13 January 1956/2010 “Busy Day”

This has been me the past few days.

As we finally have a proper internet connection, I have spent my non-housework/cooking time on the computer writing and uploading content for the website.

I don’t want to make excuses, but I spent quite a lot of time answering an Advice question on Scheduling and I have that posted to the website.

I also did quite a bit on the FASHION page of the website as a pictorial guide for we Vintage Ladies to use as a reference to build our own wardrobes, or just for fun! So, check that out.

I have started a Books link/page as well, where we can suggest books on the home, cooking, fiction, etc.

I am going to be doing more on the Vintage Lifestyle Lessons this week as well as some fun content on What Grandmother Knew.

So, I don’t want my blog to be an only a ‘what’s happening on the website’, but I have spend SO much time on it today, that I felt just a quick referral to it would be alright.

I think my next blog post will be another practical/cooking post.

I hope all of you are fine and happy and keeping up our little Revolution.

Until tomorrow the, or unless I see you on the Forums if I get a chance later tonight.

11 January 1956/2010 "Our Own Time Machines"

I was thinking of late, how I have begun to ‘return to the present’ while still holding very firmly to my past victories of 1955. And, in the last two posts, I touched on how that really one can use the modern world rather than be used by it. So, this has brought me to consider how we all, those who care to at least, have a sort of ‘time machine’ power in us. That is to say, we ‘vintage gals’, rather it be the love of old fashion, housework, the general feeling of community, have it in us to ‘time travel’ ourselves and our family to whatever decade and to whatever depth we choose.

The past, luckily for us, is right there for the taking. Unlike the present and the future, there is a certainty about it. It has gone by and been recorded. Surely, there are varying degrees of opinion on the accuracy of that record, but we can touch it, in a way, if you will. Old magazines, though hardly a true example of the average family (any more than our own modern magazines are!) at least show the level to which a homemaker or family aspired. It can be a sort of physical compass to give us something to shoot for.

We also have history books, fiction and non-fiction books and of course movies and early TV. With these sources at our disposal, add to that the growing information on the internet (to which I hope in time the Website will be a contributing factor, for I really want to get my ‘view’ in to counter all the ‘poodle skirt, Elvis, James Dean nonsense’). So, we have such a plethora of ‘fuel’ to run our Time Machines. We, then, have only to decide how far, how much, and to what extant will Vintage play in my life and that of my family?

As the end of 1955 approached I actually felt a little apprehension, as if when it was over I was somehow to be re-transformed into my uggs/shopping/take out modern girl I had once been. That is ridiculous, of course, because that person was no more the absolute me than was the 1955 me, yet what I admired about the 1955 me (if I may toot my own horn) was all I had learned and my desire, nay NEED to learn and do more. Did that stop when the Ball dropped and 2010 sprang forth? No! Here I am, writing this on my computer but sitting in my dress made by my hand, girdles and hosed, hair short, curled my every outward appearance more 1956 than 2010. This is the very reason I AM excited about this year.

Last year I wanted to get away from a present I began to loathe, to return to a time of manners and fashion and overall beauty that I longed for. Now, I realize, I haven’t any need to physically leave, for I can my my 2010 whatever I choose it to be. Perhaps, even in time, my wardrobe will begin to have more 1940 or 30’s outfits mixed in, it really is up to me (though I like the frugality and solidity of sticking with a decade in that realm, but more of that later on the website.)

I recently watched this film made in 1960. It was one of the first ‘modern’ films I have watched in awhile. Rather than it seeming silly in its special affects, it looked rather good coming form 1955. What I found particularly pertinent, is in this production of the film, at one point the main character, after having traveled to see WWI and WWII and the in 1966 (which had not happened at the making of this film) WWIII that ended the earth in nuclear destruction, he finds himself 10,000 years into the future. As he discovers the humans of that time (which luckily for him speak perfect English) are mindless children who eat and laze about all day. They have no concern for the future or one another only to eat, play and lounge about. He is disgusted by them and shouts that he would rather “die among the real men of his own time” who had the passions and proof of their convictions. I felt such a kindred spirit with him at that moment, for the young blond lazy future humans cared for little and had forgot about books and civilization. But, as we learn they are merely a part of the human race that stayed ‘up top’ after the destruction of the earth and were now being breed like cattle for the monstrous other version of humanity that had formed below the earth. He soon leads these humans to revolt and later returns to help them rebuild civilization.

These two worlds in this film were made up of the Eloi up top (or those closest to we modern humans) and the Morlocks, down below who controlled the Eloi. I saw a definite similarity in these two worlds to ours. We, the eloi, being groomed and prepared so when the siren calls us, as it does in the movie,(you should really rent it and watch it) the eloi (humans) stand and mindless walk towards the building run by the Morlocks. I thought, “Wow, the morlocks are the corporate run world of mass consumption and there we all are, we Eloi, wandering to our own demise smiling and empty headed to the mall”

I can’t tell you how akin I felt to the character in this movie. How, at first my growing disgust with our modern world turned to the hope and joy that we can REBUILD and remake a new way of living. To care again for individuals minds and intellect to choose to care for one another before ourselves and then with ourselves care enough to be mindful of our economy and to make our daily life special and wonderful not just endless tv watching, struggling at hateful jobs to lose ourselves in sloppy comfort clothes as we cram tasteless frozen food into our mouths waiting for our lives to end. To be finally driven, like cattle, from our peace and tranquility of our own homes to the consumerist world of the Morlock. Let’s stand up and not allow ourselves to be lead by the ‘siren of the instant gratification and the mall and consumer easy world’. Let’s take time to work harder but in the end be prettily dressed, smiling in clean organized homes eating fine meals with our happy families talking, reading, and being a part of our world. Don’t settle for a reality made up by the Morlocks where we wander aimless waiting for the siren to call us.

