Comments On Article: Being Present So You Can Remember

I'm from Michigan. My normal everyday breakfast is toast and peanut butter and fruit or fruit with yogurt and sliced almonds on it. And black coffee.

We eat three meals a day, and sometimes a snack. We eat our main meal at dinner usually around 6 or 7p.

I dry all of my cotton clothes outside on the deck railing and our dryer rack in the summer and the dryer rack and the shower curtain on hangers in the winter. Towels, jeans, and sheets get dried in our dryer.

A biscuit is a savory round piece of bread. 

Having tea is making a cup of hot tea or iced tea and drinking it. I don't really like tea so I pretty much never drink it except an occasional peppermint tea in the winter. 

To Susan O:  I'm so glad you mentioned Nella Last's War.  I love fiction and non-fiction about the home fronts of that era. I went to Amazon and read the description of this first hand account of the war by an ordinary housewife in England-----although her output of words seems amazing.  Her dairies from 1939 to 1968 sound fascinating.  I'm gong to order her books (there are 3) and will look forward to reading them. 

We live in Washington State in the U.S. in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula.  We are surrounded by rural farmland and have a bustling farmer’s market on Saturdays for all but 3 months early in the year, so we have good access to fresh, locally grown produce.  I freeze produce and can jams, pickles and tomatoes for our use throughout the year.

How many meals do you eat per day?  We eat three meals each day, but I only cook dinner.  I also bake all our breads and desserts, as well as make our yogurt.  My better half cooks himself a big breakfast soon after getting up.  He uses the calories up, as he is a long distance cyclist, even at 77 years old!  I don’t like to eat right away in the morning.  I usually have yogurt or cottage cheese and fresh fruit for breakfast after I’ve been up several hours.  I might eat a handful of nuts as a snack late morning.  My partner makes his own lunch, too, as he generally cycles late morning through early afternoon.  I would love to have dinner in the middle of the day, but his hobby doesn’t allow for that.  He generally has a light lunch when he gets back, often an apple with peanut butter.  I usually eat bread or crackers, cheese and fruit for lunch.  Sometimes I’ll make up egg or tuna salad instead of cheese.  We don’t eat red meat, so dinner is usually chicken, fish or a dish with legumes, a starch (often potatoes or pasta) and vegetables.  We tend to eat lighter meals in the summer and heavier meals in the colder months.  I make a lot of soups in the colder months.  We try to eat fruits and vegetables in season and right now, are eating all our fresh fruits and veggies from our garden. 

What time of day do you eat your main meal?  I cook dinner for us in the evening, and we eat around 6:00.

How do you dry your laundry?  From the late spring and summer into fall, I line dry most of the laundry.  I, too, will put certain clothes in the dryer for a short time before hanging them to avoid ironing.  We have a lot of rain in late fall through early spring and humidity is high, so I generally use the clothes dryer during that time, although I do hang certain items in the bathroom year around.

What is a biscuit?  A biscuit is a quick bread I make with butter, flour, and a little milk.  We like them bigger, so I generally use a large glass to cut them out.  We eat them with butter and jam.

Most importantly, what do you consider having tea means? For me, it means having a cup of tea while taking a break during the day.  From time to time, I’ll make a Kuchen, which I’ll share with my British neighbor for their tea.  We’ll have it for dessert or as a special treat for breakfast on the weekend.

Donna, you have inspired me to take a hard look at my scrolling on the computer.  It is such a time sink!  Thanks for the inspiration.

I'm in Michigan, USA 

My usual breakfast is oatmeal (hot porridge made from rolled oats) with a tablespoon of either flaxseed meal or molasses.  Never anything else added.  I have coffee or herbal tea in the morning too.

I usually eat two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, the latter being the same thing as supper.  My main meal is dinner/supper in the evening, usually just after dark.  Living this far north, that can vary from around 6:00 in the winter to as late as 10:00 in summer.  I rarely eat lunch unless particularly tasty leftovers are calling to me from the cooler.  If I do get hungry in the middle of the day and don't have leftovers waiting, I'll grab a quick snack like fruit, nuts, or jerky.

