There are many sayings that home is where your heart is, there is no place like home. I feel that the home is where you feel love, where you feel refuge and safe. We are living in a complicated time where many people are struggling to stay in their home because the cost of living today has gotten out of balance. This post is going to be different than I normally post but I feel necessary.I spent the entire month of August 2024 working on a budget only to find that we have a very serious problem for the middle class folks in the United States. Many people that are retired are now having to come out of retirement and go back to work. Young adults are struggling to ge ......

Above is Bernadette in early morning looking out her lookout window. We all have our routines and so does Bernadette. I feel that we are in a time that we need to concentrate on our home and family. There is much tension here in our Nation and many places in the world. Wherever you live and you are reading this post, this is a time that we need to concentrate on home, family and also neighbors. The world is mixed up and instead of worry, we should strengthen our home by putting our concentrated efforts in repairing, mending, stocking our supplies and get real with our budget and meal planning. Also, we are changing seasons, so this is an especially ......

I said in yesterdays blog post that I would post how I make my all butter pastry dough pie crust.Here in the United States when I was taking home economics in school, I was taught to measure by measuring cups and spoons. This is how I learned, but as I have gotten older and many years of baking, sometimes it would turn out just right and sometimes not. I have learned that by purchasing a small scale and measuring by weight I could make the same recipe over and over with it being most always the same. Sometimes the weather is a factor but by measuring by weight like people do in much of the world, this is how you get more accurate results. The recipeThis is th ......

I made a tiny cover known as milk jug cover, in the past these were made to keep gnats out of milk. You can make them any size you want or need and use them to keep flying insects from getting into the fresh milk. This summer we have had our share of gnats and flies. I made a very tiny one this week for a small dish. Glass beads are used as a weight to hold the cover over the sides of what you are covering. In the show Downton Abby they are used in the downstairs kitchen to put over the milk jug. This is my mini cover.This is a tiny bowl that is a medium size salt dip or condiment bowl. So I pulled out some beads to match the bowl and decided ......

When I study history and looking to find what it was like inside the home, I feel the calm and simplicity. Not all homes were this way but I actually feel the people that are in my research through the diaries and maybe that is because of my family that came from these eras that I study and I remember that something about them that we do not see as much today. It feels important to say that it is up to us to make this kind of calm home that once was. It feels like grabbing hold of something that makes complete sense. I wish I could show you or explain better of the things Charles and I have learned studying the home front and the home from 1900 through the 1940 ......

The photo on the main page is Brussels sprouts, tomato and boiled potatoes with butter and green onion. My paperwork projects outgrew my small desk for the time being, so all week I have been spreading out budget books and ledgers and paperwork onto the dinning table. Each time we eat we have to move the paperwork and then put it back, but it has been very productive. We have been actively on the new budget and meal plan for nine days now. We do our best to buy whole food and non processed items, but there are some things such as bacon or hot dogs and some condiments that we do buy that are processed. We do not buy cookies and chips and soda or things like that. We ......

We are getting more comfortable in our living more like 1940. It takes time to do the research, a job of it's own, but necessary. There is much math to do when figuring the budget and one must learn the charges on all of the household bills. We need to know the charge or fee of anything that flows to our home. On our electric bill we need to understand the kilowatt hour charge fee, and on the bill it should have that fee listed, possibly listed KWH. If it is not listed, a call to the electric department and someone should be able to give that information. This is all important to know the water charge and sometimes there ......

This Budget is going to be much more than just a budget. I feel that we are living in a time that we need to give much thought how to go forward, and at least for Charles and I, going backwards is what is making sense.I have been studying pieces of history in handwritten diaries, journals and budget books, old letters and years of shredding older family members bills and paperwork that they never got rid of. After their death it was left to us to discard their paperwork. I have been reading the old newspapers on microfilms and years of asking questions to people older than I am.Today I see many people struggling with finances and it is not a wonder why. We are li ......

We are getting to a point that we are feeling more like the year 1940. It is like we have given ourselves a gift. That feeling of something that we have been wanting for. It is the only way I can explain this study.I feel peaceful, steady and calm and I do feel this is a gift and a sign that this is what we are supposed to be doing at this time. A small cream and sugar set that I found at a the thrift store looked to be like many people seem to feel today. I passed it up and kept walking through the store because I was there just browsing for certain vintage items that I keep my eye out for such as an ink well. I finally gave in and ordered one after th ......

The lure... the bait... we sniff... we walk around it... the voice tells us that this is the most wonderful thing that can happen if you just sign right here.....The latest electric refrigeration above, the 1940 new model. The signs are everywhere, Don't Wait for cash, buy now on Terms. You can even add a new electric range, it can be added to your Time Payment Account.Adjust your brain that you are living in the year 1940. Try to use your imagination what that was like.....Your old reliable ice refrigerator that you have depended on for many years. Notice the ice block in the upper top right hand side. They are trying to convince you that your old diffic ......