I am planning, on the website, to go more into depth about how we CAN begin to learn Vintage Lessons that we can apply to our daily life. So, check out the site periodically, as I am really attempting to upload more content as fast and best as I can. Thank you for bearing with me in that. The website has become, as I said before, a second home with its own to-do lists and allotted time in my day.

ADDENDUM to post: I don't want anyone to misunderstand my intent. I am really, for all intents and purposes, still very much in 1956, only I like and think it important to the 'revolution' that I take little sojurns into 2010 to help and make a new vintage possible for all of us. I hope that makes sense to any of you and fear not, I am not going to stop dressing vintage, nor stop cooking and cleaning and in fact am probably going to have even more skills in that realm by the end of this year. So, for those of you who like me to stay in the 1950's believe you me I am, only I want to peek out now and again so those of you who cannot travel back with me, might be able to introduce bits and bobs of 1950s into your own life.

9 January 1956/2010 “the siren song of technology; Who owns Whom?”

 

We had some interesting comments on my last post about technology and so I thought we could discuss it more today. We certainly live in a time where our day to day lives cannot really be untouched by it. The very fact I am able to sit here in my little corner of the world typing away and editing pictures for you to see and discuss, is part of that technology. But, what I think my fear is letting it get the better of us.

If we are wise, we will take the technology that is smart and makes sense and use it as a tool .It should have it’s place as Part of our lives not OUR LIVES. That is to say, my computer sits upon my desk and holds all the technology for me to do what I am now doing,but I want to treat it like a typewriter, a thesaurus, a photo album a printing press. I want it to be TOOLS for me to use to express and share my ideals. An improved version of what man has wanted since her first laid down marks and said, “this represents what I am thinking”. I don’t want it to be my ‘super awesome movie machine, my hour after hour music player mixed with endless movies and shopping and ads ads ads and more celebrity gossip than I can handle!” For me, that is not productive.

We CAN live a vintage life along side technology. Indeed, the 1950’s person loved the ‘new and improved’. But they had generations behind them of people of sense and ‘adults’ that knew you were not suppose to eat your dessert first, or sit for hours in ‘pleasure’ alone because then it is not special or taste wonderful, as you have overindulged.

When technology became part of lives in the past, we were not left to overindulge. We didn’t rush home and spend all day and night on our typewriters. The only real parallel seems to be the increase use of the telephone for the teens of the 1950s (the now older baby-boomer generation) who seemed not able to get enough of a good thing. There were many cartoons of teens talking on the phone for hours much to the chagrin of their parents.

Is this the beginning of our modern obsession with our technology? That it is not a help or aid to our lives but dictates and represents our lives? Is it just the level of ease in the technology itself, or is it that we have breed ourselves into the obsession with the new and better? I don’t honestly know. What I do know is that I am going to try my hardest to USE technology in my new vintage life, so that I have a life and not so that it becomes my life.

Over indulgence seems to be almost gone as a concept in the modern world, because it is commonplace to be constantly indulged. We can talk, text, sext, listen, watch, read, play, and be amused all the time anywhere. So, when will our pleasure centers overload? The special and unique is part of the litany of living. The beauty and pride of workmanship and achievement is gone when it is so easy and always there. We become lax and the wonderful becomes commonplace. WE have achieved the level of unhappy self indulged boredom that was once only the province of  kings. Those few over privileged whom were so  spoiled and agreed with that they found to be in the midst of everything anyone could want was the loneliest and saddest place to be.

So, the equality we have found ourselves working towards since the ease of technology is the pleasure to be as ‘bored as an over rich  person with no imagination nor accountability’. Certainly not what our 1950’s forebears had in mind.

I think we need to look about us and say, “how wonderful, look at all this technology, it can aide me to have a life I choose to make” then put the phone in your handbag until you NEED it. Talk to the person in front of you WITHOUT also texting someone else. Use your computer to research, write, and meet up in our digital community, but then shut it off and go cook, sew, bake, paint, read, hug your spouse or child. Take a walk or ride your bike. Have a life you WANT to express online on your blog. Really, can it be very interesting to read “I sat in front of my computer all day today. I talked and texted. Didn’t get anything done all day. So tired and frustrated with life, I wonder why?” because I can tell you why, Too much of a good thing is bad.

So, I don’t know if you agree with me or think me mad, but I honestly feel as if we should embrace the positive elements of the modern world to help us create and make a life we can be proud of, not just as a means to distract us, entertain us, and then express how bored, lazy, pointless we are. I really have felt since my 1955 journey that I am excited to use the technology, but to keep it in its proper place.

And on that note, here is my comic/drawing for today. (Click on it to read)

7 January 1956 “The Call of the Modern World”

I decided to answer this question from ZEBU as a blog post.

“So, as this first week of the new year comes to a close, do you find yourself at all chomping at the bit to do things that you didn’t allow yourself in 1955?” 