My family called the evening meal "supper" until I was about five years old (I think that's what my dad grew up calling it) then after he left the term became "dinner" in our household.  Others in my part of Michigan all seem to say dinner for the evening meal now, regardless of whether it's the main meal (technical definition I believe) or whether they prefer a "heavy lunch and light dinner" approach.  I actually remember asking about those words as a fairly young child, after noticing that friends families and my maternal grandparents all called supper dinner.  My mom said dinner was the biggest meal of the day, which most people eat for supper, so either word could be used.  My dad basically said "dinner" was a formal term that implies a fancy table setting, and poor country folk eat supper, lol.  He seemed to have fairly strong feelings about "dinner" snobbery.

I dry my laundry outdoors when the weather allows, indoors on a rack when the weather pretends it's going to allow, then starts raining.  I don't own a dryer.

I'm the odd one out here, because a biscuit is a hard on the outside, slightly doughy on the inside, small round piece of unleavened savory bread, cooked on a cast iron griddle or directly on top of the woodstove.  They are made of wheat flour, cornmeal, and water, with a little salt and pepper.  If you're lucky, you might have butter or jam to put on them, but they aren't bad plain either.  That's the only kind of biscuit I grew up with, but as an adult I learned that in British English it meant what we call a cookie, then about the fluffy kind which I would now call southern style biscuits.  But nowadays, after years as a pet parent, sitter, and trainer, the first thing that comes to my mind for "biscuit" is actually a dog treat!

Having tea means drinking a mug of hot tea, either "true tea" or herbal tea.  If I were having iced tea I would specifying that.  If I were having a snack with my tea I would specify that too.

I never knew before reading this thread that tea could mean the evening meal to anyone, anywhere.  I thought "tea" referring to a meal was a light snack in the afternoon, between lunch and supper.  Now I'm wondering why I've never noticed it used that way in books or on British TV shows.  I will be watching for it from now on.

It would depend where they are working.  When we had scaffolding up around the house, I took the tea out & they sat on the steps to drink it.  (It wasn't raining!)  If they are working in the house, the people we've dealt with would rather drink their tea in the room they're working on rather than sit at a table in a different room.  I may be wrong but I think most English people would offer a tradesman a cup of tea. It's interesting that it's not traditional in the USA.

Grandma Donna wrote,

Noelle W, welcome to posting on the forum, I am happy that you are here.  Thank you for participating in our comments as we learn from each other here in this forum. :)

Sometimes I do not catch everyone's first comment and if I have forgotten you, welcome to the forum. :)  Donna

I wish I could go completely offline for October! I will need to use my computer for banking and my writing work. I am planning to change the settings, though, so that I have to manually connect the computer to the internet. That way I can treat it like a typewriter when I am writing, and will only need to "connect" when I upload to my publisher or need to access banking tasks. Fortunately, I deleted all of my social media a year ago, so that is a habit I don't need to break!

Does anyone penpal? I participate in a lot of penpal and mail art swaps as a hobby. If anyone here is interested in penpaling/letter writing, I would be happy to swap addresses before October (via email, so nothing is "findable" on the web, of course). I am also a participant on a free penpals/swap website if you would prefer that route. The site is swap-bot.com and my handle there is JennyWrenn. My email is jennywrenbb at Gmail (it's not wise to write out an email properly due to spam bots). When I left social media, I replaced it with pen friend letters and I find it much more calming and enjoyable compared to the endless Facebook or Instagram scrolling. For myself, I am open to both US-based and international penpals. 

