Early sunrise in the garden here at our house.
My blog is full of posts of living a simple life, living "like" the past, not in the past. Living the good parts of the past, the parts that make sense.
It is up to us to make our home a place of refuge, a place for warm homemade meals, clean bed sheets to have a restful sleep. It is our place to get away from the confusion and chaos going on outside our doors. It is up to us to use our special space that we reside, large or small, to provide the things that we need.
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My mother bathing my brother. Some of you have seen this picture on my blog several times. I post it so that I can try to get you to a point to understand the simple times of the past because simple was normal to them and we do not know this type of simple today.
Some of you know and remember this time as I do, but some of you are not old enough to have memories of this time I am talking about. This picture speaks volumes if you look closely to see what is not in the picture compared to today with bath time for baby.
A simple pan, a bar of soap and if you notice, the smaller part of one bar of soap on top of the other so to not waste the soap. This is the 1940s when soap was rationed in some countries and in short supply in others.
People did more hand work in the past than we do today it was done with simple tools instead of all the accessories as we have today. This is a bowl cover with glass beads to keep it weighted over the bowl. It is made from flour sack cloth that once was a bag that held flour for baking and cooking. I have made several of these and they work well in the kitchen. It is a bit more difficult to find flour sack cloth today, but it is still around.
Are the things we make purposeful?
These bowl covers are very useful, and are reusable instead of disposable. It could be a baby blanket, a quilt for our bed, a homemade apron, knitted socks or embroidered linens.
I love the items from the past, the fabric was better, even the flour sack fabric. I am wearing a worn out apron today that is "many" years old but I do not want to discard it because I love the fabric and the embroidery.
A simple life does not have to be dull or non pretty and we can do the same today.
I am doing my best to get myself back to resembling the past, mostly the 1930s and 1940s, but some of our home items are further back in time because they made much more sense and made strong to last unlike the plastic items of today.
I finally got the drawers in the machine cabinet sorted out and in better order. I am using my sewing stand to the left for projects that I am working on. My 1923 treadle machine that I call Clara runs so smooth and strong as my feet do the work that replaces electricity. I still may restore Clara's cabinet, I would like to leave her in good condition when I leave this earth.
Some days when it is stormy I will sit down and sew, not worrying about the power going out. I have my old fashioned lighting and it calms me to feel the strength of this well made machine. It truly feels right to use the non electric items.
I wish so badly to explain to those that are younger than me, what life was like before these modern items came into our homes that cause noise, drain power, cost money to run and distract us from being present. Charles and I have less of those things now and we have improved our home by getting rid of them, but there are still some items that have unfortunately become necessary to keep because of the changes that keep being made.
While we are sleeping (so to speak), changes are being made to make us pay to use items that we already bought and paid for this is called subscriptions. This is the newest creeping expense.
In the past people had the ability to live extremely simple but now we have new laws that have made it illegal to be homeless and people can be arrested for sleeping outside. I cannot stress enough the importance of getting our expenses down to where we can save money for increasing costs and help us to have funds to survive unexpected expenses that do happen.
Today we cannot live as simple as our generations before us because of zoning laws and it being mandatory that we are connected to the grid in most places. Most of our homes today are not built as they were in the past that helped with cooling in the summer. Many of us have homes trap heat and make cooling necessary. It may be me being older now but our summers feel much hotter and storms feel stronger.
As I have said before just because we have it does not mean we have to use it. But what I truly mean is that if we must have electricity and running water that flows to us, then only use what we "Need". Some utility bills have a charge that we must pay even if we do not use it. We will be charged for 2,000 gallons of water per month even if we do not use it. Many people use more than this amount but if we are going to pay for 2,000 gallons then learn to live with that amount. We have added rain barrels we have learned our plants do not like city water and also this keeps us from going over the minimum charge.
I understand that there are things we have today that would have greatly benefited our generations from the past, but my point is that things are getting very expensive and may get to a serious point. There is quite a difference in what we "Need" and what we "Want" to use. If we could simply cut the wants to needs it would reduce our expenses and leave us the money to use for increasing costs of electricity, food and medical.
I realize that not everyone is in a financial struggle today, but I know that many people are. Those that are not could be at some point and really should pay attention. Never feel hopeless when having financial problems, do something about it starting today and challenge yourself to cut back on everything possible and you may be shocked how much you can save to get out of debt. If it costs to run and it is not absolutely necessary turn it off of stop using it.
Morning breakfast muffins that I make is posted on my blog. I make ten of these at a time and freeze part of them. I use a pan that my father had that has rectangle size muffins so a regular muffin pan would make more than 10 muffins.
Right now it is a very challenging time for many people all over the world. There is so much going on it can make us exhausted and depressed.
Also, each time Charles and I go to buy groceries we see that prices keep going up and we have to find ways to cut back and this is making us resemble more and more the time my parents and Grandparents lived. We are working through this and finding new ways because this is what we should do.
We keep adjusting our spending, there are very few areas left to cut back and our meals are more simple, this is Kale, rice, mushrooms and onions. We no longer eat meat every day and when we do eat meat we eat it more as an ingredient instead of a entrée.
One way of adjusting is keep planting seeds and grow food. It may not be easy but keep working towards having some kind of a plot or containers.
We are starting to get some vegetables from our garden. This is our first Patty Pan squash. The first two squash did not get pollinated, our bees are still missing, they have only come to our yard twice since winter ended. We do not know what the problem is, each of the two times they came for only one day and left and we have many blooms. We are trying to pollinate what we can using an art brush. This is very concerning.
