18 April 1955 “News, TV, Beauty, Transference, and Bunnies”

Here is a movie life magazine from April 1955. It is interesting that the main image of the the star (Marilyn Monroe) is actually artwork and not a photo.

The first large-scale Asian-African conference, also known as the Bandung Conference, took place between today April 18 thru April 24, 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. It was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place between April 18 and April 24, 1955. The conference's stated aims were to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by the United States, the Soviet Union, or any other "imperialistic" nation. In later years, conflicts between the nonaligned nations eroded the solidarity expressed at Bandung. [I guess these areas of the world were just not meant to be aligned. Though they saw we western cultures as imperialists, and I am not defending all our practices, it is interesting to note that these areas in this conference certainly did no better at managing their own countries. That is not a judgment good or bad, merely a fact. An interesting one. ]

One of the conferences concerns was over the trouble and conflict between the USA and Communist China. [again, isn’t this funny, considering our current state of affairs with China?]

This is an interesting ad for the children’s program Mr. Wizard’s World. It looks really interesting and it seems the level of science he explained to young children is very high. Are any of you old enough to know this show? I know they redid it on Nickelodeon in the 1980s, but am told it was not as advanced as the 1950s version. Here is an episode:

I found this little mini article interesting on three points: 1) The talk of a woman in a career outside the home and her chance for advancement. 2) the beauty tips and advice 3)The use of an Asian-American model. Three things one would not ‘expect’ in a 1951 magazine. Interesting stuff and the models hair is darling, I like this cut, only with really short bangs. And, honestly, this is just good advice that no one gives anymore. I mean, look nice. Take a few minutes and comb your hair and put on lipstick, it costs very little time and you ARE better received by those around you and it could help your career, as it shows you are put together and are able to manage your time to be both on time for work, as well as looking good. Subtle cues, that even if they are looked at as old-fashioned, still trigger a subconscious response in all of us. Something to think about.

I have been worried of late that my finding comfort in living in the past might become me merely hiding from the reality of the day. It would be so easy, for me at least, to just slowly meld into happy days of homemaking, gardening, petticoats and sewing. I thought I would miss the ‘outside’ world more than I do and have found I am even more self-sufficient even in entertaining myself.

It is true, then, that I can and could continue to live comfortably in a world of my own making, but there is a part of me that feels a pull towards sharing this joy with others. To somehow touch those who may feel the same way, or merely feel lost or unhappy or just a modern ennui and not know why. For, really, that was me. I wasn’t depressed or unhappy with anything in particular, I just sort of felt as if life was going along and I was caught in the current of it. Now, the simple direction of planned days is like a canoe and paddle: I can manage and navigate the eddies and currents of Life’s river. You see, I feel caught between happily slipping into my own little comfortable shell of self-discovery where I could slowly slide into a quiet contentment and yet I feel impelled to share my findings and to help other’s see the glory of such simple things. That is the balance, for sure. Or, perhaps, in my sharing it makes the doing of the new ways, the scheduled days, the continued learning of long forgot skills, more enjoyable. Although, I do have to say it would be so easy to just slip happily into my little cocoon I am building in my home and garden and happily hum away to myself for my remaining days, petticoated and gloved, snipping roses from the garden, cleaning, cooking and baking and entertaining. I can see how Tasha Tudor did it. Yet, I really feel that these skills, this very valid area of education IS important and COULD really help a lot of people. So, on some level I feel a responsibility to share that knowledge I am gaining. To let others know how sometimes it is the ‘new Prozac’.

Now, I know that homemaking is not for everyone. Yet, I really think a lot of homemaking skills can help anyone even if you are in a career and full time job. Saving money on home cooked meals prepared ahead of time, having clean and well cared for clothes to look nice and not have to buy more, all of these are good for anyone in any walk of life, even if you are rich enough to have a house full of servants, you would want them to have such economy and skill to make your life nice, so I honestly believe that the Homemaking Skills really do touch a part of all of our lives.

I also have noticed, somewhat, among some of my female friends a sort of ‘oh, well that’s not real work’ feeling. They are not coming right out and saying it, but honestly I feel that they somehow look at my project sometimes like I am a darling little child or an interesting pet, ‘Oh, that’s cute’, I can almost hear them think. When, honestly, does serving food to strangers somehow have a greater value because it gives you actual money? Isn’t it actually easier to just get up and go somewhere where you are told what and how to do something and then just go through the routine of it? You are tired from it, but you can just sort of zombie your way through it, without too much thought, collect your paycheck and go. Homemaking involves constant thinking and really no money (except what you are saving your family of course)I find it amusing that many people think housework is mindless drudgery, when in fact you make the schedule yourself and can change it up how you like to become more efficient. Now, if you are middle management, a receptionist, or a cafe worker, how are you going to do that? You HAVE to do what your boss tells you and you have to run a business the way someone else says. The ability to run and manage a home, create and design a world in which you and your family dwell, plan, shop, prepare and serve meals on time, these all require brains, talent and skill. Yet, so many people, ESPECIALLY women, seem to think it is mindless as they stand behind counters handing out food or sitting at desks typing into computers. I am not saying that they are not skilled, and I know work is hard and challenging, I have been a working girl but I also see Homemaker as a real career. One is not better than the other, but they are both valid. I have been a business owner and being a homemaker is very akin to that in personal management, creativity and guts.

Then, again, maybe my own modern thoughts on homemaking are still similar to these and I am merely transferring my own feelings onto them. They probably aren’t thinking like that at all and I am just trying still to show myself, to prove to me, YES this is real work. And you know what self: IT IS! Perhaps I need to start each day with an affirmation. Maybe between getting the coffee on and the frying bacon I should stand outside and breath in the morning air ( a homemaker is often the first to breath the fresh lovely morning air) and herald the day with my ‘creed’; outstretched arms in my dressing gown I shall call out to the great homemaking spirits of the world, “I am Homemaker, HEAR ME ROAR!” Well, if the petticoats and white gloves don’t make me the crazy lady of the neighborhood, that might. So, again, the very problem I may have found with what I think others perceive of me may, in fact, be my own coming to terms with preconceived ideas and norms. Another layer of change and personal development from time-travel. Maybe university kids should take a year of time-travel as part of their education as well as a year abroad, not a bad idea, huh?

Vintage friend and I were taking a Gardening break yesterday, when Gussie got home. She ran in, rather excited, to announce that if I wanted, we could have three new additions to our family. Three baby bunnies! I guess Easter did come, after all!

