Living Like the Past

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

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 ......

Have you ever given much thought about where your food, electricity and water come from?There were people trying to invent electricity in the mid 1800s possibly even before but in 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. That was 138 years ago from this year I am writing this article 2017. When you think about from the beginning of time 138 years ago is not a long time. It took years to go from an invention of a light bulb and electricity to pulling electric lines along roads to buildings and homes. We do not have to go back many generations before us to find our family members that lived without electricity and running water. Now if someone lives without electricity it is called living o ......

Living more like the past takes time and we rid, replace, move things around and we slowly work it out. This wash bowl will be moved to a more appropriate place because I want it to be used for the intended purpose for which it was made. What is missing in this picture is the television that once rested on top of this chest of drawers. We are happy that the televisions are gone and it feels so very different when we get rid of something such as an electronic. There is a peaceful feeling of a time once before.When we made a decision to live more like the past watching television was at the top of our list of something that we needed to change. We do not miss watching te ......

Our Vintage Life is getting more interesting each day. We have no problems sleeping is the only way I can describe our life.Our diet has changed since the garden has been producing wonderful fresh vegetables and fruits. Doing things the old way takes longer to do most anything so there is always something to do. It is a good tired because everything we are doing has a purpose.I am always chopping something.Sometimes it is to put in jars to ferment or from canning or to go in the dehydrator.Then there is supper...My two new favorite meals is mixed veggies stir fried or stewed or grilled eggplant.We are eating very little meat these days and we don't miss it nor are we making ......

This past week I did some canning. I preserve food many ways, dehydrating, water bath canning, pressure canning, freezing (which I am trying to get away from) and fermenting which I hope to expand my knowledge on the fermenting.But this is our time to do canning because the fresh vegetables and fruits are ready now. Actually all year we can preserve food because we have different seasons for different vegetables and fruits.This past week I concentrated on making conserve, jam, relish and applesauce. I will make some more jam and applesauce and move on to whole vegetables and meat. The reason I made applesauce is because I use apples in some of the things I can preser ......

Living like the past in today's world has some advantages. In the past some of the chores were heavy and we have the ability to use things from our time but use them like they did in the past. We have better access to things but we do not want to abuse that since we want to live as much like the past as we can.Since Charles and I are trying to simplify what we are doing we do take the lighter side and that means using some new things the old way.Then there are the items from the past that are just better. A pastry cutter with a pie crimper on the other end, a tea strainer and an egg separator.Little by little we have been replacing our kitchen tools with quality tools from ......

A scrap pot I made from a thrift store find. It was an old fondue pot and a single lid from something else.As Charles and I keep walking our path to a more practical vintage life I realize that the best changes are some of the little things that make big improvements. Simplifying is hard work and it can take a lot energy but as we have worked our way back to a better time it just feels right. We keep having these moments of Why didn't we think of that before. It is usually something very simple.We are trying to keep only items that have a functional purpose.Some people may think we have lost our mind by wanting to live as people did nearly 100 years ago.& ......

Onion Bulb in Bloom...Our life got a bit confusing the last few weeks but we are getting somewhat in a better routine.Our move to a more Vintarian life, our Sensible Vintage makes us keep moving backwards and backwards for us is good since we are not moving forward. At least we are moving. :)We are trying to get a more settled life and one that draws minimal outside resources. In the past people lived minimal because the use of electricity was quite different than what it is today. In the past it was to turn on a few lamps in the house or possibly a few ceiling lights. Houses had to be wired first for the families to receive the new electricity. This toaster is too ......

Some of you that visit my blog regularly know that my husband and I live an old fashioned vintage life. Those new to my blog, we enjoy doing history projects and doing much research about days ago that are a bit more unfamiliar. We did the one year study living like 1943 so we could learn about ww2 rationing. We moved to 1948 so we could study how it was after the war ended and we found we did not like it there because this is when more processed food was ramping up and gadgets and the like. It was a feeling of been there done that so we decided to study the year before most of the war rationing started, the year 1942 which is where we are today. My heart draws me furt ......

Wow, May has been a whirlwind here in our home. We have been so busy with normal things such as gardening and housekeeping but adding in finding ways to live with less use of electricity and water makes for some sore muscles.By the way those balls in the photo above belong to our pets. Our little dog Bernadette collected those for that spot. I am guessing she wanted to dry them.The right tools and equipment is very important to live with less grid such as having a way to dry clothes when it is rainy outside.We are fortunate that we have some family living today that are in their 90s and have clear minds for us to ask questions but our family in their 90s all lived rural, ......

As some of you know from my last article Charles and I are trying to live with minimal electric and water. We do not have city gas, we are an all electric home in the city. I am hemming a blouse while sitting in front of the window for light.I have concerns for our young adults today. Many of them are struggling with starting off on their own. Many if not most of them do not have any exposure to how things were done in the past. They don't know how to do without many things that they could do without because they have had them around them since they were born so they don't know how to reduce their bills.Since we have been living like the year 1942 it has caused us to think ......