We have our first eggplant that was pollinated and growing. We wont quit trying to grow vegetables, I am just getting started. Last week of July is planting time again for some of our fall plants. Then there is August :)
Charles went out to check the moisture in the garden and came back in with these vegetables. This is helpful to go out to the garden and come back with something for dinner.
Our son and daughter-in-law stopped by yesterday and brought us a cantaloupe and two tomatoes. Our tomatoes are not doing well at all because something is eating them when they are about half grown.
What helps us to live a more simple life is to have the simple things around us to use. These items make me want to live like my generations before me and it does help to keep the cost down. When we are not letting water run we are not only saving on the water bill but the sewer bill that is billed out on how much water came into our house but it cost twice the amount going out and then added the cost coming in. It does help with household costs to use water as our generations before us did.
Just to make us think about how far we have gone from sensible.
Today sports is a very big thing. But it is just crazy what people spend on sports memorabilia, tickets, gasoline and travel expenses, even air fare today. I would rather watch a game played wherever these guys played, and there was minimum admission in the past as it should be today. When are people going to stop this cycle of overspending? People complain about their electric bill or the cost of groceries, they complain or worry about their car payments or house payments or insurance but they pay for expensive clothing that represents their team, or throw costly parties on game day only to not have money for the rest of the week for food, why? Don't do as others are doing, especially if those others are neck deep in debt.
So what do we do to replace our void? Go out into the fields and parks and play ball for free or watch them play!
We have had another painting project since my last post. We painted in the dining room and removed some upper shelves that were around the room up towards the ceiling and were very bad for collecting dust. Also, we are trying to get rid of or adjust anything that makes us have to get on a ladder. It is no longer safe for us to have things out of reach.
In this photo above we removed the shelves and the items stored on the shelves, sanded and painted the walls a fresh coat of paint. We are not remodeling, we are cleaning and repairing.
The paint is dry and everything got washed, dusted, and put back to where it lives. Notice something on the top of the chest of drawers?
It is Carley :) she has been in one of the guest rooms and has decided to come into the kitchen/dining/sitting area. Ellie is still on the dresser in our new bedroom and Pergie is on top of the chest of drawers watching guarding the doorway to see who comes through ;)
My Father and Great Grandmother.
My Great grandmother shown above was born in 1863, she went through many wars, recessions, World war 1, the flu pandemic, the Great Depression, and live past the ending of World war 2. She lived a large part of her life without electricity and running water. She remained steady, took care of her family and her home. Oh what I would give to hear her words of wisdom. I wonder what she would think about our life today, the things we waste our money on and how far beyond a sensible life we live today. I just wish I could know more but I cannot. What I can do is change and adapt but not to todays time and ways, but to the more sensible way that makes sense for this time. It takes time to do this, it takes ridding ourselves of habits, and practicing things that make sense until we get good at it so it no longer feels odd.
Simple can look nice, simple can look respectable. If we can keep our home as it needs to be, repair things that need repair, clean things that are dirty, mend things that are torn, organized so we know where everything lives, and keep track of every penny we bring in and what we spend, then we should be able to hold on during tough times. We can be strong and focused on taking care of ourselves/family and that is not selfish.
I am doing my best right now to concentrate on getting our home mended because I can see that Charles and I need to adjust our home for this older stage of our life. I am not as fast as I was but still able to do many things as long as I take my time. Things are looking better in the house, and out in the yard and garden because we are trying to be slow and steady and knock these things off our list. We have one wall left to paint and that is the laundry area where we have taken down some more shelves. We are just about finished getting the shelves off the walls that require a ladder to reach things. Still part of our safety plan.
To those that are young, save your money, some people will lead you to believe that you should live your life and enjoy things while you are young. Yes, do enjoy your life at any age but be responsible. It does not take spending a lot of money to find happiness. There are many young people already thousands of dollars in debt! This is not good at all because debt is very bad for your health and future. I watched a street interview of a man stopping to interview young adults about debt and many of these young people were thousands of dollars in debt already!
Often we find that the most simple things bring the most happiness. Living a life debt free is a very good way to be happy. I love the challenge of seeing how many ways that I can save money. Even with all of the planning that Charles and I have done, we had some major unexpected expenses. We never know what roadblocks come in our life, it is best to save, prepare to be able to take care of ourselves.
Keeping a stocked pantry is not hoarding, it is a smart thing to do, especially now.
To me, the best way to get your finances under control is the envelope system. Just ask those that got out of debt because they used the envelope system.
Questions for the forum below.
What are your memories of a more simple life?
What has changed?
What do you feel should have stayed the same?
What do you think that we should have never started?
Do you have someone special in your life that taught you how to live a sensible life just by the way they lived?
Or you can talk about I mentioned in this blog post, anything you want toa talk about other than politics.
The next post will be on Monday July 6th here in the U.S. I am posting every first Monday and Third Monday of the month.
Also the forum is open from Monday through Friday of those weeks that I post. I hope to see you there.
The forum is found up in the menu, it costs nothing to join the forum, you can read without signing up, but need to sign up to comment just for me to be able to keep spam out of the forum.
Here is the link to the breakfast muffins recipe
https://gdonna.com/cooking-from-scratch/breakfast-carrot-muffin/
Grandma Donna