I thought this a very good question as now I am ‘allowed’ more modern things. I have to say, though, so far this has been more 1956 than 2010. But, there have been a few modern things done.

For starters, last night  we were having a dinner party and my guests were running late. I had scheduled the roast to come out and 'set' for it's 15 minute carving window and it took longer because they are in from out of town and they have a 2 year old child.

So, after they arrived, things had chilled a bit and I popped it all back in the oven, but I didn't want to overcook my lovely rare roast, so I took the pan drippings, poured them into a little jug and then, slowly turned to the 'silver beast' atop my icebox. THE MICROWAVE. I had just considered getting rid of it for good the other day and there it was, just taunting me, "Come on, I can toast up that jus in seconds, your guest are waiting, your roast is cooling" so, I gave in. Do I feel 'bad' or as if I 'cheated'. Not really. I KNOW a 50’s housewife would have a micro had they been around (well they were invented in 55 but were equal to about 10,000 dollars in today's money)

I have tried, on several occasions now, to watch TV. Not to sit and enjoy it, but to get 'fodder' for blogs. But, I find myself SO disgusted that I said to hubby, "I can't even watch it long enough to get enough info to blog about" he just shrugs and goes back to his books or piano (he couldn't care if the TV were gone for good).

I was appalled by some show about teen mothers, but couldn't watch it long enough to get info to blog about, I tried the 'news' which is a joke about what famous person slept with whomever. There is so much actual news and unrest going on in the middle east and they are talking about tiger woods and his bed sport, as if it could matter . Then it will be followed by a commercial  for a car or ice-cream and it will be so overtly sexual. How can they NOT see the mixed message? They take a sort of 'moral high ground' attitude to judge the 'famous' people, as if it mattered in the big picture, and then their sponsors overtly use sex to sell you products or tell you how fat or out of shape you are. So,  that was definitely an "I like 1955 more" moment.

I also, at my friends birthday party, joined in on their 'rock band' game. I just enjoyed it like a parlor game where, of course, you don't really talk to one another as you have to focus on the task at hand. But, it was fine and okay for when I am 'socializing' with her. I am sort of ambiguous about it. It is a fun game for a little while as long as we can shut it off and talk, play cards, that sort of thing. I think in 1955 they would have liked any ‘new’ thing, but I think the amount of time they would have spent on the leisure time would be much less than we do today. I think they would have had fun but in the context of a life in which you also socialize, raise a family, etc. Today we seem to live ONLY to be amused and passively so, so in that light I like 1955 more.

I still dress 'normal' for me which is vintage head to toe. Obviously I use the computer. Though, now with the website, I am still really using it as a typewriter, thesaurus, photo research tool. I have not had time to visit any of your wonderful blogs and I hope for now you will forgive me that, but when I am at the computer it is fun but it is work and then I need to care for my home, cook meals etc.

For the most part, I am not consciously trying to do anything 'modern' per se. I think I have just become so accustomed to the 'new normal' that it is just second nature. Which proves, of course, that we can change our perception of our lives and the way we live it.

I might try some modern books, but have not as yet. In fact I am now reading my 1885 copy of 'life in the garden' which is a wonderful book, as I am getting ready to start dreaming and planning out my new gardens for spring.

There is something I missed and will most likely enjoy again: period films. Though they depict the 19th century (such as pride and prejudice, sense and sensibility etc the BBC versions not those wretched 'Hollywood' versions that they film for a two hour movie) I think I might like to watch the Pallisers again, which I own. But, again, it will be a snippet here and there, as I am so busy and really love my busy work that I don’t always need a break from it, which I love. And now I am trying to draw a little each day and now starting to plan my garden for Spring that I am finding so much of my life is taken up with enjoyable living that passive entertainment seems the last thing on my mind. I would most likely feel fidgety and anxious as if I could be doing something better and more fun.

So, I hope that answers the question. As I have decided, this will be mainly a 1956 year, but I do want to keep finding and incorporating ways to enliven the present with the past and to pass it on to you so you may do the same. The Apron Revolution must happen in 2010, as I cannot fit ALL of you in my Time Machine!

I have included my next drawing challenge, which again is another cartoon. I feel a theme coming on. (you can click on it to enlarge it.)

Also I have a question: does anyone know how to make a button (well I can make and design it in Photoshop) but I need a way to link a button I design so that I can place it here and you can click it to go to the website and also one that I could offer on here and the website for any of you to place on your blog to bring others to our great community. If anyone can help me that would be great!

Until tomorrow then (unless my internet is out for few days) Keep those aprons tied and those faces smiling.

6 January 1956 “The Question of Normalcy, a Lady’s Jewel Box, and YOUR Style.”

The great Coco Chanel’s popular saying was look in the mirror before you go out and take something off.

For her time and social/economic class this held true (and might still hold true for for formal functions today) but for the masses, it should almost be the opposite. For we Apronites it should be: “Check in the mirror before you go out and put something on” that is a pin or scarf of hat or maybe, today, you try those gloves.

What is normal is relative.

This was once considered risqué and then became normal beach attire. If we wore it today we would look odd, but only by the context of those around us. But, if we chose to wear it and were proud of it, would it cease to be silly or odd? I think yes. Because, if it did not then we would have to say to ourselves, right now, “What others think DOES matter”. And really that should be true in our forms of conversation and habits, but if we are not dressing to specifically ‘offend’ (which by the way IS a valid form of dress in the modern world especially with the younger set)than there can be  no harm in wearing vintage or wearing ‘more’ on a daily basis, as it becomes YOUR normal. Then those bareheaded ladies, gloveless in jeans or pajama bottoms become odd to you. So, who is right? Exactly, you both have the RIGHT to dress as you choose, thus it goes both ways.