She works on a local farm and they were discovered and were going to be ‘destroyed’ I guess the story of Farmer McGregor is true, Farmers DON’T like bunnies. So, we rescued them. I bought some bottles and kitten formula ( I am told that is what is used) from our local pet store (we are lucky to have two local pet stores on the cape) to take care of our new young ones. They did not take the milk right away and we were worried. We then used an eyedropper and they liked that but prefer to lap it up from our hands, so darling.

I can’t help feel a little like the mother in this situation, as I love the idea of we getting to raise them, vintage friend Gussie and I , but can’t help see it will be mostly Me doing the work, as I am the one home and will most likely not lose interest as fast. It did make me think that I would definitely be the ‘type’ of mother that would not scream if my child brought home a wounded or lost animal (well, I might scream for joy). Perhaps, I just remember my own joy as a child with such finds. The countless baby mice, birds, frogs, tadpoles, turtles etc that marched through my childhood years are too emblazoned in my memory with joy, happiness, and sorrow that I would not want anyone, child or otherwise, to miss that opportunity.

I am sure there are some that would say it was ‘cruel’ to take in some wild baby bunnies, but not as cruel as their being drowned or whatever ‘famer McGregor’ would do to them. I think the experience of contact with a wild animal is a wonderful thing and a part of our human experience. Another element that is not a part of our modern world, we are so very disconnected from everything. Certainly, there is that in all of us, as a species, that which makes us curious to know and understand the animals around us. Somewhere in the deep ancestry of humans burned a desire to capture that wild animal, love it, and care for it and eventually we had cows and chickens etc. I can’t help but think of ancient pre-history days of ancestors huddles around caves decorated with paintings of great hunts flickering in the orange glow of their fires, while a small wild dog pup or orphaned fawn curled dutifully at their feet. The connection of human to animal is too deep for me to just ‘put the things out’. So, I will let you know how they survive. It is true they may die, but that, too, is part of life. We could raise them and set them ‘free’ but I have a feeling my wild rabbit is going to be as ‘wild’ as Beatrix Potters pet rabbit. It is funny that I somehow always manage to feel akin to odd women who were somewhat loners (Beatrix Potter, Tasha Tudor etc) Admonish away, I can take it.

Here are some photos of my dogs (who adore the bunnies) and the new babies. I made them black and white, as I feel they are more keeping with my vintage theme.

Here is my Italian Greyhound, she has been a mother in the past ( a good one) and I think her motherly instinct (despite her now being fixed) kicked in. This is my little Chihuahua who is never not entertaining. He loves all things smaller than he (Napoleon complex, I believe) For example, my parakeet will often fly down next to him and they will hang out in his little bed. The bird sitting happily on the edge of it, while Monty sits down and stares at him as if he is Elvis. You can see how intent he is on them. They recieved many kisses form the dogs. Aren’t they adorable?!

Oh, by the way, they are called ‘Winken, Blinken, and Nod”

Having these little darlings around even got me to take out the old drawing pens and pencils. Here is a quick pen and ink of two of them. Of course, you cannot help but anthropomorphize them. Here is one as a little girl in her petticoat. Then, of course, I had to have a hep cat modern man in his dungarees relaxing in his atomic chair with his pipe. They look more like mice, but that is because the little bunnies ears are so small! No wonder I didn’t get my blog done yesterday! Now I will have to schedule in some drawing time to sketch the new babies! I will have to add bunny photos and sketches to a section of my Flikr site.

Well, I promised myself to get to the point that I can at least move the dining room table and rug and dishes into the new dining room by this Monday, so I have a big weekend ahead. The weather is also nice, so I have to get more vegetables into my garden. I will show some progression pictures of that project as well. Now, I am off for my Saturday hair washing and setting. Teru mentioned pin curls, which I find hard as my hair is so long, but I am going to try them today. If it turns out nice, I will remember to get a picture. Have a great weekend, everyone.

And, as always, Happy Homemaking!

15 April 1955 “Tax Day, McDonalds, and Renovation”

Tax day moved to April 15th in 1955:

Federal income tax was introduced with the Revenue Act of 1861 to help fund the Civil War. That Act stipulated that income tax "shall be due and payable on or before the thirtieth day of June". There is an unsubstantiated claim that the first income tax was paid only by the very wealthy, and they tended to spend their summers vacationing. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is said to have argued, "The collection of taxes would be much easier if an earlier assessment was made, before they leave town." In 1895, income tax was abolished as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, overruling the Supreme Court decision from 18 years earlier. This gave the United States Congress the legal authority to tax individuals' income. The filing deadline was March 1 in 1913 and was changed to March 15 in 1918 and again to April 15 in 1955. Today, the filing deadline remains April 15, but, in the event that it falls on a weekend or national holiday, it moves to the following business day.

McDonalds as a chain restaurant begins today in 1955. This is speedy and was replaced by Ronald in the early 1960’s. It was opened as a franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois by Ray Kroc. It was the ninth McDonalds restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965. Kroc was also noted for aggressive business practices, compelling the McDonald's brothers to leave the fast food industry. This old ad shows some early prices. IN current value the hamburgers would be 1.19, shakes would now be 1.58 and Fries .79 cents. [I really think this movement to one company growing large has really taken over the true American dream. I find it odd and scary that many people today will defend companies such as McDonalds and Wal-Mart saying they are part of the American way and the free market, but really a free market would allow there to be in place certain rules that would enable ANYONE to make it in business, thus making it free. The America where a local family can start a grocery business or restaurant or hardware store is really falling on the wayside as they cannot compete with the prices provided by the large chains. These companies often put other companies out of business and certainly do not serve great food. IN fact, food such as hamburgers and fries are not even that bad for you when made by you with ingredients you are aware of. I just sort of see this as a sad day. The day that moves one step closer towards our current over consumption and loss of individual rights and opportunities to be part of a free market. Can we turn it back? Do people want to turn it back? Do people care that they don’t know the people who run the businesses in their community and may never see the owners? I honestly don’t know.]

Speaking of food and local shops, I thought this comic funny:

Isn’t this hilarious? It is out of my 55 American Home magazine.

Having been busy with my remodel, I thought these simple helps were interesting. I find that in my mashed potatoes, garlic and sour cream make a nice flavor. Which of these would you try?

