About gDonna
The photo is my son and myself. Now days you can get a photo made to look old like this one. This photo was taken when this was the new look.

Harry S Truman was president when I was born and world war II had ended. I grew up in a time when lunch was put in a brown paper bag and a sandwich was wrapped with wax paper. There was no such thing as pantyhose, we wore stockings that attached to the rubbery clippy things that attached to the girdle. Convenience stores were not common and when we took a trip we packed a picnic basket because many places did not have fast food. Highways had places to pull over and stop, some with picnic tables. Read more ....
 

Donna's Diary Posts

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Yet another.....
Here we are first week of October has ended. This is the time of year our lemongrass is ready to harvest. I will be cutting, peeling and freezing the stalks and the leaves.But one thing stopping me from doing this and it is called Hurricane Nate. Yet another Hurricane, Sigh......The sunlight is fading from cloud cover now. I do get anxious from hurricanes because I am afraid of tornadoes they spawn. The hurricane will be coming in on the west side of Alabama and we are on the southeast side but the feeder bands that pull through can spawn tornadoes here and my main concern is our daughter and her family that live in Northwest Florida in Pensacola. Pl ......
The Lessons
The roses will be gone soon since it is fall now so I am sharing a beautiful rose in full bloom from our yard. This post is about lessons we have learned over the years and making our change to live more like the past. We do not have it all figured out because there are a lot of decisions to make along the way. We are aiming to live more like the past somewhere between 1900 and late 1940s. We are somewhat in this time period but still too modern. We are just working our way little by little and replacing things that have no real purpose with things that do.Above is a vintage slip. I love this old slip laying on the bed in the morning sun. I love the feeling of t ......
Do you have a plan B or C ?
I like to be comfortable and also to make others comfortable. My nature is caregiver and I want to think that I have learned a few things during my life.I know that I have posted quite a bit about living prepared but due to so many disasters lately and what I have read in the news and looked at the pictures of so much devastation and suffering that I feel I should do more.Recently during hurricane Irma I heard on the news that they were telling people not to flush toilets due to flooding and sewers overflowing. But what I did not hear is anyone telling people what they could do.Actually there are many things people can do but there is little information about what or how to ......
We Cannot Lose Our Way
This weekend Charles and I took an early drive to the dairy to buy some milk, cheese etc. From where we live it only takes us a few minutes to go from city to rural and then a pleasant drive about a half hour away to the dairy. I will take you along and share the drive.When we go to the dairy It always makes me remember my younger years and I think about how rural life is a better fit for me than living in the city but the city is where we live so for now I will enjoy the drive.When I was young I lived in the city but my grandparents and aunts and uncles lived rural. When my children were young we bought 10 acres of land in the country. Our house was a simple old farm house ......
Needing routine
The hurricane threw me off my routine. Actually I haven't had much of a routine lately but needing one. Our little hummingbird which I named Madeline is still with us. She stayed on our porch through the entire tropical storm. I have nicknamed her Maddie. She has two friends around as well.When I started cleaning up limbs that had fallen during the storm I thought about securing one of the limbs to our back porch for Maddie. Each time we go out the back porch Maddie would fly off the clothesline. The first day she was not interested in the tree branch but then she decided she liked it and this is where she has been resting ever since.The hummers batt ......
Inland Storms
I want to let everyone know we are doing OK here at our house. I want to get this up pretty quick because I don't know if our power will go off. We have been hearing electrical transformers explode quite often due to the high winds here with Hurricane Irma.Our internet has gone out a few times so I am trying to get up a post quickly. I feel the worse of the weather is over but we are expecting high winds until midnight tonight and there is more to come for some of you as Irma travels through our country. We live inland about 84 miles from the gulf of mexico, 14 miles from the Florida state line. When Hurricanes move in people focus on the coastlines and the eye itself but hurrica ......
Questions and Answers Hand washing clothes
There are many ways to hand wash clothes and around the world people hand wash their clothing differently.I have always been fascinated with the cement wash areas in communities in different parts of the world and how some put in a flat stone that they use to wash the clothing.But many use buckets and tubs and pans.I have used many methods always trying to improve on this method because I want the laundry to be very clean. The one that works well for me the best and getting the laundry the most clean is using a narrow tall 15 gallon barrel. I don't put 15 gallons of water in it, I normally put 7 gallons of water. I use more water to rinse. I use the stick plunger thing to agitate ......
Questions and Answers Flu and Sickness
I was emailing with a blog friend and was informed that flu has been pretty bad this year in parts of Australia. They are in winter when we are in summer so our flu season will be starting up soon.I was talking about what I do in our house with the flu and that I have a flu box and she asked me if I would do a post.In the past people were very cautious and more serious about sickness. Many of my older family members would make poultices and such to go on the chest and people were isolated. It seems more care was taken.Just look at the way nurses and dental hygienist dressed in the past and were expected to be crisp and clean. They took great care to not spread germs.& ......
Questions and Answers Solar Lights
There has been great interest in our solar light bulbs. We just love these bulbs and gradually we have been building up our stock of these bulbs that come with the charger and a hook. Since we have another hurricane looming I wanted to get this post out quickly.They have this hook so you can hang your bulb.It has a on and off button and a charging port where you plug the end of your solar panel. The whole thing goes out in the sun to charge. So far we have not had any problems with our bulbs but you do need sunshine to charge these and why we keep extras charged up. When one starts going dim we get another one out and so on. Here is information on these bul ......
Questions and Answers Oil Lamps