We presently live in a world where this is normal for a 10 year old girl. Yes, this might be a Halloween costume, but is it normal for a 10 year old to wear that and those boots? Exactly.

So, WEAR a full on vintage outfit and shun the stares as you smile in your own little world of YOUR NORMAL. Fill your jewel box with trinkets form the second hand store and then wear them. You will save them from the landfill and give yourself an entire world in which you CAN shop without feeling guilty. When one is living on a budget and can say, “I think I shall go out and get some jewels today” it feels as good as if they were rubies and diamonds. Those only have value because we, the human race, have assigned value to them. The same as gold or money. It is all a sham that we must all buy into, so therefore, it follows, we can make up our own rules in our own little worlds.

  So, grab grannies old clip ons encrusted with faux pearls and jade and put them on, smile you are now stylish. Walk with pride and beam in your own happy NORMAL world where a lady wears pearls when she vacuums and has a lovely bit of sparkle she can wear every day!

We can make our own rules and world. Don’t let others dictate style, fashion or the way to think or buy. It is your life and your ‘normal’. It is this very thought that  makes me okay living in the modern world. I have learned that we do not have to just “Yearn” for the ‘good ole days’ we can simply bring them back to our own realities. We don’t have to wear what is out there now, or watch what is on TV or think what they tell us. We have the power to make, choose, decide and create our own little worlds. So, we should do so and I say let’s do it in style.

I think those with children should almost feel even more obligation to this way of thinking, for to teach your child the power and confidence to live their life to the beat of their own drum and to care about others feelings and situation in life, but not care for the opinions or stares of the world at large, is very important.

Thoreau said, “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

Coco Chanel ALSO said, “a girl should be two things: classy and fabulous” and she also said,

“Fashion fades, only Style remains the same”.

So, you choose your normal; your STYLE and as long as you are confident, kind, and considerate you might be surprised who shows up at your house the next time following ‘YOUR STYLE”.

5 January 1956 “Time Travel Cartoon and Busy Day”

I have a bit more content and information on the website. Everyday and evening I will do my best to continue to add more. Do let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see or email me with what you would like to share.

I though I would share my day 2 drawing challenge (another cartoon, they keep coming to me) that I thought very fitting for this years ability to ‘time travel’ between 1956 and 2010.

You can click on the image to make it larger.

Well, I am rather busy these next two days, but will continue to readjust to my new fuller schedule. I hope all of you still enjoy our time together as I am still very excited to getting to know all of you more and to share in our new and growing community.

Let me know how you are doing today or I shall see you on the forums.

4 January 1956 “Spring Suit and Woman’s Roles”

I think I have found my February Sewing Challenge. I saw this image on one of our followers sites (check out the new links page on the website) Isn’t this simply Deevy! Though, I have to say I can begin to see the ‘slight’ look of the models as we grow closer to 1960 as opposed to our shapely girl from 1950. Even this Dior from 1955 (last year) Seems a little ‘fuller’.

This dress, by the way, is also so Dreamy! I don’t know what it is, but I just cannot get sick of a full skirt.  I will be talking about this more on the website on the sewing page, when I make the pattern and before then on the Fashion page.

I think the website shall really give me the ability, that I did not find on the blog, to elaborate over time on specific topics, such as this move from 1950-1960 of the female form and the thinning of  the silhouette. This could make it helpful if I decide to do a book (as I might do from last years 1955 project) from this year, I shall have so much categorized and laid out for me. It seems an interesting idea.

I think that my blog, here, however seems a good place to still hash out and propose ideas that then can be elaborated more on the website. They shall aide one another nicely, I hope. Will you, as my readers, find it odd to have both the blog and website? Does it seem redundant?

On that note, I figured I would also post my first ‘doodle’ here as well as it can also be found on the Challenges pages. The initial idea was just to do scribbles, but for some reason I keep seeing them as cartoons, not sure why.

I had a follower ask me today if I thought I would have had as much success and fulfillment from this past year in 1955 had I not had such a sympathetic husband. It really got me thinking. I certainly think it would have been harder, but it is a tough question because I am not sure I would be in a relationship with someone who was not supportive of me.

Of course, I also have a very, “I’ll just jump into a project headfirst, care I little where I land” mentality, so I tend to not hear or pay attention to others when they say, “That’s silly, stupid, odd”.

I am definitely happy that hubby is so sympathetic to the idea and we really seem to have hit a sort of easy running momentum. I think clearly defined roles in the home are not a bad thing. It is not as if either of us were forced into the roles we now have, as we chose them, so that is good. Yet, having freedom means not throwing out what works, therefore roles THEMSELVES are not bad, only if we feel forced into them. Thus, it makes sense if one has the freedom to choose the roles, then the roles themselves still work. One person the breadwinner, the other the manager caretaker. It makes for much more free time together and a much smoother running home.