I realize I should also be listing more of a ‘typical’ day now that I have started my renovation. So, for today I got up at 6:30 (though my alarm was set at 7:00) as I wanted to get a head start on the day. I made breakfast of cooked cereal Farina, toast, o.j., coffee and jam. Made hubby’s lunch and got him off to work. I then cleaned the kitchen and dishes. Off to don my dungarees and as it is Wednesday, I usually need to reset my hair. I just dampen the ends and set it in curlers and into my headscarf. I am usually not out marketing on Wednesdays, so this allows me to wear this about the house. I think when my hair is cut short I will get a permanent on the ends, so it holds the curl through the week better. Also, I can then set my hair at night and sleep on it, as I do not do that now as my hair is so long I find it often makes a mess of the whole thing!

Then, out to feed the chickens and gather eggs and sit down with my daily journal and my cup of tea. I make my daily list. This has come to be a very important moment in my day. This is the pivotal moment at which my day will commence. What I write down today is important and needs to consider the normal daily running of the house (meals planned, desserts, time for cleaning etc) and then what I think I can realisticly accomplish with my ongoing project and then, I make a little ‘wish list’. This is the part of my list that might get moved into the next day or spread into the week or end up in an overall ‘yearly to do list’. Sometimes, if I am especially fast and do not have to stop for unplanned moments, I can get to this list. I would say this is my new ‘reward’. It is interesting as a part of a ‘chore list’ actually receives the same excitement and fun that may have been used on the video game ‘the Sims’ in 2008. How quickly one can transfer that feeling of adrenalin and joy to another process. This definitely shows me that a person can change their desires and joy. There is hope, gals.

Now, I will write this blog and then get to my dining room. There will be more installing of wood trim and measuring. I hope to get the rest of the trim up on the walls today and putty the holes. On my ‘wish list’ portion is to prime this wood. This may or may not happen today. Also on the wish list for today is to rough out the fireplace box and lay out plan of the delft tiles for the fire surround. This most likely will not happen, but when I stop for lunch I may play around with the tiles I have to see which tiles will make the final cut to be placed around the fireplace surround. Then, of course, I will have to stop to make dinner. I need to make a dessert today, as the last of the cookies are gone and the last of the chocolate bread pudding went off with hubby. It will be the ‘miracle one egg cake’ recipe with ‘velvety frosting’ from my 1951 Good Housekeeping book. I will have a picture and recipe tomorrow to let you know how that one turned out. My dinner will be a pork and beef roll stuffed. It is a recipe I have wanted to try before. I will post this, too, if it turns out yummy.

Then, clean up as much of the construction as possible, take down and style hair, throw on a nice dress and greet hubby. Dinner, conversation, wine. Usually an hour or so we sit either in my little sitting room or in his study and talk. Then he will go to his study and write and smoke his pipe and I will sit with my magazines and plans and think about more remodeling, most likely. That is a full day for me.

Well, you may have noticed there have not been many recipes and images of food and desserts of late and that is due to my ongoing redo of our future dining room. I had wanted to wait to show pictures after it was all done, but realized that is silly. I wanted to show before and after shots, but realize before and mid-makeover shots are good, as well. It can show all the layers and effort I am putting into it.

The room, a few months, ago served as a makeshift study for my husband, but he has since moved to a larger nicer space. It was our small kitchen when we first moved back from the city last spring, as the house had two kitchens at that point. Since we took back over the whole house, it served as a studio for me for a bit then my hubby’s study, now it is going to be the new dining room. It is not a large room, only 12 x 14, but it has a door that leads to the side yard where I will put a terrace for alfresco dining in the summer. Someday I will have a greenhouse/conservatory put here, with my own hands (that should be some interesting blogging I am sure) but for now it is a box with two doors and window and plumbing.

So, the first thing I did was sketch out the idea of the room. I just made a quick line drawing with some notations to myself (good luck deciphering it, but it is going into my ‘renovation 1955 file’)

Because the room is just a plain box, I really wanted to start with a good structure. A good skeleton of design is trim and wall definition, I think. This quote from Edith Wharton in her book “The Decoration of Houses” says it best:

“Proportion is the good breeding of architecture. It is that something, indefinable to the unprofessional eye, which gives repose and distinction to a room: in its origin a matter of nice mathematical calculation, of scientific adjustment of voids and masses, but in its effects as intangible as that all-pervading essence which the ancients called the soul”

In other words, though the order of a wall’s division is often mathematical and divined a long time ago, if you follow some of these rules, rather or not you understand them, they will result in a harmony and balance important in good design. Because, really, if a room feels grounded and well thought out, you will feel so in it, I think. This does not have to be expensive nor, unless you want the highest level of perfection achieved by mahogany panels applied by a master craftsman, the same principles can be achieved with some inexpensive wood, nails, ruler, level and your imagination.

Now, though my house is in fact a cape cod style and I want to give it a colonial/early American feel, I actually chose a more craftsman wall paneling style. This is a general idea where you see the paneling is high on the wall. I liked the feeling of the higher wainscot with a smaller area of wall at top as I think it feels very cozy and will make us feel as if we are sunk into our dining experience. This gives me a nice small band around the room where I am going to paint my mural. So, with just a plain drywall wall, I taped off roughly where the paneling would go and painted the top half AND the ceiling sky blue ( a background for my future mural). The next picture shows how I painted the bottom an off white color that I will also paint all the trim and cabinetry in the room. I then applied a carved chair rail piece that came pre-primed and was very inexpensive, but I liked the design of it. Then I bought strapping (which is really cheap construction grade wood) that is literally one dollar for an eight foot piece. This cut in half gives me two 4 feet sections to apply on the wall. I have not added the horizontal pieces yet, as you see in the example above. So when it is all done, it will get primed and painted out one color. Now I have the look of largely paneled walls, though it is just drywall with wood applied. The result will still give the room and the eye the look without the cost of actual sheets of paneling. You can also see in this picture the drawers to an old victorian mahogany dresser that had been living in my kitchen. Do not feel bad that it has got painted, as the wood was water stained and such and it really looks crisp and nice. This will serve as my sideboard and linen and silverware storage. You can see even with the trim unpainted and not finished how the wall feels more ‘right’ somehow.

Next, here is the corner where the antique corner cabinet is installed.You can see the patching and unpainted wall. Next, the tape and sky blue paint.Then the infamous corner cabinet (if you read my earlier post that featured this cabinet you will know what a time Gussie and I had trying to get this into this room, resulting in my discovering how much I want to change my ‘tantrum’ attitude.) Here it is in place. It was a lovely cape cod barn red, but in this small room if I do not paint out all the ‘built ins’ the room will feel very small and crowded. I wanted a lot in this room and I think I will be able to achieve it without feeling crowded by giving things a ‘built in’ appearance.

