not like the sounds and smells today. Everything seems too loud and unleashed. Stores and homes smell of plastic and things that gas off and chemicals. I remember a time when life was not like this. Shoes were ma ......

My last post we were getting ready for Hurricane Sally. Sally has come and gone and we did okay here other than much more rain than we needed. This caused some flooding issues in many areas.But then there was our daughter and her family that live in Pensacola Florida.It was very frightening for them as the Hurricane caused all kinds of problems in their area. Their power got knocked out very early. This storm moved so slowly and dropped enormous amounts of rain and high winds. More than two feet of rain was measured at the Naval Base in Pensacola.There was much flooding in their area and their surrounding towns and over to their west. There was a lot ......

It may seem that I am at my computer all the time lately with the many diary posts to keep up with. The diary posts are added research I share with you and then there are still things going on here at home. We have had some beautiful weather and so many things are blooming, the mulberry trees have baby mulberries, the lemon tree is the most full of blooms it has ever had. The blueberry bushes have blooms, the bridle wreaths are in full bloom, the azaleas are blooming, the coneflowers, the weeds are everywhere but the sad part is we are suppose to have a hard freeze next week. It is very concerning but these are things that happen now and then.As I read through the diaries I am surprised ......

Long ago, just because something was invented did not mean everyone ran out and got one. It took years for people to become what we would think as modern. One thing I am learning with this study is that people did pretty good for themselves without the things we have today. The things we would see if we were there would look different but we might just find ourselves very happy. The telephone came along and some could afford a phone and some could not and there were many other reasons to not have a telephone such as the telephone lines had not been pulled to that area. Charles Great Grandfather worked for the telephone company while it was in it's very early stages. In the ye ......

I have been trying to tweak some things with my blog. One I already announced a few weeks ago that I now have a mailing address for this blog. Grandma DonnaP.O. Box 1634Dothan, Alabama 36302My new news is now I have ZOOM IN for cell phones and tablets, Yay!You can now zoom in on pictures and things when you use your phone or tablet things whatever they are. Before it was hard to see some things when using a cell phone.I hope this helps in seeing original documents. I want to mention to read posts about the studies we did other years such as the 1940s, look at the date of posts and work your way to January of that year and much research information about the y ......

It is getting time to put years of research to work. I hope this new year be interesting, calming, productive and educational. Some of you have contacted me and asked for an address. Some of you have disconnected from your home internet and are going to the public library to use the internet and to read my blog.I now have a blog mailing address where you can write to me the old fashioned way.Grandma DonnaP.O. Box 1634Dothan, Alabama 36302I am working on organizing my desk, I have added extra paper and envelopes and I am working on discipline myself to do things more old fashioned and that includes pen, paper and ink. You can also type if that is what you prefer as there were ......

It has been difficult for me to find the time to post articles lately because we have a lot going on here at our house.I am still hand washing all the laundry and the heat is making it very difficult. I must do this very early in the morning just after daylight. I am finding ways to do things a bit easier so all in all the washing machine being out of order can be a good learning experience even though I know how to do this, I just needed to tweak hand washing laundry for when we get older. :) The answer to this is do it daily so there is not a lot of laundry and to soak, soak, soak the laundry.Tomorrow will be the end of 5 weeks that the HE machine has been out of order. ......

First off I would like to explain the cookie banner you might see on my blog. There are new privacy laws and we have to put this on our blogs. I just have this simple blog but the new rules are to protect people and I abide by the rules.This blog post is about keeping an old fashioned pantry and a reminder post. This is not about being a Prepper, it is just about living as our generations before us did and living food prepared. We have our first tropical storm weather brewing in the gulf of Mexico. This is very early for one to start and this makes it possibly a long hurricane season. When we live in our homes and cook our own meals we don't have to be ela ......

This will be a short post to let you know that everything is going ok here and I have not forgotten it is time to do a new post but I started a big project that is taking a long time to finish.I am repainting our kitchen walls and cabinets as well.Also the canisters...... yes, I did paint them last year.... but....I have been wanting to make curtains for quite some time now. Remember when I did the posts windows around the world? Many of you sent me pictures of your windows and I still have not updated our curtains. Last week I found some pretty fabric on sale and decided that it was time to start in the kitchen. I want to add color to the kitchen. After thinkin ......