I cannot imagine having a child normally, but since I have had this project my heart goes out to working mothers. It must be SO hard to both be out working and also have a child. I suppose if one could afford a nanny or some live in help, it might not feel as bad as you would feel your child has some constant and similar attention, but to have to work, shop, cook, take care of the house and the child, I am not sure how modern woman does it. We may scoff at old roles of womankind, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

Again, now we have the CHOICE, but when the choice arises, do we really have the choice of the old workable roles? I am not sure, as I have heard from SO many woman over this past year that would love to be SAHM or SAHW and yet feel they do not have the choice. Be it money or what have you. Again, I feel if we could ,as a society, look at what is important to us we might find that most of the THINGS we are working for our plastic/media/easy use items that are replacing our own free time and enjoyment. Are we working harder so the new flat screen TV with 150 dollars worth of cable a month can stay  home all day while we toil away at jobs we hate? Are those premade frozen foods happy and content in the freezer while we are out working so they have a nice cool home to live in? I don’t know. I think if many of us ask that question and really evaluate our lives we may be surprised at the answer.

If I may go back to the aspect of fashion, as an example, as we move closer to the 1960’s the feminine form is becoming slighter and more masculine. Soon, pants will be the norm. Now, I am not saying, again, that we should not have the CHOICE of what to wear or that we should be DICTATED to what the female form is, but the early 1950s silhouette is much more feminine in that is has a fuller look which is actually how women look. Certainly High fashion exaggerated this, but the daily outfit of a middleclass homemaker was a comfortable dress that allowed movement and yet still made one feel pretty and feminine. Do our current fashions dictate the role of woman as a free woman or as a sham version of a man who, in fact, also has to have the babies, cook the food and clean the house? It would be an interesting study, don’t you think.

I think the more we evaluate what is important to us as individuals, then a family and then a community, we will begin to see that focusing on rather or not this or that is fair we should be focusing on what makes sense and works efficiently. We then can be happy individuals who make a happy family of caring nurtured people who then go out happy into the community and want to help out there and be neighborly. I just feel somehow we have become consumer clones mindlessly trying to fill the void of our sadness with more items, having to work more to continue that practice and then no one is home to help and foster a better feeling at home. Then this breeds a sort of laziness of body and spirit. We might work hard at work but then in our own private lives we are lazy where we should be spurred on the most to make our home life wonderful and important to us. We deserve it and yet it is ‘easier’ to just veg in our ‘comfort clothes’ eating our prepackaged food watching others lives go by on tv. I really do think this action, which we have been told is our ‘reward’ , (we “deserve to relax now after work” )is just part of the lie of the 21st century. It is robbing us of our lives and happiness.It allows us the luxury of excuses which will never let us fulfill and make our own happier lives. We can spend a lifetime of excuses of why we did or didn’t do this or that, but why should we? Don’t make excuses, make a home. Then, whilst there you will be happy doing more and more and find yourself more in control and happier over all. And THAT is contagious in a good way. That is a pandemic that would really help this country and the world.

So, let’s not look at roles, such as homemaker, as an oppressed position but as a choice that SOMEONE needs to make in order to foster a better home and community. If we don’t want a country and life ruled by the corporate ideal or the media-fed version of life, then we had better pay attention and choose some role rather than letting the roles be chose for us.

3 January 1956 “Darling, the Baby is Crying”

These past few weeks have made me realize more and more how this new website is becoming more like a new baby. Now, I know there are plenty of mothers out there that would like to slap me across the face with a 2 a.m. feeding for making such a comparison, but it feels like it to me. To me, that is, as one who has never had to get up for a 2 a.m. feeding. But, I hope in this instance, you will allow me the comparison without too much fist waving.

I find I think about the thing all the time. When I wake up, it is, “Oh, my I have to try to get this content in. Oh, this would be good.” Or mostly, “Drat, how on earth will I get THAT to work”. But, up all hours thinking of it, working and soothing it, trying to calm it down when it goes haywire. Then, when you think you have just got it put down and relaxed you look down the road and realize how much MORE there is to do to get the darn thing to continue to grow.

I know I haven’t got to diaper it, nor pay for it’s college (though I might have to pay for its bandwidth in time). It is, to me: the childless time traveler whose head is always swimming with new recipes to try, cleaning products to make, dress designs to try and manage, that this extra element; this monster of a project has just sort of dropped itself heavy in my lap.

It probably started much like a baby with such silly sayings as, “Oh, darling, wouldn’t it just be cute if we had a widdle webbie site? I’t be so cooot and cwuddly.” and then BAM, there it is in all its unexpected need and my inability to understand half of what it wants from me.

But, much like a child, I am fond of it. I like to sneak downstairs when it is sleeping and peek at it and see if anyone has tried the chat window, or maybe some have signed into our group blog/forum. So, yes, like a child, in spite of itself, I love it. Now, I only hope, I can do justice to the things and teach it all it needs to know. There are so many elements I want to give it. A comprehensive understanding of art from before the war into the early 60’s. A complete outline of fashion with a nod to the ‘everyday woman’. Etiquette and when to dunk a doughnut or not! So much and I want it to behave for company of course. I don’t want its colors to stick its tongue out in blaring brashness, nor its words to be ill spoken or misused. Really, I want it to grow up and be a fine upstanding website I can be pride of that others are happy to have in their home. Certainly, a good goal for any young mother, right?

So, if you have indulged my metaphor this long, thank you. I do really get Goosebumps one moment thinking about the possibilities of the site and then complete terror in the fear of not knowing what I am doing. But, that is probably a normal feeling for a real mother as well. I do know like a child, it is helped in its growth by the community and I know this website/child shall be as well.