Here you can see that I have trimmed out the cabinet up to the ceiling and added medallions at the corner and primed it.It now looks like it belongs in the room. And here it is with its first coat of the white that will be on the paneling and all the trim. The one unfortunate attribute to this room is its white tiled floor. I debated removing it for a nice pine floor, but the cost was silly and their is nothing wrong with the tile (remember this was a small kitchen at one point), so I will solve that with a nice area rug under the table and chairs and really, it is a nice surface to clean if food is spilled. I will make the rug big enough, though, so if any dishes get dropped they will not land on a tile floor!

Some of you may remember this half of a hutch I purchased at a local sale for seven dollar. It is nice wood and even the back is actual wood not wood paneling. It is very 1950s early American. I had intended it for our future breakfast room, but found it would work very nicely in the new dining room. After toying with the idea of it becoming a hutch I realized it would make a wonderful unique top to a fireplace over mantle. The room has no fireplace, but I will have a propane gas log installed come fall, so I am building out the surround for the firebox when that can be put in. Here is is unpainted.

Here is is primed.And here it is hung on the wall into the studs. By bringing it right up to the ceiling, now the top trim makes it look built in and below it will be built the fireplace. I think this built in fireplace with dishes displayed above rather than a picture or mirror is a smart look in here. Anyway, I will have the wall mural painted all around, so I won’t really have any need to hang artwork. I put a lovely robins egg blue green color inside while the outside receives the same color as the paneling and trim. Now, I really think the detail around edges shows up so much more as white over a deeper soft blue, don’t you?

From my Dorothy Draper book, “Decorating is Fun”, I have copied here a list she has for dining room equipment. I like that there are blanks on the page so you can add to it.

So, that is what I have been up to. You can see why I have not had as much time to make picture worthy food, but I hope you enjoy the process of the dining room renovation as much as looking at my various cakes and pies. A homemaker is, after all, as much as a carpenter, designer, painter, and planner as she is a chef.

This song from 1953's Calamity Jane should be our Vintage Gal Theme song! The song starts after a bit of the dialogue. Worth a listen!

Until later, then, Happy Homemaking.

13 & 14 April 1955 “Baseball, Diets, Grandma’s Life, and the ‘modern girl’ strikes again!”

14 April 1955 : Elston Howard becomes the 1st black to wear the Yankee uniform. Howard became the first African American to play for the Yankees, and got a hit in his first at bat; the team had been relatively late to sign black players, but finally acquired Vic Power and Howard. Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play on the leagues for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 15, 1947.

This ad from from 1954 Good Housekeeping shows the diet plans are beginning to show up. Though, I don’t feel the images in the magazines, even fashion magazines, are as dangerous about how they expect a woman to look as the modern versions.

I had hoped to have images of our vintage Easter dinner, but we did not celebrate it as planned as a few people had got colds. And, being in the midst of my dining room redo, I was fine with that, as it allowed me to stick with my building/design plans and not have to worry about preparing a large meal. So, it has been moved to this Saturday and hopefully it will also be the first time we can use the new dining room. I know it will not be done, completely, but hopefully enough to have the table in there and etc. I will include before and after shots for that.

I collect old magazines and periodicals. Before 1955, I was rather obsessed, you might say, with Edwardian and early WWI era publications/decorating/fiction/social history etc. I was thumbing through my 1899 Ladies Home Journal over the weekendHere is an ad for a washing powder. I wonder if it is still around.Here is an ad for Ralston breakfast food.And another view of the 1900 idea of a ‘new kitchen’ as exhibited by this form of the Hoosier cabinet.

Looking through these magazines I realized my fictional mother (I being my age now in 1955) would have been young, possibly only 4 or 5 when this magazine was out, but my fictional grandmother would have read it. I imagined, perhaps, that I had the magazine in 1955 for the same reason I would now, in that I am interested in the history of women’s social role. However, I am not sure that I would have such a concept in 1955. I may have looked at it with a passing laugh and thought, ‘Oh, thank God, I don’t have to wear that corset.” or “Look, they are only just talking of heating your home” as I sat in my heated and insulated kitchen, listening to my dishwasher hum and my laundry machines work away in the cellar. This really hit me. Here I would be, in 1955, very much aware of how far we have come. It would be apparent every time my Grandmother would visit. And, what would she think of it all? Of course, it isn’t as if she were just teleported from 1899 to 1955, she was there as the inventions and social changes happened, but none-the-less it must have been amazing to view. Then, I think about 10 years ago from 2009. In 1999 the internet existed, surely, but not on the level it does today. Cell phones (mobiles) were around as well, but not everyone had one or used them all the time. I remember there were still things said like, “Oh, I hate when people have cell phones and talk on them in public”, now I hear complaints if the person is talking loudly, but the phone in the hand or those wretched blue tooth ear sets (which I cannot believe are good for you) are common place. And yet, for the most part we just sort of go along, collecting up new technology, without really thinking about it. It is just part of our daily lives, certainly.

However, it does make me, all the more, want to continue to study and look back all the time. I cannot help but judge my current day and life through the eyeglass of the past. I wonder, shall I ever NOT do this? I don’t know, really, come 31 December 1955, what I will do? Will I stay in my current role? Will I go to 1945? or why not 1935? Or, being content with my current lot, live in a sort of amalgamation of 1955/2010?

I was reading another person’s vintage blog and they were discussing hair washing and etc from now to the past. Someone mentioned Saturday was hair washing and setting day for the week. I had to laugh, as it was Saturday that I was reading it and my hair was freshly washed and set and tied up. I worked on my chores all day, hair tied up and set. This is just normal for me now. Will this continue so? I like the routine of it. I guess, what I really have come to love about 1955 is the routine. I used to say and think that I hated routine. That mundane continuity was the bane of my existence, but actually it is a very happy and safe feeling. Perhaps, it is that I am closer to 40 than 30 and thus such feelings should just come along naturally, but I am not sure. I think the chaos of my house plans, the tearing up and redoing, has always been something I have done in the past, but now as it happens WITHIN the order of my 1955 day, it seems as if I get more done and don’t honestly feel more tired or more overwhelmed and if anything feel less so.