Kate E., I'm a tradeswoman in the US (I write, but I also have a gardening business). As a small one-woman-operation tradesperson, my experience is that most (but not all) of my clients offer refreshment. I have one client, a British-American woman, who always insists that I have a glass of wine and crackers with her after I am done working. Another gentleman usually brings out tea or lemonade, especially if it is hot outside. Ice water is the most common refreshment I am offered, and the most creative refreshment is from a younger man who enjoys trying different sweets from around the world so he always presents me with a selection of his newest finds while I am working. I have two clients, both women in their 70s, who always present me with a bowl of clean water with a towel to wipe my face, along with a cold drink, after I finish. I think we still have the hospitality culture for tradespeople, but that it may be a bit more casual so we don't think about it if it isn't offered. 

I live in the southern U.S. and I can remember helping my grandmother fill a pitcher with ice water and taking a glass out of a tray and placing it on a bench in the shade when she would have someone working outside.  She told me that it was hot and they will need some water.  My mother used to take water or ice tea out when someone was working outside.  We have a farm and since water is now available in bottles we put a cooler out with water in it and sometimes also soda and if they would be there all day maybe a simple snack like packs of crackers.

One thing I do is tell someone who will be at the house where the bathroom is and that they are welcome to use it.  Do you let tradespeople use your bathroom.  Where would they go if they couldn't use it?  Bathrooms are a problem when you work from your car or truck.

We had a whole crew of tradespeople here last month.  The person in charge made it clear to us that the crew would not being using our bathroom, even if we offered it.  They had an issue with a homeowner who did allow bathroom use and then was unhappy with the state of bathroom afterward, and now as a company they don’t allow it — workers have to drive to a gas station or fast food restaurant to use the restroom (where we live that wouldn’t be very far to go).  He also said they had issues in the past with animals getting out of the house with a worker so they just don’t allow it anymore.

We were having our worst heatwave of the summer while they were here, and my husband offered ice water, but they already had a cooler full of ice and beverages.  Which is probably good, as I don’t have any plastic cups to use outside and I imagine glass would be hazardous with people moving all around while working.

In the past tradespeople have used our bathroom and accepted ice water from us.  Also, we have someone we hire at least once a year for a variety of small jobs, and he is fine using our bathroom, drinking our water or a cup of coffee, and even letting me hand things up if he’s working on a ladder.  I think the difference is having established a relationship with this person, versus a crew showing up for a big job for a few days.

I might be interested, but have a question first.  I'll email you.

Kimberly,  I think you may be right about the kind of relationship affecting such courtesies now that I think about it. We try to hire friends or friends of friends who are often more receptive to such kindnesses. 

We live in a rural area, the nearest place with a public bathroom is about 9 miles away.  We try to call people who have been recommended by friends or family.  So that might a difference. 

I have been preparing for a technology free October. I am looking forward to being mindful and not wasting so much time scrolling.  The 1930's study has shown me that simple living truly is the best. I will fill the days in October with household projects, one of which is de cluttering and cleaning out the storage room in our garage. After that is complete, I will be do the same thing in the house.  It is a bit overwhelming to think about since there is so much stuff to go through.

How many meals do you eat per day? My husband and I typically eat 3 meals per day, breakfast , lunch and dinner. We will sometimes eat twice a day, brunch and dinner.

What time of day do you eat your main meal? Our main meal of the day is dinner usually eaten at 5pm.

How do you dry your laundry? I use a dryer about 50% of the time and drying racks and clothesline.

What is a biscuit? A biscuit is made with flour, butter and milk/buttermilk. 

Most importantly, what do you consider having tea means? Having tea means drinking a cup of hot tea.

Angela

Gosh, I would always allow a tradesperson to use our downstairs loo and if they left it in a mess I just wouldn’t use them again! That said we have a small notebook with the names and numbers of those that they have done a good job in the past so tend to use the same people every time. We are a fair distance from any alternative facilities and certainly wouldnt want anyone weeing in our garden etc.

How many meals do you eat per day?  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner? 

