Living Like the Past

Sometimes life can be very confusing and as we travel from here to eternity we will experience many very different things.What is important is that we never settle for not knowing.I have heard many times, Well, I cannot do that, speaking of a simple skill such as cooking, sewing, crochet or knitting. But why not? If we think about all that is out there in this world that comes from the hands of someone that is skilled, they too started from not knowing how. We would never be bored for one minute if we made it our purpose to never stop learning. I love to learn new things and more so I learn to get better at the things that I do.If we just rely on what other ......

As I have been once again decluttering I have been questioning if I still needed to discard more than I already have. Living a more old fashioned life as we do requires more kitchen equipment to preserve food as do many of the things of long ago so it is sometimes difficult trying to live more like the past in this modern world.If we really lived in the past we would not have a computer or printers and such as this and this takes up space where something from the past would most likely be placed. My goal is for a looser feeling around the house where the drawers and cabinets are not so full and I have been working on this for quite awhile. Then the covid virus became a problem and ......

We are working toward a more simple life. It is early morning pictured above, the sun has not made its way to lighting our day.Charles is still in bed and I am preparing to make homemade tortillas for a breakfast meal. Living a more simple life does not mean laying around, it does not mean there is less work, it means life is calmer.Making tortillas is such a simple thing to do. Today we carry a lot of modern baggage that keeps us from doing the things that are important.I keep trying to improve what I can, our diet, clutter, fixing those things that we just tolerate because that is the way it has always been. With a little time and effort it can be more functional.I love t ......

The season of summer has ended and I am most happy to know that cooler weather is coming. It was time to remove the lightweight, soft chenille spread...We have made it back to the season of Fall and a few days ago I removed the summer chenille bedspread and brought out the hand stitched quilt. It marks that we are traveling through our yearly seasons.The chenille spread was washed and dried and put away to rest throughout the fall and winter.It is better for our health to focus on the seasons and what is important. It has been a distracting year and too much time has been wasted on worry. Nature and time are still going around us and we are missing it if we are not paying attention.It ......

As I am writing this post, we are experiencing the beginning of Hurricane Sally. Yesterday I did a good bit of washing because I needed to get all the laundry washed, dried and put away. I had clothes hanging all over the house because there was too much humidity outside to hang laundry. The hurricane southwest of us off shore barely moving forward.I have lived long enough now to know the routine. Get all the laundry done, fill every vessel that will hold water to use for drinking, cooking and bathing.I like to get things done before the storm and prepare for the power to go out or a water main break or anything that could happen that we can prepare for. There are ple ......

Recently I have been trying to organize, it seems that it never stays done as we truly live in our homes. What I mean by that is we are some of the many people that enjoy our home. We are not gone for long when we do leave home and being home a lot of the time we make our own messes or at least I do.This photo above is of a journal I found long ago and have posted about it before. It is the journal that put many things in motion for Charles to start keeping journals the old way. A record of home, yes, a Record of Home. What is spent and where it is spent.what did we purchase and what did we use. This journal starts in late 1800 and ends in early 1940's. A journal of a family and their ex ......

Here we are, the last three days of August 2020. Here at our home we are a mixture of 2020 and the old days. August, September and November we truly test our preparations for keeping ourselves comfortable and as ready as we hoped to be. We live close enough to the gulf coast to be caught in the inland storms that come with hurricanes. Sometimes the hurricanes are too close and some are far away but the feeder bands can be far out and away from the eye of the storm and cause us problems.Living the old way with our feet still in the current time keeps us more settled when the power goes out.I love early morning just before the sun rises. The candle light or oil lam ......

Charles and I started a new project here at our house. We have been doing these studies for years now of living more like the past. We knew that we needed to do more but how? Living in a city in modern times while trying to live more like the past is not always easy. We live in this world where everything flows to us.We have tried many ways to reduce the flow of water, to reduce the flow of electricity but we always fall short of our expectations and then go back to our lazy habits.One day Charles was at work and I was doing all I could to save water while cleaning and doing laundry. I had set a certain amount that I could use and only that but failed.So I thoug ......

Because we are in a worsening pandemic. Some of you have lost your job, some have lost loved ones and it may seem to you that no one cares. But I care.I thought about starting this post off with some history facts about pandemics and wars and such as that but I just want this post to be a simple common sense post.We can find patterns after events in history and if we learn from this we should have already learned enough to live a prepared life. But this is not what people normally do and I do not know why.I was very fortunate to live a time that I was able to be close to my Grandparents that had lived through two world wars, a very very bad pandemic and a great depression. ......

Charles is a wonderful man and I love him so very much. He will do whatever it takes to do what is right. He has a good spirit and prefers the calm side of situations. Charles is sensible and if something needs to be done he does it. Even in situations that are tense and maybe not exactly what seems right at the time with his work, he says, yes sir, or yes ma'am if that is what needs to be heard at the time. But if it is not proper or the right thing, he will let a situation cool down and then make sure it is done right and proper. People respect Charles because they know he is a good man.I am more hyper, nervous and he calms me and I energize him. lolCh ......