For example, yesterday was a lovely sunny Sunday, and having been indoors all day Saturday working on painting and trim in the dining room, the outdoors called. Hubby and I went out and spent the day working in the yard. He brandished the chainsaw and we felled a few more trees and trimmed up brush for the woodpile and had a lovely burn. Yet, I had got up at 8:30 (my Sunday wake up time) and we had had a full breakfast of homemade pancakes, bacon, oj, coffee, tea the normal. I worked through out the day, but still, instinctively, came in and whipped up lunch. Then, at the end of the day as we sat relishing in our great burn, the fire dying softly and the cool air slipping in and telling us, yes it is still only April, I thought, “Oh, I need to make dinner and a dessert for today.” Rather than feeling overwhelmed, I just stood up went in the kitchen and threw together dinner. We had lamb chops and homemade French fried potatoes ( I am getting really good at those) and veg. I also made a chocolate bread pudding. By the end of the day, we had worked in the yard, had dinner and dessert and the kitchen was clean. I know in 2008 we would have ordered pizza or Chinese and accomplished less. I know I would have complained of being tired in 2008 and yes, I was tired, but I didn’t really have time to dwell on it, because there was dinner to make and dessert and wood to stack.

I find myself less self-obsessed now. I think more about what needs to be done for the day, or how I feel compared to 2008, but sometimes even that slips away and it could be 1955. Really, it is almost a sort of timelessness. I think having the luxury of being home helps with that. When I am out marketing usually the modern world becomes more apparent, but then again, when I am at our little local village shop, where canned goods are stacked on wooden shelves, it might be 1955, except for the flat screen TV over the newsstand. What is funny, is now my hubby sort of recognizes the difference. This morning we were sat down to breakfast and I hit my coffee cup and spilled onto the tablecloth. It was a slow motion moment and I saw the coffee fly up into the air and splat, down it came, onto my clean table cloth. Without thinking I swore. It sounded odd coming out of my mouth. I have not, really, tried not to swear. I have not made it a point in any way, but it just sort of happened. I think, the more I am working on my daily schedule and learning the less I get angry, somehow. After I said it, I looked at my husband, who was, strangely, also surprised. “Looks like the modern woman is back” he said, without missing a beat and we both laughed. “Thank goodness it’s laundry day,” I said.

As I said, I have never said, “okay, not as much swearing, it’s not 1955” And, honestly, I don’t know if it is or isn’t 1955 to swear in your home. All I know is I swear A LOT less than I did in 2008. It was just an odd moment.

I had another 2009 moment earlier in the week. Gussie was helping me move my antique corner cabinet into the new dining room so it could be built in and such. (it is an old built in piece from an old house. I think it will look lovely when done, but you will be the judge of that when I have my picture book of the beginning to end process) Anyway, she suggested just caring it outside and then through the side yard into the side door that leads into the new dining room. I thought it would be easier to bring it into the hall. The first floor bathroom is off this hall, so we tried to bring it into that room and the turn it into the sharp turn of the door to the dining room. It wouldn’t work and it got stuck. So, I figure, I will take the door off the bathroom. Simple, just hammer the pegs up through the hinges and it comes off, no such luck as they were painted shut, so we figure, we shall move the cabinet out of the bathroom then, suddenly, the shelves in the top, which I thought were permanently fixed, came unfixed and pushed open the glass doors which have little knobs on the front making it too large to get out of the bathroom door. SO, Gussie had to wedge her hands in there and move them around, careful not to break the antique glass panes in the door, which took some time and resulted in her scratched hands. Now, we get that out of there and I am determined to try to get the door off again. THIS is the part where I became 2009 girl. I was hot, frustrated, angry and I had a hammer. I tried carefully to hammer the pegs out to no avail. Then, 2009 girl came in. I lashed out with the hammer, banging senselessly on the door. There are some doors in this house that will be replaced, but this door is actually a nice solid wood colonial style paneled door, but it received the brunt of my anger and hammer. My anger and impatience won out and left me more frustrated, more angry, a really banged up door and still the thing just hung there, mocking me. Now, the reason I felt this to be my 2009 self was the impatience and childishness of the moment. I have not been trying to consciously (up until now) to really change my personal attitude in this project, but I have just been noticing that I get angry less, have more patience and feel a little happier of late. I am not sure if it just comes along with the quite determination of mastering household tasks and needing to be calm while using grease and ovens and, you know, grown up stuff. After I was sat down there in my bath, Gussie quietly trying not to stir my anger, the corner cabinet wedged in the hall and I on the floor of the bathroom, with a hammer and a banged up door, I really had to thing. “Hmmm, how am I not like a two year old child right now?” I want something and I want IT NOW! IF I don’t get it, I lash out. You don’t have to have your own children to know that that is how a child acts. I thought two things, 1.) Thank God I do not currently have a child. What a display I would have shown to him. and 2.)Wow, I haven’t felt that way in awhile and I really hate it. I don’t want to be a spoiled brat. It gets me nothing. There is no mother off in the distance that will come and get me what I want and make it all better.
That is when I realized how the 1955 part of me that is growing will really need to be the mother to that 2009 brat. Sometimes I am going to have to sit her down and explain to her that life is not about fast result and always getting what we want. Sometimes it is better to hold our anger and not let it all out. It really got me thinking a lot about modern psychology. How that whole concept of ME and expressing your feelings and let it all out really has hurt us on a social level. It is fine if you need to not keep things bottled up, certainly, but there is an extreme where one feels that their emotions and their needs are greater than any other thing and I don’t think that is always true. The old videos that show you how to behave at dinner and around strangers which we now view as repression, is really just common courtesy and if you have to pretend a little bit that you feel okay around others or that you are happy, you might just end up convincing yourself that you really are and then , you know what, you will be. I am certainly not saying that if something bad is happening you need to ignore it or pretend your world around you, but merely ‘think of others’. Such a simple thing and I wonder how often we modern people actually do. Holding doors. Offering seats on buses. Saying ‘excuse me, please and thank you’ such simple things but think of how little we may encounter them in public. Again, another level of the modern world is opening up to me and revealing itself, all because I got mad at a door for being in the way of my cabinet!
Well, when hubby got home he helped me move it around the outside as Gussie had suggested. It took all of five minutes and couldn’t have been easier. If I had just had the patience and thought it through, I would have saved us our grief and the door its hammer marks. How like that angry hammering is our modern world. We want it and we want it NOW. The internet isn’t fast enough. We have to wait in line at the store. The person in front of us isn’t driving fast enough. The next show or movie we want to see isn’t out fast enough. We are all in such a hurry to rush about and for what? It is really still amazing to me how much this project has forced me to peel back the layers of my own personality. To really open myself up and look at all my bad traits and habits, but strange that the maturity my 1955 self has doesn’t feel mad or ashamed at having them exposed, instead realizes that personal growth and learning are part of being an adult. I hope I can end this year with the 2009 brat growing into a nice young well mannered lady ready for the world. Perhaps I will have a ceremonial merging of the two selves at the year’s end. She can be a brat, that 2009 girl, but her heart is in the right place and I think she really wants to learn. I think I can do it.