Growing up in Indiana, it was breakfast, lunch, and supper, but my husband always called it dinner, so somewhere along the line, that's what I called it, too. My husband will eat whenever I feed him, although he will make his own breakfast or lunch. We eat 3 meals each day. I usually eat oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, leftovers or a large salad for lunch, and then dinner.

What time of day do you eat your main meal? 

We eat our main meal when I am done working. On days when I work at the office, it's around 5:30. When I work from home, it's a little earlier.

How do you dry your laundry?

I usually start my laundry in the dryer and then hang my clothes on a rack. I dry towels in the dryer.

What is a biscuit?

A biscuit is most like what US southerners mean when they say "biscuit." Although I live in the Midwest US, I have strong Southern ties, and I grew up eating lots of Southern foods.

Most importantly, what do you consider having tea means? 

Tea for us means drinking hot tea, mostly the herbal kind. Sometimes I will make iced tea in the summertime. 

I have found myself scrolling less and less. There is only one other blog that I read faithfully besides Grandma Donna's these days. I spend so much time on the computer for my job that I don't want to be on it any more than I have to. I have been doing more reading actual books that I usually get from the library or the thrift store. I rarely buy books brand new. 

- Usually 3, breakfast lunch and dinner (or tea) but sometimes brunch and dinner (and a snack before bed)

What time of day do you eat your main meal? - usually 6ish unless for some reason we are eating out in which case often lunch (and no dinner)

How do you dry your laundry? - outside on the line, weather dependent, or on an airer indoors

What is a biscuit? - a sweet crunchy "cookie", like shortbread or ginger snaps

Most importantly, what do you consider having tea means? - generally a cup of tea, with a biscuit, but occasionally the evening meal. 

I am ill health "retired" and am definitely struggling financially, especially as I am still supporting my youngest daughter to some extent. 

We have some native coneflowers and their seed heads have been drying for a number of weeks on the plants. I went out today and cut them off and put them in a vase, for a dried arrangement for fall and winter. I am trying to use everything I have. :) We're transplanting the Mother's Day carnations I grew this year, from their pots into the flowerbed. I hope they bloom next Mother's Day. 

We harvested sweet potatoes yesterday. We had too many sweet potatoes last year so we only planted two-thirds as many this year, but we ended up with the same amount as last year! 

Stephanie, in my family there is no such thing as too many sweet potatoes LOL.

I have been trying to keep the daily schedule of one day for each thing and I am going back to Gr.Donna's "one room proper". Because I live alone things just don't fall into place for me otherwise.

We are coming to the end of our garden harvesting, I still have beets to pickle later but everything else has come to a slow drip.   We did get some much needed rain this morning and are predicted to go back to warmer weather for a bit. Leaves are turning and falling so it is time to start planning Fall and Winter things.

I am prepping to recover the seats of dining room chairs and will be looking for a way to make window quilts.  I have open concept rooms in the living area so cannot close off rooms but I can window quilt the windows.

Right now I am trying to get rid of as many plastic food storage containers as possible, replacing with glass jars and such.

I buy cottage cheese in plastic and want to try transferring it to glass jars, does anyone have experience in this and will the cottage cheese last as long? I store my cottage cheese upended for longer use.

I generally eat all three meals because I have children, lunch is usually smaller for me. If I had it my way we'd eat our main meal for lunch, but the kiddos aren't here so we do main meal for dinner and generally eat left overs for lunch.

We hang dry our laundry outside in the summer and inside in the winter. We went almost 3 years with no dryer, but recently have moved and have started using it during this middle season where the sun doesn't get as high into the yard as it used to. Soon we'll be firing up the pellet stove and we'll go back to drying indoors- we have lines that can be strung up and we can hang 3 loads of laundry to dry overnight and then fold and be put away during the day. 

A biscuit here in NH is a round of fluffy bread, but I know in England it's what we call a cookie and having tea for us is a mug of warm tea.

Every day starts with tea in bed and The Times online with the crossword. 

A pot of tea, proper loose leaf tea, a knitted tea cosy put on the pot, and the pot topped up with boiling water for a second cup, served with just a little milk.