A few of you have asked me and one almost pleaded for me to keep posting. I know some of you have felt my fatigue. The pandemic fatigue that so many of us have. I feel some of us are desperate for something normal. So I am going to give it my best to keep going. I need it as much as you do and I thank you all for your kind words about my blog.This is a Zinnia.My friend and Neighbor Naomi grew Zinna's. Naomi passed away many years ago now and every time I see a Zinna I remember her lovely yard. There is a man that lives in our town that grew camellias and after his wife passed away he bought some extra land and filled his time with expanding his camellias. T ......

Lately I have been dragging a bit on posting. Understandable though...I am going to do a more simple post about things going on around our home. We are now the summer jungle and I am surprised we still have some blackeyed susans blooming.Then we have those that have finished and left us seed. Human life is somewhat like this almost finished flower. We hope what we leave behind is good seed in the way of good that we have done while here on earth. I collect the heads and let them finish drying then shake them off so the seeds will fall to the bottom.I continued to feed Leona, the new sourdough starter I started.I have made many loaves, some failed and so ......

The other day we had a storm with quite a bit of lightening. The week before our daughter called and said that their next door neighbors tree had been struck by lightening and it blew a hole in the ground and plants out of the ground and the lightening ran through her neighbors house, our daughters house, the other neighbors house on the other side of her neighbors and even across the street. They all had disruptions in telephones, answering machines, cable, their televisions, wall plugs, neighbors pool pumps, digital devices and such as that. A quite expensive strike that was.Here at our house when it starts thundering I normally go around the house and unplug lamps, the computer ......

It has been much longer than I planned to do another blog post but things have been very busy around here lately. Charles and I are doing okay but as you all know, it is not easy to stay safe in this world right now.Some people like to leave furniture plain and uncovered, some like to see the wood grain, some enjoy painted furniture as I enjoy both and there is nothing wrong with that because we are all different.In the past we would visit friends and family often and I loved how everyone's homes were different and much was homemade so there was not as much generic as there is today.I love textiles and linens so I enjoy dressing the table and the hutch, the breakfast table and even the ......

I choose to remember the good times in life and the people that have stuck in my memory. There are sounds and smells, sometimes a feeling or something we see.Have you ever thought that each of us is a memory maker? I remember my Mother, I am a mother, I remember my Grandmother, I am a Grandmother. I remember my memories of my brother and I growing up and I am a sister.I have the power in me to be a memory maker just like you. My Grandmother did not know that the things she did, even the most simple of things would impress into my mind for the rest of my life for me to remember.Food is a big part of memories. The smell of food cooking, especially certain food ......

Long ago they knew many of the things that we do not know today. We have so much to learn, and as I get older this is one thing I crave, to find out what my generations before me understood. I want to know so much more because now more than ever I wish my mother and grandmother and great grandmother would have left me instructions of how to do the things they did. The further away from the cities they lived, the more they prepared and preserved and when things got bad those that understood what it took to survive were much better off than those that just lived day by day making frequent purchases as they wanted it.When Charles and I started our history projects and studies ......

To not feel overly anxious about how badly people are behaving during this very serious pandemic I must stay busy and listen to the nudge that must come from God. I feel this comes from God because it is the rational and sensible feeling I get that I need to do something. By nature I am excitable so this rational feeling does not come from me.It is time to prepare, that is what I felt before this all started. On January 28 of 2020 I had a feeling something very serious was going to happen. At this time the coronavirus was not being taken very serious but on that day, I ordered two eighty yard rolls of 1/8 inch elastic to make masks. I had never made a mask before ......

Living with purpose is much more rewarding than living for fun.I find contentment when my life is balanced. It has not felt or looked balanced lately but I know how to get back into balance and that requires me to work on what it is that needs to be done. Sometimes stress can make that seem like we cannot get back to being balanced but we can and we can find a new normal if we just keep at it.Charles and I realized when we started trying to live a more simple life that we needed tools to do things that we would have pay to have done. I keep a tool box for our pets. There are brushes, combs, grooming sheers and old hardware from old leashes and harnesses.A simple life does not nec ......

Now is the time.... People seem to have an attitude that they are owed something or want to blame all the time. We cannot blame the sun because it is hot. We cannot blame the rain because it is wet. We cannot be angry and mad because a serious virus is disrupting our lives. It is like blaming a bird because it was not a cow, it makes no sense. There is a lot of bad behavior going on right now and I am shocked at people that cannot tell a pandemic virus from a turnip.Charles and I have decided that we can only take care of just ourselves. We all can only take care of just ourselves, or children of course. At some point most of us figure this out.It is a Very dangero ......

When Charles and I started living more like the past, it did not take long before we realized how important this was for our life.We started understanding why we were suppose to stay in our small house and this was well before the pandemic. Now we know this is why we were suppose to learn to live on less, it was why we needed to change how we lived. Doing our history projects we have learned that anything can happen and it can and does still today so yes, we need to live a more prepared life. We know that if we make purchases that our money should be on necessary living expenses and items that will help us to be more self sustaining. It is all about keeping a roof ......