I thought I’d end with this view of some pretty spring hats. I just think they are so crisp and darling. I love the small hats of the 1950’s as they are so easy to wear and look so smart. The model at the bottom in the white gloves has the hair I want exactly. Now, to only find someone who can replicate it for me.

10 April 1955 “Polio, Beauty, Storage, Kitchen Design, and ‘To be your own Marketing Sorcerer’”

Ruth Ellis shoots jilting lover David Blakely. [this is all the info I could find on this story, no images or newspaper articles, anyone know or remember this happening?]
Dr Jonas Salk successfully tests Polio vaccine
In some ways, the fear of polio was as terrifying as the disease itself. When the epidemic in the United States peaked in 1952, polio had struck nearly 58,000 people—mainly children and young adults. The most critically ill were confined to a mechanical ventilator known as an iron lung, robbed of their ability to breathe on their own. Others escaped on crutches, crippled but not paralyzed. Panic was pandemic. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the terror that polio caused at the time.
  In April 1955, when the results of an unprecedented nationwide clinical trial were announced and the vaccine was approved for widespread public use, Newsweek reported: “It was a summit moment in history. None before it in the field of medicine ever received such dramatic affirmation, instant public comprehension, and official blessing.”
[A discovery such as this must have seemed like a miracle. Seeing some of the images of the children afflicted with it really tugs at your heart strings. It does make me wonder why today we have not problem spending billions to pay interest to Chinese loans and bail out banks, but free healthcare for all Americans seems such an alien idea. The advancement in science and the benefits from it should be encouraged and allowed for all. And that is my 2 cents on the subject.]
I thought this was an interesting article on beauty.
I have no idea if it works, but I have just started some of it. I know my hubby gave me a quizzical look the other night when, sat before my vanity and he propped in bed with his book, he was startled by the sound of hand slapping skin. He turned to find me, cold cream on face, slapping myself under the chin. I turned and smiled, “You don’t think beauty just happens do you?” I said. It was a very 1950’s moment. Now, I am sure there isn’t one iota of proof that will look ‘younger’ with this regime, but you will feel good. It forces you to sit down and take time for yourself. You feel relaxed and it feels GOOD to massage your neck and throat. Posture is certainly important, so that bit is true. But, give it a try and don’t be surprised if you feel a little bit ‘Hollywood starlet’ before your vanity doing these things.
I have  been noticing many articles showing up on storage in my 50’s magazines. I wonder, and I could be wrong here, is this starting a new trend to coincide with the new consumerism? We now have enough things that we need space for them to live as well as ourselves? Flash forward to 2009 when a business like the container store exists solely to provide us with more options and things in which to store the stuff we have bought.  I used to like the idea of this, and one of my main goals, my tenet of my new life, IS organization, but I am finding that a lot of what I need to store is now really becoming things to donate or pass forward. Fifty years earlier, in 1905, the middle class certainly were beginning their  buying sprees of the mass produced items that were fabricated to ‘look’ like nicer objects. There is a great bit about it in Edith Wharton’s book “The Decoration of Houses”( Which I have read before and am now looking at again. It came out in 1897 so it is an antique even in my day) talking of the cheap and shoddy bits of bric a brac coming out and how not to be lured into overbuying mass produced junk ( I am paraphrasing here, as I am not sure Edith Wharton would have put it quite that way!). They were beginning the consumerism ideal and the market was responding by mass producing the Victorian ‘suites’ of furniture we now see for sale in antique shops. They were not well made by their days standards and that concept of the matching suite was really born out of that time. That is really when the middle class began to stop trying to ape their upper class and their own form of design was sprung. Yet, their consumption was hardly stored. The Victorian (and in America even the Edwardian era was still heavily Victorian as it took awhile for trends to reach our shores) style of decorating was all about mass consumption and display. IF there was a spare inch of mantle then place another bibelot on it. Heck, why leave the mantle bare? Throw a heavily decorated cloth on it with tassels and how about three layers of draperies? What you did not have, however, was endless inexpensive clothes. Machine made clothes were starting to be more available, but the average family probably had one or a few pairs of ‘good Sunday clothes’ depending upon which rung of the middle class they lived on, and everyday clothes were most likely very few. The labor involved in cleaning and keeping things, though servants where still affordable, really didn’t allow for to much to store.  The only bit on storage I could find in my 1908 household discoveries book by Mrs. Curtis  was the store room for canned goods. While my 1951 edition of the “Woman’s Home Companion Household Book” has an entire section in the index for Storage  with quite a few entries including Hobbies and Collections. Now, there are books and magazines on JUST storing our stuff. When you are in the midst of it, and believe me I was (and still am, actually) it seems normal. But, when you really think about the amount of energy going into producing plastic bins to store things we won’t see in a closet, it is odd behavior. If the world were to be hit “Vesuvius style” and we were all suddenly frozen in this moment, what, I wonder, would the modern archaeologist think of these piles and piles of containers filled with items? I bet they would extrapolate that they were religious artifacts. Something our society held dear, to have them so carefully contained. Just a thought. So, here we really see the first moment of something you collect yet do not display occurring in the 1950s. The move towards pack-ratting, has it begun?