Tea bags make vile tea, scummy, under-brewed, tasting of paper pulp, and full of plastic particles. 

Visitors are offered tea as soon as they arrive, family gatherings always include catching up over pots of tea. 

I have a late breakfast, muesli in summer, a small bowl of porridge for most of the year with a few mixed seeds and some fruit added, berries from the garden or freezer, we are enjoying the last of the blackberries.  We have half of a small banana and half an orange every day. We have apples from the garden and will be foraging apples in the roadside hedgerows soon.  I add a bit of tinned or dried fruit in winter. DH makes our daily glass of whole milk kefir with a bit of turmeric powder added. 

For a leisurely brunch, we add a slice of toast and marmalade, or boiled, poached or scrambled eggs from our hens. He mades our bread and I make the marmalade and jams. We have a pot of filtered coffee after breakfast

Lunch is often homemade soup and a sandwich or something on toast. I made a batch of blitzed parsnip soup this week, with onion, celery, the last of the marrow, a tablespoon of red lentils and some vegetable stock powder.

We have pot of tea late afternoon with a slice of homemade cake. I fill the oven when we have a Sunday pot roast, a baked pudding, this week a large apple crumble which will last for several days, and a bara brith or malt loaf, flapjacks or rock cakes. 

Dinner is the main meal at about 7p.m. We have egg or cheese dishes using our weekly 4oz ration of cheddar, fish from the freezer, or our £5 weekly meat ration padded out with pulses and plenty of seasonal vegetables. We have yoghurt with jam or honey if we have a pudding in the week.

When our main meal was our school dinner in the 50s and 60s, tea was our economical, filling early evening meal, something hot in winter, jacket potatoes cooked in the Rayburn stove, soups, toast and dripping, cheese sauce on toast, pancakes, and lots of scones. 

Biscuits are sold in packets, gingernuts, rich tea, digestives, shortcake, malted milk, Nice, garibaldies, and fig rolls, now full of nasty ingredients Granny would not have recognised. I very rarely buy any, though we have tea and biscuits in the interval at the monthly film shown in the local Memorial Hall. It is included in the £5 price. 

I watch the weather forecast for the best drying days to do a load of washing, and dry it whenever I can, on the rotary line in the garden. The Midlands can be cold and wet. When necessary I dry clothes on hangers on the kitchen curtain rail by the back door, or on the clothes airer by the radiator in the hall. I have a dehumidifier which helps to dry clothes economically, and a tumble drier for the bedding. I use vintage linen towels, even old linen tablecloths as towels instead of cotton terry towels, because they are soft, absorbent and dry very quickly. 

What an interesting topic - it's fired my imagination and I've learned things I would never have known.  I live in Brisbane on the northside which is in southeast Queensland, Australia.  We have a sub-tropical climate, so very mild winters and very hot humid summers.

So...how many meals per day?  We have three mostly, breakfast, lunch which is our main meal and tea (supper).  I eat very little for breakfast and husband makes his own apart from Sundays when we have a cooked breakfast.  Lunch time which I suppose is really dinner time (?) is our main meal and we swapped to doing this when he retired - it works way better for us and also better for our metabolism - this is eaten between noon and 1pm.  It's always a lot of vegetables and a protein with fresh fruit afterwards or else a small serve of icecream or tinned fruit and jelly (jello I think you call it).  Jelly to us is jam.  In the evening, which we refer to as tea, we have a very light meal which might be a sandwich, or homemade soup or similar depending on the weather, and this is usually around 7pm or thereabouts.

As for drying laundry, always on the line outside in the fresh air and sunshine.  I don't own a dryer, and haven't for many years as they chew up so much power and I prefer the smell of fresh air and sunshine.  If the weather is wet, I defer the washing until it clears or else hang it on the second line under the back deck (verandah) where it gets the breeze but not the rain.