We tried to do a normal as possible 1940 week. I did not check all of the boxes but that is okay, I am figuring it out as I go. This week I got off to a good start with washing on Monday and ironing on Tuesday but I did not finish the ironing, actually I only ironed just enough to get Charles through because we had been so busy still trying to sort through our closets, drawers and many other things. We have this area between our counter and the stove where we keep a trash can. I pulled it all out to clean this space and each time I take a photo to show you something on my blog I see dirt that I missed, I guess that is a good thing. So my new advice for clean ......

We continue the study of 1940 and are trying to live like this year of 1940 as best we can considering it is the year of 2024. When we start a history study, we slowly change our home, shift things around, remove what they would not have had in the year we are studying and this year is 1940. We try to make our studies fun as we go and we lean to the good parts of this time in history as far as our home life. As the studies move along, we do learn of things we do not like but we do not have to bring that into our home. Going to the movies was a very popular thing to do since there was no television in many if not most parts of the country. People di ......

I truly mean when I say that it is a good feeling to live more like the 1940's. It was a beautiful time aside from the war. As soon as Charles and I made the decision to go back and study the 1940's again we felt better. As we started adjusting our home again we started feeling a relief. All week Charles has said, I am not kidding, I just want to stay in this era. He was gathering the books he wanted to read the very first day we discussed it.In yesterday's post, I said that I feel that in some way they were more modern than we are now. I keep thinking about this and I feel that maybe it is because what they did have was well made, they had a lot of pra ......

Todays post is about looking into what a home would have possibly looked like in 1940. As I have written about before it all depends on where someone lived, city, town, farm etc. So what I have done is made a way so you can look at what could have been purchased during this time.As a reminder, the study of 1940, the home was built pre 1940 unless they were building it right then. The home could have been built in the Edwardian era or the Victorian Era, it could be a 1920's home or a modern 1930's home. Many people farmed and lived in a farmhouse of any age. They may have furnishings from far back and added new things along the way b ......

When you sit and sew you can do a lot of thinking and remembering, especially if you have lived awhile long. I was the old fashioned child, the old soul as someone might say. I had a draw to the old things from the time I can remember. This is especially odd since I was the daughter of my parents.Above is Guy Lombardo and my parents. You can do a search of Guy Lombardo and find that he was a famous musician, especially during the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. Their group was four brothers, and they had other musicians that played with them during shows, my father being one of them. My dad could play most any instrument he put his hands on. Dad playe ......

Yesterday's post about clothing and how many articles of clothing one needs in 1940, a new discussion has come up in the forum about the number of undies that someone should have during this time in history.Panties, is mostly what we are referring to, because on the website Vintage Dancer it was mentioned one would have only 4 pair of panties in 1940. The title of this post here today, is the unspoken way. Some of you in the forum have what you remember of why only four pair of panties were needed, thank you for posting, and yes the reason is because people hand washed their panties throughout the week. We all have our unspoken way of doing things so there are ......

Everyone gets a bit excited around our house when we start a new study. These studies are good for us in many ways and it keeps us from getting stale like old bread.I have decided that I will do another peek week this week as I did the beginning of last year. I will do my best to post each day this week to help get us on track for this new study. This is Monday July 1 when I am posting this article and talking about what we will be doing today on our first day of the study of 1940.July 1940Today I will be removing all clothing from the closet and chest of drawers as well as Charles Chifforobe. This chore will cause another chore later because I must go through, donate or store the ......

We are now starting our new study of the year 1940. Charles and I have been shifting furniture around and removing some items and packing them away. We like to get the feel of the year that we are studying. So we remove some items that they did not have during the time that we are studying with the exception of our heating and cooling and necessary items of today. This is not necessary to do, it is just something we do to make the study a bit more exciting and we also get the house extra clean from moving furniture. :)For those that will be doing this study with us or just reading along, there are some things to remember. The skills of an adult keeping a ho ......

Here we go again, we are leaving 1917, we gathered some facts while we were there but the news was slim due to war news and little other. We left some things unfinished in the 1940s so we packed up and went back home to the unstudied year of 1940. On July 1, 2015 Charles and I took an adventure back in time and did a one year study of the year 1943. We wanted to study rationing during world war 2. We started the study on July 1st instead of January 1 because it took us a while to figure out how to do this study. This led to more history studies that had us jumping all over in time. This is what it was like, Oh, let's study another year! Where do you ......

Our handwritten home expenses journal from 1880 to 1942. Throughout my blog I do my best to share information from the historical items that we have, especially journals and diaries. There is a lot of chaos in this world and this is nothing new. However, it does seem that it is more than I have seen in my lifetime. Charles and I study history, the home front especially, it seems to us that the people that make it through chaos and hard times had strength that came from practicality. These are the people that rolled up their sleeves and understood what it takes to grow food, to sweat, to understand what living basic really means. Basic does not mean t ......