Already, on a quick chat, I came to the conclusion that it would be fun to do a book club on our site where we could all meet on EST. However, if that could not prove doable, since I will have an actual forum, we could discuss it on there.

And then there really is so much content that I need to just keep plugging away at and putting in. And ANY OF YOU who know or would like to share pertinent information, just email me and tell me and I shall put the info in on the appropriate page.

I also had a request from someone wishing to do my ‘Challenges’ along with me and I say, let’s do it! Any of you who would like to try my challenges or perhaps pose your own challenge for the year and would like the comradery 0f all of us to watch and share, email me and send jpegs of what you have done and it shall all go up on the challenges page and we can be awed and encourage one another for our jobs well done and our list’s being checked off. This is the month to make those yearly challenges ladies and then we shall all hold one another accountable and encourage us to ‘get to work’!

So, back to work for me. I think I am rather excited to indeed pile more on ‘my plate’ as it were. I have found 1955 taught me to challenge myself, reach the goal then rather sit back and bask in my accomplishments, get back up and do MORE. It does make for a fine and fulfilling life. And, if you have many things you are doing and trying, if you fail at some of them along the way, you haven’t time for a ‘pity party’ as you have far too many other things going to lose focus!

So, again, here is the link to the new website: www.theapronrevolution.com

I am going to be up loading the three drawings I have done so far for that challenge today.

I am also going to (with hubby’s help) try and figure out this forum business.

And, we also want to make time for a trip to our favorite used bookstore. I once posted about it. Which reminds me, I need a search bar on my blog. Oh, I’d better get that to-do list back out again. See you on the website sometime ladies (and gentleman)

2 January 1956 “Website, it is BORN. Shall We Help it to Grow?”

Hello ladies, here I am stuck between 1956 and 2010 and frustrated that I have not as yet let you peek at my website. Having now the task of transporting myself back and forth from 1956 to the present shall be technology enough, non? But, I am determined that with the posting of this blog you shall have the link to OUR new site.

So, the site. You will first off notice that I have used a rather outdated form of layout that you may recognize from old sites. That is, I have made the Header or top of the site static. It does not move. To the left of the site are the links to all the pages. This, too, stays still while the various sections open in the center. I rather like this sort of layout, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to get a scroll bar on the links page. So, you must realize this until I get it fixed. When you look to the left of the page you will see the various links such as Home Blog etc, now in order to see all of the you must click in that area (your curser will not show up either) and then use your arrow buttons to navigate up and down. It is easy once you realize that is what you do. It shall be fixed or else I will replace it with the body of the site being one large page with the links that moves with the main scroll bar.

Now, the content is spotty at best. It takes a long time, I have found, to design, layout and then fill pages with content. Yet, in its very sad empty state at present I see it as a wonderful project this year for all of us. IT is the vessel waiting to be filled with all our knowledge and good intentions. We shall do it and there are a few ways for you to be a part of it.

First, I wanted a Forum link, but all the free Forums have endless adds and noises and I cannot abide it, so my solution was to make a new Blogger Blog page which we can treat as a forum as we can have any of you be able to access it at any time and post. You just email me your email address, I invite you and then we can, any of us, access this page at anytime and write in it. So someone may write a question or query and post it as a post and then we can all go in and comment, thus a forum of sorts. IN time, if you wish, we can get a traditional forum page, but it does cost me, so I may have to wait.

Next, I wanted a chat space. A coffee klatch if you will, so I found a free service that has no adds and was the least annoying of any I could find. I have the sound off, I believe, but hopefully it won’t return when you open it. Anyway, I hope it might be a fun place to just grab a cup of coffee and have a chat. I tried to shut off the ‘emoticons’ as I think we are all able to express ourselves without a series of colons and parenthesis or a bouncing smiling face, but you express yourself how you wish.

Now, for all the other links, they are in the process. I have made it so that you can email me as much as you like and I will try to add content from you when it is possible as I do want it to be OUR site.

So, now, back to work. I am determined to get it up for you today, so we can get some feedback and have a good ole time trying it out and giving opinions etc.

As to the 1956/2010 question, I am not sure. I think for the most part it will be 1956 for me but for the importance of the ‘cause’ I shall comment on any modern things that seem relevant to the Apron Revolution, does that not sound a good idea?

Now, meet me there today and let me know what you think and what we can add or take away etc. I hope it can become a mixture of a ladies (and gentlemen too of course) club, an old fashioned magazine that actually teaches, a place to visit, or dream or unwind and of course a place to rant, but with civility. Oh, I have also decided we should have a link with Gentleman who are sympathetic to our cause, my hubby being one of the first. He is rather a good writer, in my opinion, and I asked him if he would consider a sort of ‘companion blog’ this year. He has acquiesced. I am going to also ask our dear friend 50s man, if he would like to have a link there. I might make the link on the site be called the ‘Bowtie Revolution’ how do you like that?

ADDENDUM TO ABOVE: I had to leave the above information to show how I have been laboring over this site, but my hubby was smart and darling enough to change it so that the links page to the left now has ITS OWN SCROLL BAR. You don’t know how I have been worrying over this! So, now there is no worry, just scroll away! I will need to change some of the content on the homepage to reflect that as well, but gosh darn it I just want it up so we can change and alter it together.