Even kitchen lay out and storage was changing in the 1950’s the closed cabinets and ‘built in’ storage was all the rage. While,  fifty years earlier, a kitchen was in essence a work room with open tables and shelves, clean but really a ‘let’s get to it’ sort of place.    The idea of the kitchen being really a decorated room in the house which needed storage for multiple sets of dishes, decoration, and storage etc. The more the conveniences of the modern world increased and there were more prepared meals and machines to make it easier, suddenly we needed more space to put it all in. Certainly a kitchen in a large 1900 house could have been bigger than a 1950’s version, so perhaps the storage started out of necessity and with the disappearance of the servant, the wife needed to be in there enough to merit it being a ‘part’ of the living of the house. Yet, it is interesting to note that they really began selling the idea of built-in custom looking cabinets over free standing items. It would be hard for a DIY project to make a bank of matching well hung cabinets, while to simply place a table here and a chopping block there is not that hard. It is these subtle plays of one’s desires in the magazines that leads to one “NEEDING” the new kitchen. “Well, how will I store all my gadgets?” How, indeed.
The Hoosier cabinet was really the first idea of the idealized storage in kitchens, but it’s premise was everything in one cabinet. Somehow this ballooned into the entire kitchen being the ‘Hoosier cabinet’ in a way, by the 1950s. Why buy one free standing cabinet when you can have banks of built ins?
Here is a page from my 1908 manual that shows a Hoosier cabinet and has some interesting information, you can click it to read it.
This page from my 1908 homemakers handbook shows a handmade counter to aide in dishes and less steps in the kitchen. This looks really nice to me (sort of the original old fashioned pre 1950 idea I had for my kitchen).
The power of marketing has become very self-evidenced in the changing of my own esthetic. I have always loved 19th. c.  and earlier style. My kitchen plan for this house when we first moved back was to make it very 19th c. I bought an old copper lined wooden sink. A 1910 gas range (still not installed) and I had plans of open cabinets and shelves and individual pieces of furniture. I had been carrying the idea and image around for awhile. But, just in the past three months, I have already changed my plan for the kitchen into a 1950’s dream of built ins, metal cabinets, cheery breakfast room, vinyl/tiled floor etc. I now really like that look. I have come to respond to it, but it was not really there before the project. So, is my personal style, are any of the things we think we like that we count as part of our personality, really ours? I have done a 360 in my design idea. Am I still me? I have been morphing into a new person, really, with this project, but my personal style ( see that word ‘personal’ in there) has changed somewhat. That  really shows me the power of advertising. Here are old magazines, really dead in a way, but I have rolled back the stone on the Egyptian tomb and the curse has come out upon me and now I am doing the bidding of the magazine. Must decorate 1950s!(Insert Zombie style voice there accompanied by my outstretched arms and slow marching movements)
I do know that having my home a certain way makes me feel good. Perhaps, security in an uncertain world? Perhaps it gives one a feeling to combat their own mortality, “I am making something that will live on” (though it most likely will not). The very core of esthetic has been flayed open before me and I am left, again, wondering what is it all really mean? How is it all tied into me as a human on planet earth? It doesn’t frighten me, nor scare me, but I do find it fascinating. Should I, then, follow my current trend in my kitchen. And, if so, were I to do “my year 1905” next year, will I feel as if I need to change it? Or, should I only allow myself to maintain the 1950s for a period of time so as NOT to change my esthetic? To hold myself into a sort of “Design Limbo”, as it were. To see the power of it and then to yield it like a great marketing sorcerer. I mean, I know the stuff works, right? So, why not use it on myself? Design my home to fit into my esthetic from the 1950s (though my love of antiques still holds and there will be room for pieces from earlier centuries) but then only allow myself to read and study design and magazines from that moment. It could seem almost like I am depriving myself of something, but honestly, if I were never to read another design magazine or book for the rest of my life except for those from the past and up to 1959, how bad is that really? Certainly I could not go and waste my time at Borders looking at new magazines or buy more things that will pile up in the landfills.
So, you can see how what might have sounded crazy at one point actually seems to have a sort of ecological and smart logic to it. Why let myself succumb to new trends? Why add to the stuff I already have once I achieve the look and finish I wanted? That is the trick of modern marketing, you HAVE to have it and then something new comes out and forget that old stuff, that is so last year! But, what if I don’t let any other trends come into contact with me? What if I only shop for house things at antique shops and yard sales while holding my 1950’s esthetic aloft like a great wand to conjure up my 1950s dream home? Will I then NOT want to change things around? I hope so, for if that is the case look at all the time I can spend in my community and in writing, which I am really coming to find an important part of my day. I could spend more time on learning to grow more of my own food and maybe more of my own animals (goats give milk, right?).
So, could there be a movement that really would be a green movement that says, Pick a time and live it. Be in the modern world, but don’t be CONTROLLED by it. IF you love 1970’s design (even if you don’t spend a year only reading their magazines and you may be surprised how quickly you will be drooling over shag carpeting and avocado green appliances!)Then only allow that era to influence your need to buy. Then you will have to buy old things, which means making less, which means consuming less, of course that would mean less production, but then maybe more effort could go back to farming and local grocery stores and less giant stores with ill made particle board furniture that will break in one year. It is an interesting concept, one in which I am definitely going to keep following to see where it leads.