This year of living like 1942 has been a year of organizing here at our house. We studied about ww2, Charles read some history books and we mostly lived an old fashioned life. Rationing was not a big part of our living like 1942 because in the United States our rationing did not start to get intense until 1943. Rationing was beginning in 1942 and affecting Tires, Automobiles, Gasoline, Bicycles, Fuel oil, Stoves. Then food items started being rationed such as sugar, coffee. The country needed rubber, metal and such so rubber footwear, typewriters were put on rationing.Rationing was coming though and when we did our year of 1943 we learned it was hard to ration.&n ......

Each day we use things. We pick them up, we touch them, move them from one place to another. We wear different clothes, we brush our teeth, we brush our hair.If we were like letters written to a loved one we would be words contained on paper but we are not. Last month I took a week long break from my blog so I could organize our home. It was a lot of work but for the first time I stuck to it to finish what I started. I have never had all the rooms in the house organized at the same time.In just a few weeks I realized I have a problem with leaving things sit out of place. I don't put it back where it belongs. So now I am trying to make a co ......

We all go through times when we get off track and this has been that bump in the road for me. Charles and I have had many changes recently, nothing serious but accumulated changes that throws us off.The older I get the harder it is to change. First our dentist retired and we had to find another dentist. Then our Doctor passed away suddenly from a blood clot which was very upsetting to us and we had to find a new doctor which was not easy and I still am having trouble remembering my new doctors name. Charles uses a barber and his barber became ill and closed his shop so we had to find a new barber and then my beautician went to another location and I had to find a new ......

Recently I did the post on the big clean, the hand washing verses the HE washer and water study etc. I decided to do another experiment. I like to know about things, most anything when it comes to the reason for it or how something works. My husband is steady and I am like the bunny hopping around. I don't know if I will every outgrow this, I guess when my body gives out.My experiment this time is dust. I have mentioned (complained) to my husband, my daughter and my friend Catherine multiple times that it seems more dusty. I have to clean the fans more often and there is always something to dust and when I am not looking dust balls form and float unde ......

This time of year I want to do hand work such as sewing, knitting and making gifts. So I decided it was time for the big clean up to get that out of the way. There are things that should be done once or twice a year so grease and dirt does not build up in hard to get places.The kitchen was a good place to start since dust fuzzies like to collect anywhere we cannot reach very well. With a bar of lye soap a scrub pad, old cloths, water and a ladder my husband helped me to wash all the top and bottom kitchen cabinets. Then we pulled out the stove and washed everything behind and under the stove.I moved on to washing curtains, cleaning the inside of the windows, changed ou ......

We have this one life we live here on earth as we are traveling from here to eternity and if we take care of ourselves, our bodies, our children and our homes then our lives would be more in balance. We would be examples to our children and they would learn from us. We are not perfect people and we make mistakes but the good news is today is a new day.For those that may have noticed, I did move the Martha Washington sewing cabinet to the bedroom. I put socks in the drawers, and each side holds our pajamas that we wore only one time and have them stored here for the next night.Taking care of our home takes effort and for an example If we do not hang our clothing or put it in a drye ......

Many years ago my husband and I started reverting back to a more simple way of life. To us our world seemed to have reached a tipping point and we decided to go back to basics and set our home back to a time in which we feel the most comfortable.We simply want to live a life that makes more sense. We started removing our more modern things that were cheaply made and pulled out older items that had been stored and some of the things we felt we did need but had already been discarded, we searched thrift shops to find.I had this romantic notion that if I did things the old way our life would somehow change and our home would be more organized and romantic. I would start with a homemade ho ......

This page in my blog called A comfortable home was posted January 2015 and brought the most emails of the year. I am bumping it back up for those that may have not seen this page since it has moved so far down in my blog. I feel there is a stirring in many people to get back to basics and to make their nest so to speak. I want to remind my visitors that this website has many older pages such as this one to read during the time I am not posting. If you look at the categories and click on the home page or main page there are sections, living like the past, cooking from scratch, pets and more. At the bottom of the main page of those sections are page numbers that will advance you to the ol ......

Some of you have noticed I have not been posting as much and part of that is due to my health. I had a light stroke in September but don't worry I am doing better.It made me want to be more organized because we never know what the future holds. My husband and I are still doing our 1943 one year project. It did throw us off track for a little while but we have managed to stay with the project.I have been reading a lot and most of the books are organizing books. I have been disappointed with many of the books because I could not find anything to tell me what I wanted to know.I did pick up some good information about folding clothes. This information came from the book called, The Life Changing ......