A biscuit is either something you make yourself or buy in a packet, sometimes sweet, sometimes savoury but nearly always crispy/crunchy - something like your cookies.  What you call biscuits are scones here, eaten either savoury or else with jam and cream (a Devonshire tea), honey or butter.

And of course, having tea is a light meal at the end of the day - but can also mean smoko (afternoon or morning tea which equates to a cuppa and perhaps a biscuit or slice of cake or even one of those scones).  Husband drinks coffee, I don't like it and prefer tea, preferably loose tea leaves in a teapot with a cosy over it to keep it warm.  My mum, gone nearly forty years now, crocheted me two lovely ones and I use them constantly, still in great condition.  We have never referred to 'tea' as just having a cup of tea at all.

Donna,

           I don't want to sound morbid but what your brother told his daughter about probably not being here in 10 years really got me thinking of how short a time that really is.  That's only 3,650 days or 87,600 hours, but since a person should sleep on average 8 hours a night, that puts the usable hours down to 58,400 hours. If a month has 30 days, we have about 480 usable hours in a month. So this makes me think seriously about what I want to do with those 480 hours. Some have jobs, which may take another 160 hours monthly in addition to commuting time.  All things considered, that is not a lot of time. So it causes me to think about what would be the best use of that time. There are so many ways that we could spend our time, but what is the most profitable way to use it? Do I want to keep doing the things that I am doing? Are there ways I could simplify my life so that I'm not spending my precious hours on things that I don't want to be doing? Do I really want to spend so many of my precious hours wasting them being online? It makes me think about how I can make my life more enjoyable, what simple things I could do to have more fun and joy in my life. It makes me think about what I want to accomplish. What kind of legacy do I want to leave? How do I want to be remembered? This might be a good time to get busy on the Swedish Death Cleaning. It makes me think about what is really important to me. Another thing to think about is that our usable hours can be further depleted or wasted if we get sick or get a condition that prevents us from using our usable hours in the way that we want to. So I need to use some of my time to take care of my body as best as I can. It is a lot to think about, but I don't want to waste time worrying about it either, as worry never benefits anyone. Thanks for your fine post, Donna.

Becky Sue

This was such a great post!  So much to think about!  Whenever I read Donna's posts and the comments, I am so inspired to do better in living a purposeful life. To answer the questions posed :  

How many meals do I eat each day?  

Usually 2, brunch, an evening meal and a snack, sometimes 2 snacks.  I live alone and have always been a "grazer". I don't always make what would be considered a "meal", such as meat, potatoes and veg or a casserole.  Many times the main meal is a sandwich, soup, some fruit or a bowl of chips.  I'm an going to make Overnight Oats to keep in the fridge and eat for my brunch.  

What time of day do I eat my main meal? 

Usually sometime between 6pm and 8pm.  Then I generally have tea and a small snack before bed, about 12.

How do I dry my laundry?

For many years, when I lived in the PNW, I did not own a dryer and dried everything outside in sunny weather and inside on not-sunny days.  I now live in a senior apartment in Colorado which has a washer and dryer furnished.  I've used the dryer about 4 times in the past year and now it is unplugged so not to waste electricity.  I wash 1 load per day, about 3-4 loads a week and dry them on a rack that sits in the shower and hung up on the shower rod.  People here think I'm a little nuts to do that but it's what I prefer ( I also never use the dishwasher which was furnished.).

What is a biscuit?

A nice little quick bread made with buttermilk which tastes lovely with butter and honey or with sausage gravy poured over. 

What do I consider having tea means?

To me, it is drinking a hot cup of black tea with cream and stevia which I do several times a day.  I don't like coffee and learned to drink tea at the knee of my Scottish grandmother. 

So many wonderful comments! I've learned so much and am encouraged to keep on with the '30's lifestyle as much as possible and to prepare for a screen-free October.  Thanks to Donna and to everyone who contributed.  ????

