Comments On Article: Peek Week Thursday, This Life Of Mine

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Grandma Donna, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful account about your life so far. 

Your family home being lost to fire must have been a terribly traumatic experience for you all.

It has been so lovely reading a new post from you each day. I imagine it must be taking up a lot of your time to do so.

The photo I'm including is one of my favourite photos of my grandmother Ruth and her younger sister Moira from around 1930. They lived in the bush in northern New South Wales without electricity or running water. My grandmother disliked this photo as it was during the great depression and she had bad memories of doing without from this time and felt that they looked very scruffy in this photo. I love it because it has captured the essence of life in the bush from this time.

I love the pictures you and Michelle K shared! I think if we pay attention we can learn so much just from watching and listening! I loved hearing my grandmothers and great grandmothers talk about their lives. I hated using the outhouse…. Shiver… I always knew there was a SNAKE down there waiting…. ???? I always made my cousin go with me because one could run for help if the other got in trouble! Ha! 

Thank you for sharing.  I enjoyed your story.  

I imagine there must have been a major sense of a "before" and an "after" in your life with the house fire. A colleague of mine just lost his house in a fire. Insurance will cover the home, but I know he and his family have a long road ahead and we started a fund at work. Thankfully he and his family were safe, but it must be so upsetting to lose everything in an instant. I try to remember that I can't take it with me and live somewhat minimally.

Your red hair was lovely... and I love seeing the short 60s hemlines! Your maternity dress was adorable.

This is such a valuable retelling of your story G Donna ????. My belief: a very real part of why we as a society are in trouble is because we/they were not wise enough to turn around. I don’t really blame folks because it’s been taught that it’s normal or “the American way.”  We paid the last of our debt (mortgage) about 6 years ago and have done everything possible to avoid any debt since then.  If folks were taught to avoid debt and to save for the things they need/want, they’d be in a lot better situation.  
Our grandparents sure were treasures- I miss mine too ????

Thank you for sharing this. 

We have a small home. We like it. My husband and I often talk over dinner how we chose not to overspend like so many others. So we've had many friend & colleagues who lived much bigger than us. I'm sure they wondered why we didn't eventually buy a huge home. We can take care of what we have because it's not too big.

Thank you for sharing your story.  As a long time reader, I remember parts of your story, but this was a nice summary of what makes you who you are.

My upbringing was somewhat different.  In both my family and my husband's family, all of "our people" mostly were born and raised within 50 miles of here.  My husband and I moved around within a 8 mile radius of where we grew up, and are in fact living in one of my grandparent's house that my grandfather built.  My dad built our house.  He was a real do-it-yourself person, and was always working on building or fixing something.  Sadly, those skills escaped me.  My Mom was definitely not the homemaker type, but I did learn to sew from her.  I figured out how to cook on my own at a relatively young age as I made dinner because my Mom worked once we were in school.  As a young adult, I taught myself to do the boiling water canning method, but I never learned to use a pressure cooker.  Maybe I should try that too.

I do remember both my grandmothers being good cooks, and I always looked forward to visiting them.  Both sets of grandparents lived in town (which were small towns, but oh how they have changed over the years!  I do not remember either of my grandmother's canning, but I know they did.  Both had gardens, but that was long before I arrived on the scene.  My maternal grandparents saved their wartime correspondence from WWII.  My mom and her sister were young when grand-pop was drafted, not too long after they had bought their house.  Wow, was my grand-mom busy!  Painting everything, sewing all their clothes, sewing clothes for others for extra money, gardening and canning huge amounts.  Makes me feel like a real slouch!  But when I was her age (in her letters), I did more then i do now, 

We are doing ok, but have been really stepping up saving where we can.   We are not big spenders, I cook most of our meals, I need to step up taking care of the house and would like to garden more.  My husband is good with maintaining and repairing the cars and taking care of the yard etc.  I love to hang out the laundry and wash the dishes by hand.  That may sound funny, but we live in a neighborhood/town where absolutely no one hangs out wash, most people I know use a dishwasher, many people hire a lawn service to mow their lawn, and people have no idea how to do basic maintenance on their car.

Thank you for your blog!  I have gotten a lot of ideas from reading it over the years, and I like the ideas shared in the forums.

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Donna so fun to read this and I remember that red headed friend at the SOH.  My daughter in law gave me a subscription to Storyworth last Christmas.  Each week I am sent a question about my life.  Things like, "What is your first memory" "Your first job" "What was your favorite meal".  I write my response add an old picture or two and send it in.  My kids have access to my responses and they love reading my old stories.  At the end of the year I will be sent a book full of 52 stories about my life.  I hope your children are keeping copies of your stories.

I'm so glad you had the life experiences you had and that you generously take the time to share them. Everything was modern in my life growing up, so I wouldn't know these things without someone telling and showing them to me. And they are so valuable!

I wish we had more limits like the TV going off at night. I used to mail our mortgage payment, but the post office kept losing it and I had to pay for tracking. With the economy so shaky right now, I don't want to spend the extra money for tracking and now I pay the mortgage online because there's no office to go to to pay it. How do I get away from the Internet? It's always on and always there and necessary in many ways. I couldn't buy some things I need without the Internet. But I wish the Internet would go off at night! 

I'm getting used to cooking when the electricity rate goes down at night. A few nights ago I made a three-hour slow cooker rice pudding, the next night I made some beans for beans and greens, the next night I made a buttermilk cornbread, and last night I had some milk that was getting old so I made a scalloped potato casserole. I'll cook some carrots later and pick some lettuce and green onion from the garden for a salad, and that will be our dinner tonight with the scalloped potatoes and some cornbread. I like waking up in the morning and having food ready for the day, even if it was hard at first to cook at night when I wanted to relax and read.

I love the short dresses. I think they look very cute. And you were so cute in them! It's an inspiration to see the dress you sewed. I think I could make a simple dress like that, though with a longer hemline for today's styles. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story!