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

My Favorite Blog and Books
Recent Posts
Living like 1943
IT IS 1943 AT OUR HOUSE My husband and I have been trying to live more like the past for quite some time but what we are doing now is a bit different.I received a email from a website visitor, her name is Catherine. At first we were catching up a bit and she was discussing how she was doing more things from the past. Then Catherine mentioned, “ I have been considering trying to live on WWII rations (food, gas, etc.) for awhile as a good experience.” She discussed how it would have made you thoughtful about using your car, not wasting food or anything else for that matter. My next email to her was, “Catherine, I love your idea about the WWII rationing.” Then after talking with m ......
Making Changes
I have been away for a few months and I wanted you all to know I am not sick and I am doing well. My husband and I made a decision that we were going to drop our television cable, our internet and a few other things. We simply were tired of paying for these things since these companies raise the bill continuously. We had enough and disconnected. We found other ways around this. We purchased an inexpensive digital antenna and we get basic television and all we need. We get ABC, CBS, NBC and our public television. This is not like our old television antenna in the past but it does provide us with television without having to pay a bill each month.I found that I could go to our public library a ......
Vintage Feels Better
The other Morning I snapped a picture of our little Katherine enjoying the sun coming through the window. I was thinking of how she was just enjoying the moment of the sunshine.Many of us often ignore the simple things of life that pass us by that could have been a brief but special moment if we would have just paused and taken notice.If we just start noticing the detail of things It could make a change in how we feel.I wish I could find a way to tell people so that they truly Get It to not wait until they are older to slow down and enjoy the small things in life that turn out many times to be great moments. We are just one, each of us one person and if we just take our time in every ......
Functional Order
Many people search for answers how to get their home in some kind of order and keep it that way. I have been working my way to functional order for quite some time. I am going to share the things I have learned along the way to help answer some questions from my visitors.I am by far not perfect with housekeeping but I have learned from my mistakes and we have been working our way out of clutter that we accumulated from different factors. We all accumulate items throughout our lives and during our time caring for my parents we ended up with extra items and clutter that they had acquired during their lives. Persistence is what it takes to get back to some kind of normal.In different arti ......
Staying Busy
One day my Grandson said, Grandma, you are always doing something. I have not posted in awhile so I thought I would just post pictures to let everyone know that I am still here. I sorted my curler drawer and cleaned my curlers. When I was a child every Saturday morning my mother would collect the hair brushes and combs and soak them in the bathroom sink combs in hot soapy water. We would take a comb and clean the curlers and clean the combs too. We live in such a busy disposable world that sometimes we forget to do these things.I Made some lemon raspberry Whoopie pies just because.My husband built a screen door for the guest room. We have Granddogs and Grandcats tha ......
Meals in the 1950's
Many things have changed since the 1950's and oh how I wish that I could just zoom back to that era because so many things just made more sense.Some people wonder what people ate in 1950 so I am doing a post on my memories of that time.If you look back at the cookbooks from the 1950's to the 1980's you might think that these books show what most people ate during that time. But in reality it was very different because many families continued to cook what their families had eaten for generations and many recipe books were full of new ideas.After world war II, food was changing. During the war food shortages and rationing brought in newly created processed foods. Some cookbooks with new food i ......
Washing Dishes by Hand and conserving water
I will tell you right up that this is a long post because I feel that it is important.We are back at it again with another living on less experiment. This time it is a further study on water rationing. There are people all over the world that have limited resources due to different circumstances. It may be food, water, electricity, gasoline or even soap if your budget is low and you are about to run out of money a week before payday.The least we could do is practice how to live with less in case there is an emergency and we should always have stored water for an emergency. It is our responsibility to have emergency supplies for our family. It is also our responsibility to not pollute ou ......
Truly living in your home
This is a hummingbird stopping by for a drink.My husband and I enjoy our home. Coming home feels right, it feels satisfying and comfortable. We would rather spend our money on needs for our home rather than eating a meal out or going on vacation. There is nothing outside our home other than visiting family that appeals to us because our spot, our place we call home is where we want to be.The first part of my life we moved often. I married at a young age and we moved several times because we were in the military. After leaving the military life we moved many times as we were settling due to job change. During each move my nesting instincts set in and I would make our home just that, a home no ......
Living in todays world but like the Past
We can move to a more simple era once we step through our doorway by making choices in how we live. These photos are very precious to me, please do not copy them or use them for any purpose. I use these photos so you can see glimpses of the past.There is a term used when researching one's family history called removed. Once removed, twice removed, three times removed etc. It is a term used to describe your relationship with a family member. This term has come to mind quite often lately as I have thrown in the towel to modern times and gone back to what my husband and I call the sensible days. I am old enough to remember a better time or era and since my husband and I have been rid ......
Spring Cleaning
I have many pages to put up on my blog but I have been very busy spring cleaning.Our raised bed frames are finally finished. My husband has worked on these over several weekends. He built them where the sides and top take apart. You can remove the top for full sun or put the top on for shade or small hail protection. The sides have mesh so the squirrels will stay out of our greens.The sage is starting to put out buds and it is always so pretty in bloom.I have been washing down everything in the house. The bed frames, walls, window ledges and most every surface I can reach.It always surprises me when I dust the doors and how the small ledges collect dust and dirt.I even washed my broom becaus ......