I find it fascinating to see so much difference and varied opinions in this wide world of ours - the call from kids and husbands alike asking 'what's for tea' wouldn't resonate in the US or so it seems as ours would be asking what the meal would be, be it a main meal or a supper kind of meal.

Can you tell me - what is sausage gravy?  I couldn't imagine that on a scone such as we have and you call biscuits so your biscuits must be a bit denser than our scones?

Grandma Donna Wrote,

Pam, Sausage gravy, yum!  I will be happy to explain sausage gravy and as I live in the deep south of the united states, this is the perfect place to live to experience sausage gravy.

First off, if we talk about sausage gravy we must talk about the biscuit.  The biscuit is not a sweet cookie or nor like a scone.  A biscuit here in the United States is related to bread.  It is similar to a scone without any sweetener or currants etc.  I actually make our English scones from my southern biscuit recipe and just add a bit of sugar and currants, dates or raisins.  Sometimes neither, just sweetened scones.  The difference in sweet bread verses sandwich bread.

There is a biscuit recipe on my blog.

The sausage gravy here in the south is spooned over a biscuit that has been sliced opened and possibly buttered. The sausage gravy starts with patty sausage, or sausage that makes patties, in a form of something like ground or minced beef but it is ground pork that has been made with sausage spices. 

The meat is cooked in a skillet and then removed from the skillet and then in the drippings, flour is added to the pan and fat drippings, salt and pepper is normally added and then a gravy is made by adding milk or water or half milk and water. It all depends on what part of the united states that one lives.  Some people will make a white grave and some a light colored brown gravy, but either way the cooked sausage meat is added back into the gravy and then spooned over the open biscuit.  

Long ago here in the south, many people farmed and this was a commonly eaten for breakfast or at supper and now some diners will serve it at different times of the day.  

I hope that this helps, I will do a post on sausage gravy to show what it looks like and how it is made.  Donna :)

Biscuits and gravy are delicious, especially if the gravy is well made and not floury tasting.  Another Southern dish I love are grits with a pat of butter.  Haven't had either one in a long while.

I grew up eating biscuits and gravy at a local breakfast/lunch diner.  It’s still in my home town, and even though it changed locations, it’s still in a strip mall and still gets rave reviews.  My mom never made biscuits and gravy, she wasn’t from the south.  I had to learn to make a proper biscuit as an adult.  I don’t make sausage gravy anymore, but it’s a great inexpensive meat stretching dish!

I’m continuing to prepare for our tech lite October.  My regular watch gives me the time, so we replaced the battery and I’ve stopped wearing my smart watch.  So far what I miss most is looking at my wrist to see the outside temperature.  I’ve taken to estimating the temperature based on how it feels rather than knowing exactly what it is.  This bothered me at first, but I’m getting used to it.  The other thing I miss is seeing the UV index.  This information is also on my phone Lock Screen, so if I really want the information I can look at my phone, but I’m training myself not to do that.  I’m trying to simply experience the weather.  In the end, there really isn’t a big difference between 97°F and 99°F.  And I’m starting to think that precision, that desire to know everything exactly isn’t a positive in my life because it seeps into everything.

Oh — my analog watch face is small and my vision isn’t what it used to be when I first got the watch almost 40 years ago, so I find myself saying/thinking of time differently, more like when I was younger.  I’ll say, It’s almost 11 instead of knowing if it’s exactly 10:56 or 10:58.  Or, It’s about half past 2.  It turns out it really doesn’t matter!

I perused the atrium at the library, which is where they keep magazines and newspaper.  I was happy to find the local newspaper, several regional newspapers, and the New York Times!  It won’t be convenient to read the newspaper at the library, but it won’t cost any money and will keep me away from online news.  I also realized I can listen to public radio for news, on our vintage radio — this also seems in keeping with the 1930s.

Thank you so much for explaining the sausage gravy (and the biscuit), things are much clearer now.  It's a real learning curve to hear things from different countries although the UK and Australia/NZ are pretty much the same, give or take a few things.  Oh and I've never understood what 'grits' are either - any explanations?  