So, enough said, go to the site, let me know what you think, keeping in mind it is just the skeleton of the site and will grow over time.

I also just wanted to say (you know me, why say in one word when you can speak an entire volume!) that I think today, here, that this is a perfect 1956/2010 moment. I have taken the technology of the day and used it to help me create a new world we can participate in that will allow us to relearn, celebrate and integrate the good of the past into our today. Really, a new day being made. What other time in history could we do such? I am glad that we can use it thus and make the technology work for us and we not be the slave to it. ENJOY!

I will be off and on the site today as I am trying to get more content together. I also need to upload the two drawings I have so far for one of my THREE yearly challenges on the CHALLENGES page.

OH, and it is listed on the new site, but don't forget to check out my hubby's new blog. I have asked him to do a companion blog with me this year. He can be found at pipeandgrumble.blogspot.com

Well, if you are reading this, here we go to the website.

http://www.theapronrevolution.com/

31 December 1955 “Happy New Year and My Project”

I figured the end of 1955 and a year of changes was as good a place to talk about the sometimes feeling unnecessary world of flux. Change has always been inevitable for the human animal, for the world really. Though, we once, centuries ago, lived in the world that had an almost comforting static to it. We lit by candles for centuries, than oil. Fashions changed, but rather slowly as we had no means to know of the changes save through slow postal routes. Then the trains came and we found ourselves looking at time tables and taking trips that would take days in a few hours. Once the Industrial Revolution hit full speed by the end of the 19th century we never looked back. Two wars and a production boom afterwards left us so used to constant change, we felt it had always been a part of our lives. Today, change is so rapid, life itself so constantly turning over, we think little of it. A computer is ‘out of date’ in six months. Our cell phones last about as long. The tv must be bigger, now it must be flat screen, wait now we MUST have HD! Video games are evolving and a rapid rate so what we played with five years ago looks childish. Every six months, new and better and we toss aside the old and throw our money and hopes at the new, then next great thing…When will it all stop?! Is it good or bad?

There is a comfort and quiet calm in constancy. Though, in a way, it is a false sense of security for we cannot stop change. Every day we march one day closer to that ‘Great Equalizer’. Yet, while we are here, day to day, and in the moment, it does sometimes just feel good to stop. To look around us and think, “hmmm, do we need it all? Does my phone need to be a camera and a TV? Do I need to have a phone with me at all times? Why does it matter that I can buy everything at one place at an incredibly low price? Do I care about the consequences? Does any of it matter?”

These, of course, bring us to the root of the very philosophy of living. What does it all mean? What is the answer? I suppose, really, we can’t ever really know. But, we must know something and we do need to be here and in the moment.

We certainly want things, such as medicine to advance, but do we need to have and crave the constant flux of the modern world? Is there any comfort in always coveting and striving to obtain the new and tossing out the old? I am not sure. Weren’t we suppose to have MORE gadgets to make life EASIER so we could work LESS and just ENJOY LIFE? Yet, everyday are more and more things we NEED and cannot live without, so we are told. And of course we raise our children in this world, or sometimes the media, TV, and computer raise our kids and we all know what they want us to believe.

Exactly 365 days ago I woke up, shed my Uggs and jeans, put on my crinoline and girdle and thought, “Well, this’ll be an interesting diversion”. Little did I know then that the change I was eliciting was really a change of my entire world; a redub of the very fabric of my way of thinking and feeling and being. That was a change I was glad for. Though it began with my very modern sensibilities of ‘the therapy of shopping’ to find the best vintage this or that or how great it would be to own this, it slowly revealed to me the very framework in which our modern world was built was a shabby sham sort of way to live. To shop is to live; To buy to Be.

The more I looked back to those women of yesterday, the ladies I was trying to emulate in my vintage finds, the more I realized how much they were actually living. How they had made it through a Depression (which meant literally almost no food and making do unlike our ‘Recession’ where we were told to ‘shop to stimulate the economy’) and a World War and another war after that. Yet, they smiled, brushed themselves off, said goodbye to those who had fallen and never said, “Who is me, Look how hard I have it, I deserve some pity and some ME TIME”. Instead they made families and homes and dinners and kissed scraped knees and kissed husbands cheeks sending out the men not to war now but to the office. They laughed at dinner parties and thrilled at the latest gadget, all the while keeping their purse strings tight and setting aside their pin money so Johnny could get a new baseball mitt or Susie, her daughter, could go off to college.

These were real people who did not have it great but made it great. They took a barren lemon tree and made gallons of lemon aid. They have become, as many previous generations, object of respect and now true study. In our world of yesterday is old news, I want my new gadget, don’t trust anyone over 30, I have to stop and smile and look back. Thank goodness for the 1950’s. For they were there, on the pinnacle of what was to become the modern world and they said, “Yes, we can make a good world where people are free and treated fairly and we can trust and depend on one another”.

Tonight I dug out my old clothes. I put on the low rise jeans and the overpriced uggs; The jersey top and I stood before my looking glass. I thought I might cry or laugh, I wasn’t sure. But, there I stood an anachronism more now then back in Jan when I donned by 50’s garb for the first time. Had I become a joke of my former self? Was I now in costume or before in my girdle and petticoat? I don’t know. I found myself replacing those things with my handmade wool dress and girdle. I felt the comfort in my gloves and hat and pocketbook as I prepared to pop out to get some refreshments for tonight.