This post is to answer a few questions. This one is about oil lamps. I do have a post on oil lamps somewhere on my blog but I will do a refresher here.I was asked if I like the new oil lamps or the old ones. We have both.This is a newer old oil lamp. You can tell by the screw on cap. It screws on the outside.This is a very old oil lamp and it screws on to the inside. In other words the screw part is on the inside of the glass. Go back up and look at the photo above this one and you will see the difference.Often the quality is better on the older ones but that depends on the condition.I use smokeless oil. It is normally clear oil. He ......
Now it has a place
With all the shifting back in time that we have done the house was getting out of order and I had to find a way to live more like the past in today's time. Some of you have emailed me wanting to know what I have been up to so this post is to share what I have been doing.We are not going to live off the grid but we want choices how to live with using minimal grid as well as living prepared so should we lose electricity and water we can hopefully remain comfortable. I figure if we live the old way as much as possible then if the new way goes out we won't notice it as much.We have had many reasons to show us that we need to live a more prepared life. I wanted to find a wa ......
A short break
I just want everyone to know that I am taking a short break due to some projects that are taking me longer to do than expected.As many of you know we have been doing studies and experimenting with living more like the early 1940s and studying about other years earlier than that. We are currently setting our home to live more old fashioned with minimal grid and not waste water and each time we choose a new old way it calls for making room for the new old item which causes a shift in our home or removing something modern. We had some older items that had been stored for years and some that we purchased as we have been slowly moving back in time. But now we want to make ......
The Chamber Pot
What is that under my bed besides dust? It is a Chamber pot. This is what people used in the past when they had to get up in the middle of the night to relieve themselves.They kept the chamber pots under their beds so they did not have to go far. In the past, when there was no running water or bathrooms or when people had large families these chamber pots were put to use.There were different types of chamber pots. Some were very simple, some very elegant and some were set inside a wooden chair.This type was common and slid under the bed, pulled out and used during the night. In the morning it was emptied and cleaned.Some of you reading this post may remember usin ......
Time for Inventory
This morning I felt I should give our home a big hug. I am trying to concentrate on our home despite growing concerns about what is going on in our country and the world. Now the tropics are brewing up storms and it just feels like rocky times ahead. I have gone to my quiet place to pray and find my peace and I found my sense that I need to stay steady and prepare our home the best I can to sustain our needs. Many of us may not be living where we want to live and dream of another place but for right now maybe it is time to shore up our nest as the birds do. They come in with sticks and moss and leaves and make the nest stronger.To make our nest stronger I ......
Taking it a step further
My last post stirred some feelings and desires of living a simple life including doing many things the old way.Some people told me that they want to live an old fashioned life but worry about what others think so instead they just yearn for a simple life and never move beyond that dream. This is sad to me to think that the only thing standing in the way is really nothing.Many people shared how they were living a simple life and how it makes them feel better and has changed their home and life.There is a calmness after taking that step off the fast train to nowhere. It is hard to put into words the difference of living a life of endless spending on things that have no real p ......
When did we stop caring
It was a hot summer day and Sarah had been busy planting trees on the south side of the house. She knew it was time to stop her work because the sun was more in the west and if she did not start supper soon it would be late.Sarah went in the house and put her sun hat on the rack by the door and went into the bedroom, stripped off her dirty clothes and filled her washbowl with cool water. She placed the pitcher on the wash stand and then scooped up water in both her hands and splashed the cool water on her warm face. She soaped up her cloth and washed and rinsed her face then bathed the rest of her body. After she patted herself dry she brushed her hair and twisted the sides of her hair ......
Using cloth in the home and soiled laundry
After I posted the last post I had some very positive emails and also some questions. The last post was about us going paperless. There were some very good questions.One question was what to do about grease? Instead of using a paper towel now I use a rubber scrapper or a stiff scraper if needed and put the grease in a empty jar and when full toss it out.Once the grease is cool, it could be put in a empty mayonnaise jar or empty bottles that oil comes in and just throw it in the garbage.Also certain greasy slush can be put into a plastic bag with shredded paper from your shredder if you have one and a good way to use up that shredded paper.Junk mail that is not glossy c ......
Less than Five Percent
Seems like I have been away a good while. I had to give my back some extra time to heal and sitting at the computer was not comfortable. A few weeks ago my lower back, a disc problem pretty much did me in. I think it was the large planter that I picked up and carried when I should have used a cart. But that is done now.This morning there was a commotion going on in the back yard. I noticed the birds were acting a bit different. The cardinals flew in to take a look at something as well as a squirrel and other birds. Charles and I have been anticipating the baby wrens to leave the nest any day.Sure enough the babies had left the nest and they were hopp ......
Is this place magical....
When everything seems off balance, eat Strawberries.I have this magical place in my mind that is calming and vintage. I am doing my best to make that place real. It will not happen today nor tomorrow and I have been working on this for quite awhile.I have found that what stands in the way is clutter. Not only solid clutter but mental clutter. It gets easier when that clutter can be removed.In my Magical place is Soap. Above is bath soap, laundry soap, shaving soap and shampoo. The five bars in the back are laundry bars, the two on the left middle are bath soap, the round one is a shaving soap and the greenish right middle is a shampoo bar. All of the ......
Simple Vintarian Summer
As Charles and I study and attempt to move further back in time to live more Like people lived in the past we find that we need to improve. We now realize how wasteful we have been throughout our life. From spending, to food waste to garbage waste. If we follow along with the time then we belong to the wasteful society. If we follow along the old fashioned way we will be less wasteful but even in the past they were not perfect. We can romanticize the past and try and make it perfect but it was far from perfect.However, if we combine what we know now with what they did not know then we can do so much better living like the past with better solutions to pro ......
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