I realise there are things we have and eat/use that you wouldn't have a clue about either so works both ways.

As for watches, I have never had the need for a smart watch - I have a lovely 'good' one which I rarely wear, still analogue although run by battery, but the one I wear most it of the old-fashioned wind-up every day kind - it belonged to my mum who died way back in 1988, and has never missed a beat.  Just tells me the time, nothing else, apart from the date, and suits me just fine. 

Wow, the responses, Donna, are amazing! 

We live in Colorado and I am trying to recover from a long term health condition that my cells burn energy faster than they make it. So I burn through calories...and water.  Here's my response:

What do you eat for a normal everyday breakfast? 

We eat homemade turkey sausage (I've made this for over 20 yrs from ground turkey), either oatmeal or oatbran, I sprinkle a few walnuts husband has blueberries in his, then I also cook up some kale or collards for calcium.  Sometimes in the summer I cook up zucchini. It seems to add to the fiber and fill me (really my husband thinks I am a bunny). We have a splurge meal once a week on Sat that is half a package of bacon and homemade pancake or waffle.

How many meals do you eat per day?  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner?  We eat B,L,D and 2 snacks. Keep in mind my meals are very small and my snacks are nutrient dense otherwise I dance between hypogly and such. Not fun. Husband likes to eat, a lot, but he goes to the gym even at our age, and he burns a lot off.

What time of day do you eat your main meal?  We eat B about 7:30 or 8, L is about 12:30 or 1, and D is about 5.30 or 6...unless I got distracted and add on 30 min. These are I Love Lucy moments as things are flung around trying to get food into my tummy quickly.

How do you dry your laundry? No, I have a little drying rack. Sometimes things are outside, but the weather changes here so quickly I got tired of running outside to rescue laundry.

What is a biscuit? :-)  A homemade from scratch gluten-free yummy when warm with a dollop of jam thing.

Most importantly, what do you consider having tea means?   Heating hot tea and having a treat or snack about 3 or 3:30

Blessings,

Dee

Pam,

Grits are a dish made from coursely ground dried field corn (maize) which is cooked with water until soft.  If you've had cornmeal mush or corn (maize) polenta, it's very similar to that.  I think the main difference between grits and cornmeal is that cornmeal is usually ground finer, but there is overlap between what can be called "grits" and "cornmeal."

A less official difference is that cornmeal mush is often served with milk and sugar, whereas when I hear "grits" I definitely think of a savory dish with at least salt and pepper, maybe cheese and bacon bits if you can afford them.  I do know people who like their cornmeal "served like grits" which means they put salt and pepper on it instead of sugar.  Also, there is a particularly strong association of "grits" with southern cooking in America.

Wow, interesting the interpretation of grits - and good to know as we often read about them but I had no idea what they actually were.  Thank you for that, Tea S.  I don't eat or like polenta so probably wouldn't be a candidate for them either. :-)

Well, just a few things. Breakfast here in NZ North Island for kidlets depends when they show up - Weetbix w milk & kiwifruit/bananas, toast w Marmite/honey/pbj, eggs. Packed lunches are leftovers for grownups, soup salad sandwiches at home.  Homemade bread 1/4 time, Homemade vegetable soup 3/4 time, hearty salads all winter.  And a piece of fruit for dessert. Here,  in season citrus, bananas, pineapple, apples etc.  Dinner is protein w starch and greens.  And of course always dessert, always based on fruit and dairy.  It's called tea, but I can't. It's dinner. 

Biscuits are crunchy crackers.  Can be sweet but almost always savory.  Pudding is any dessert at all; what Americans think of as pudding is custard in NZ

Funny thing is biscuits may be sweet or savory, but a cracker-biscuit is always savory.  

Dee S, you're obviously a kiwi and living in NZ yet your name at the top says you're from the United States?  I agree with your food talk, mostly how it is here too.