Baby care and diapers living in the past
Back in early times baby care was very important as it still should be today. The comfort and warmth or coolness of the baby was extremely important. They used practical wisdom and food, clothing, fresh air, bathing and cleanliness was of most importance.The baby was to be given pure outdoor air both night and day. They did not put too much clothing on a baby. The clothing was simple, warm, light in weight and not too tight fitting. Baby clothes have changed very much since the old times.Great care was taken with diapers. We used the softest cotton cloth and changed it as soon as the baby urinated or had a bowel movement. The bowel was discarded and the diaper placed in a bucket with water a ......
Everyday at Grandma Donna's, Come on in and sit a spell.
Salmon CakesOne day my friend Naomi and I were talking about old times. She was talking about how her mother would make salmon cakes before the family would travel. Naomi was older than me and when her family traveled there were no places to stop to buy food while on the road. Her mother would pack food and usually she packed biscuits, molasses, cheese and salmon cakes. They would stop on the side of the road and lay down a blanket and everyone would sit and eat. My mother on a road tripRoad travel was very different back then. My memories of travel were all roads we traveled only had two lanes and if you were out of a city you were basically on your own. G ......
Because I am vintage
We love using our vintage items in our home because it reminds us of our past.Many people collect items that are vintage and set them on a shelf and never use them but we use everything in our home every day and when it is broken and gone we try to find a replacement if one exists and we use that one too.Occasionally we will visit antique stores or rummage shops and will pass something and say, Oh I remember that and sometimes we come home with it because if we remembered it from our past it is probably better made than anything you can purchase new today.I prefer to use our older glass baking dishes because they seem to be better than the new glass products today.Many meals have been cook ......
Living with chronic pain and conditions with no clear answers
This article is written to hopefully help those that are suffering from some type of pain or condition physically or mentally. I am not giving medical advice and only writing from personal experience. It is for those that have already been to the doctor and explored a cause for their condition. The pictures in this article are things I have planted in our yard or made with my hands.Some of us must live with pain that cannot be explained, I live with chronic pain every day as do many others. Some of us have cognitive issues that cannot be explained. Often humans suffer from issues that come and go or stay and no matter how many medical tests they endure there seems to be no answers. I a ......
Where is home when that place you called home is gone.....
Or those you loved are gone. Recently I felt a mournful sadness and a desire to go home but there is no going back home because those that I truly miss have made their journey from here to eternity. I miss the familiar places and the roads that we traveled so often. I miss being able to hear their voices and the laughing that we often did when we were together. Everyone always had a story to tell and we shared most anything with each other. All of them gone one by one and then one day recently I could not swallow due to the intense feeling of grief because I could not go home. When I walk through the cemeteries and place the flowers on their graves I know that they ......
Living a Vintage Life
Living a vintage life feels like going home. My husband and I already live more simple than most but It feels better and more settled as we remove clutter and get back closer to that era that we remember was less complicated. It is taking a lot of time to find our way back because we have collected gadgets and technology that only waste our money. These items rob us of valuable time that should be spent doing repairs, cleaning or visiting with one another. This new technology seems to clutter our lives and strangely we are finding it difficult to rid ourselves of things that we have become accustomed to using but once lived perfectly fine without. We lived ......
Life With Electricity And Life Without Electricity
Over the years I have written many articles for this website. It started off as a place for genealogy then I changed my website to address challenges of living in modern America during hard economic times. The articles that I write come from within my memories of life as I knew it growing up and then the things I have learned along the way. I went about things sort of backwards. I was born in a fairly large city and live there until I was almost thirteen years old. We had electricity in the city but then my parents parted their ways and my mother and I moved to the deep south where people still lived without electricity. Some had it and some did not. I felt I h ......
Washing and drying clothes without a washer or dryer
Every day laundry is being done by hand all over the world. Some use tubs, buckets, rivers, stones, kitchen sinks, bathtubs, shower stalls, or outdoor wash areas. Depending on where you live, laundry is being dried many different ways. If you have come to this page, either you are just curious or you really do need to know how to wash and dry your clothing without an electric washer and dryer. This is me during the 1960's, I was a wife and mother and we did have electricity but no money for a washer and dryer. Even if we did, the house we lived in was not plumbed for a washer much less a dryer. But what we did have was running water, sun and wind. Either way, you have some dirty clothes and ......
Emergency Planning
Where are your Emergency Supplies? I am Grandma Donna and I am concerned that many people are not prepared for disasters. It seems that there are so many natural disasters occurring. Tornado's, floods, Hurricanes, Straight line winds, earthquakes, fires, droughts, blizzards and then there are threats that are looming and unexpected accidents such as train derailments and trees that for some strange reason just topple onto your house. I am posting this just to show basics and to hopefully inspire your thoughts on how to get your family prepared. I cannot cover all the things we do for preparedness and each person has their own needs. ......
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