So, I thought standing in line, who am I now? Am I 50s gal? Am I that other person I left on the wayside those 365 days ago? Then, I spotted something. As I stood in the long Holiday line a young mother in jeans, rumpled hair and hoodie three times too big came in with her two young daughters. They were in their pajama bottoms and uggs. Their tops were similar hoodies and rather messed up. The older of the two girls, most likely around12, snarled at the world as she held that modern pose of the tween with her head bent as she mumbles into the tiny phone in her hand, her sleeves pulled over her hands and her loose fitting clothes hunching her poor posture all the more. The modern family: ‘comfort’ and slumped, together yet not talking to each other, mother as sloppy if not more so than daughters.

Then I noticed the littlest girl, maybe 8-9, kept looking at me. I figured, she was probably wondering why I was dressed like that, perhaps a freak. I had on my dress, hose and heels (despite the snow) my coat with the fur collar, my vintage matching dress gloves and my black hat with the veil. To me, I felt normal, comfortable. I shuddered when I recalled myself earlier in the Uggs and jeans.

I noticed the little girl smiled. She stood up straighter and fussed with her hair. I kid you not, she stood up and straightened her loose fitting hoody. Another woman, similar slovenly, smiled at me. When I left a young man actually rushed to hold the door for me. This was me. This is me. I am who I am because of what I have found and discovered from this year, but it is me. I am proud of myself and feel it is important to me and others that I am well groomed, that fashion means to me a way of expressing my moment. These fluctuating fleeting slips of days the slide off the calendar of our lives our mine and I am going to live as happily and as fully as I can in them.

So, now, here I am on the eve of either 1956 or 2010. But, which way is my calendar going to read? Well, after much thinking this is what I have come to decide:

In many ways I feel as if I have indeed lived in 1955 for the past year. Many habits and manners of my life, even speech and writing have changed. Yet, I feel so much that I want to share and take what 1955 has meant to me and bring it into the 21st century, but I also don’t want to let go of that beloved time. Therefore I have decided that my project should be this. Though it will take some suspending of belief, I am proposing I am, indeed, from 1955 and that I have been suddenly, without that aide of the normal passage of time, been transported here to 2010. The second decade of the 21st century. Yet, as it is important to me, I am allowing my self the ability to ‘travel’ back to the ‘new year of 1956’. I want to see what a 1955 middleclass homemaker will make of this new century. I want to see how the modern world will affect me. Will I want to take it all back in? Will I want the ease and easiness of passive entertainment? Will I find myself bored and see that I am happy continuing with the level of technology I have thus enjoyed? So, along with my blog, which will be my life as a 1955 woman in 2010 with easy trips back to 1956 for encouragement and continued learning, I want my website to be a part of this year’s project. It is very much in its infancy now. I have even begun to think of it much the way I would attacking a recipe or a sewing project. Look at it, dissect it, think about it, learn some more, read some more, then dive in and try it.

I want it to be an organic thing that will grow with me and you this year. I want it to be almost a child, I will set my hopes on it, but it most likely will want to go its own way and change and be influenced by others.

So, change; flux is it good or bad? We cannot hide from it, but at its current pace is it good or bad? Did we just about have it right in the 1950’s and now we need to try and reign it in? Do we want to go even further and have more faster and cheaper? Does the ultimate goal of cheapest at ANY cost really the main battle cry of modern man? I don’t know, but I want to find out. By looking to the past and even yesterday, can we find a comfort and happiness in a more static sort of life? Why buy new and cheap and better only to throw it away? Why not find an old technology and make it work for you? Do we need to be constantly amused or can we stop and amuse ourselves with a book or even by sitting and thinking and planning our own lives in the pattern we choose, but not what is dictated to us by mass media, advertising and corporate sponsorship? I don’t know. I have halted, in many ways, this rapid advancement and constant media connection for this past year of my life living in 1955 and found I was the happiest I have been. Can I live in a modern world as a 1956 woman and find my footing or will I be lured by the siren song of ‘new better faster cheaper NOW”?

So, if you are curious or want to join me in my challenges or perhaps you like to be amused, come along with me for the ride. I want the website to be a sort of learning and experiencing too where we can share and find old recipes, old technology, old thoughts and ideas all made new and comforting by the power we yield over their choice and implementation. I want it to be as my blog has been but to grow and expand more.

So, that is my coming project of 1956/2010, what do you think?

I DONT THINK A WOMANS PLACE IS IN THE HOME, I BELIEVE IT IS WHEREVE SHE CHOOSES TO MAKE IT. I DO BELIEVE IT IS A WOMAN’S RESPONSIBILITY TO DO HER BEST WITH INTELLIGENCE AND APLOMB ONCE IN THAT PLACE. It is our responsibility to be the best, think the hardest, learn the most and and teach by example as well as lesson. The modern woman Cannot go forward if she does not look back and pay homage and respect to those who have gone before. And just lip service IS a Disservice. We owe it to them, ourselves, and our daughters to emulate them as much as we can, learn their skills and then add our own intelligence and effort to them. Otherwise, who will the future generations have to look up to?

Thank you for listening to me this year. I have loved every minute of it and cherish all your words and thoughts. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and I am glad you have got to be a part of one of the best times of my life thus far. I hope we can make a better tomorrow.

Happy New Year (Website hopefully to come tomorrow)