7 & 8 April 1955 “Spring Fashion, a Rant, and a Confession”

I thought I would butter you up with pretty fashion pages, skip history and go straight into a rant.

I was thinking today how this journey to 1955 started very immaturely, in a way. I approached it, as most people from 25-45 today probably do, with an almost immature approach. I don’t mean that in an insulting way, but I have come to see our modern group of ‘adults’ as a sort of giant collection of grown children when compared with our 1950s counterparts. Most of us, I know there are many exceptions out there, have never really had to grow up. We wander form our over protected youths to mindless high school to over specialized university. We hold onto our cartoons and toys of youth, or we replace them with new ones. We look around, trying to find meaning and purpose and only knowing, really, that consuming is the only constant. It has always been there. It fills a need. We think, “Oh, I am ‘this sort of person’” and then go out and buy the accoutrement to fulfill that need. Oh, I love comics, or video games, or I love the old toys and things of yesteryear” and we think, in owning these, in somehow having them in our possession we have some holy grail. Like talismans we clutch our items to our bosom and wait for that feeling of worth, of belonging of hope. Only, it never comes. It is just a thing. It might represent something: lost youth, hope for a better childhood than you had, a sense of belonging, feeling that you are part of ‘this or that’ crowd. Really, what is behind any of the trends we need to fill ourselves with is just worth and a sense of self. In the bombardment of consumerism in which we are faced daily, how could we ever feel uniquely ourselves? We try to ‘make’ ourselves through a series of purchases. “I have this or collect this so I am ‘this sort of person’.” But, honestly, we are all just people who are so disconnected.
It is funny to me to realize how many things are at are fingertips. It is so easy to communicate with those we know, email, text, cell, right there at our fingertips. But, now we have all this technology and we find we have nothing to say to one another, we shorten our phrases from their already banal meaning to a few letters or a colon and half a parenthesis. But, are we smiling? Are we winking? ;) Are those two key strokes really expressing what it took poets pages and pain to express? Or, is it our little ‘SOS’ to anyone out there. “help me. I want to feel better. I bought more things and I still don’t feel whole. I am communicating but no one is really hearing me.”I may be alone in this feeling, I know. But, it is still an honest feeling.
So, the point of this rant is that when I first approached this project I thought, “Oh, I really like vintage things. I had always been more ‘into’ the 19th century. Their novels and art and even their clothing, but I am really inspired by the 1950’s so I will try that” When my project began, I promised myself it would not just be about the fashion, rather or not I wore seamed stockings when I vacuumed, etc. And, yet, so enmeshed in my own 21st century consumer society, that my search for the ‘next thing’ was immediately followed by, “alright, I need to buy some vintage dishes and some vintage this and that”. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am still doing that. However, now I find I am doing it not only because I have come to enjoy the lines and style of the period, but because they are inexpensive well made things that obviously do not break down in two years like the stuff you usually get at Wal-Mart, target, home depot etc. Now, I am trying to surround myself with well made inexpensive things, to scale down my ownership and to donate all the things I don’t need or want to those who can actually use them. I admit, there still is a certain ‘magic’ quality for me in old items. I do sometimes come across an old appliance or item that I am sure went unloved and sat in an attic and then I remember, it is an inanimate object. It feels nothing. I am merely transferring my own emotional state onto it. I can hold that old magazine that may have sat upon the lap of an old homemaker while she laughed with her children, now grown and smiled at her husband, perhaps now dead and sat at bridge and gossiped with her friends and neighbors, but I do not get to own her. I do not get to just buy something and magically become transformed to her life. WE live in a time of instant gratification. We are told we can solve all of our problems by buying this or that or taking this or that pill or reading this book with all the answers. But, having something easily is not always worth the having of it. How dare I try and have a life that was fulfilling and rich with laughter and happiness, trauma and sadness, loss over war and coming together in a community by purchasing their old things! It should not be that easy! So, what do you do? There you are sat down in your piles of things that you want to co-opt into your own life and it is just so much accumulated detritus.
Well, I am coming to realize if I want to be, or any of us want to become, more like this or that person or to take on the qualities of vintage times that we admire, we have to work at it. We cannot just buy the product and ta-dah! there we are happy and transformed.  I am finding that what I love and cherish of this generation, their community spirit, their ability to make do and to smile through hardship, cannot be bought. It has to happen. You have to not just wear their fashions, you have to go out and try to make a difference. In your own home and how you respond to things. How you shop. How you connect to your community and family. But, in doing it and failing along the way or being unhappy in it, now you are building character and a real life. I don’t know if I will ever live up to what I think those 1950’s homemakers were, and they probably never lived up to their predecessors either, but in trying, in being self-aware and caring for others, for people more than whether or not you ‘fit in’ or you are part of this or that group or you buy the right things or you wear the right clothes.
Now, I think one of the reasons I have taken to the clothing so easily is not what I originally thought, which was that they are pretty. They are. But, in not having to look at a magazine cover and try to copy it (it is odd as most of my magazines do not have models all over it talking of how great they look, how much weight they lost, or young they look etc) or worry if I need to have this or that style, I feel I have found my own real style. I feel an almost calm about my clothing to know that I can get rid of all those things that are too tight that I ‘might fit into some day’ or things that are sort of crazy that I thought I might wear one day and bought on a whim and it just hangs there with the tags still on. Now, I know I need a certain number of skirts and dresses. Work dungarees. Some nice wool trousers for winter, nice cotton, linen, and seersucker pedal pushers for summer and that is it. I can add to my wardrobe as I like, through my own hand at my sewing machine, or at thrift stores and if I find a deal on eBay. I now can look and feel good and it costs little and I will TAKE CARE of the clothes I have. I actually have a mending basket. Something that never existed for me before 1955. Before, it was just ‘easier’ to toss out socks with holes or sweaters, why not you could buy up some new ones so cheap at old navy etc. But, that is how they get you and that is why we want everything so quickly and then feel empty when we get it without work. There is pride in mending you own sock. I know it sounds hokey, but it is true. There is pride in a neat closet of things you made or take care of and hope to have forever, if you can manage it. The amount of money we spend on ‘just getting some quick things cheap’ add up. We all spend more even though things are so much less expensive today than in 1955. But, this false world of easy pleasure without the work is empty. At least it was for me. I didn’t realize how empty and pointless I really felt until I began digging for this project.
I have come to find the actual processes of 1955 work meaningful. The fact that I can find happiness in shining my coffee pot and canisters. Before, I would not have cared and watched TV instead. I used to play this video game, “the Sims”. I am not sure if any of you know what it is. When the second version came out, I was so excited. It is one of the MOST popular video games ever and even people who don’t normally play video games love it. And, do you know what it is? Simulated living. You make your house how you like it. You go to work and find a career or work at home and raise kids. You have generations etc. Another example of an easy solution to a very natural tendency in people. So, there you sit, your own actual home not being cared for or your friends and family on hold while you slip into the fantasy of this world. Sims 3 is coming out this year and I had to laugh when I heard. This news would have been received with much excitement in 2008, now I wonder, how did I ever have time to play a video game and why waste my time on a false world when I now get to play the “The Sims” in real life. Sure, it is easier to build a house and furnish it in an hour, but it is not as rewarding as doing it over time, with my own hands and mind and then getting to live in it and share it with others. When I heard about Sims 3 coming out, I really thought about it. I realized how far I have come in three months. Who knew this ride would take me to an actual life. This one attempt at trying to buy my way into a new ‘definition of myself’ has lead me to find the real me. I just feel bad to see so many people feeling empty and trying to fill their lives with things or games. Fun and entertainment is important, but all fun and the constant need to amuse or to ‘get away from it all’ is a sad example of a decline of a generation. The world should not be so bad to people that they need to escape into an unreal world or to try and define and make themselves happy through buying things that they think make them into the person they want to be. The real solution is to just work at it. Try and reach out to people and really look at what you are buying. Maybe you want to learn a real instrument instead of playing a video game version. Maybe you want a real family and not just run one on a video game. Just because you dress like Paris Hilton doesn’t mean you will have jets at your disposal and endless travel. But, why settle for a sham life of someone else’s ideal when you can build and make your own so good and so fulfilling and so uniquely your own.
I have so much more to learn and it will be a long time before I can ever fully shake my initial response to things through consumerism. It is so ingrained in all of us, we cannot help it. In yesterday’s blog a commenter pointed out that I said, “Oh I need one of these vintage nut choppers, but I used a knife and board instead” and called me on the fact that I was, at that point, wanting to buy something I didn’t need and in fact felt I did. That is what is so amazing about this project for me. I certainly do not think I am infallible or that I ‘have all the answers’. In fact, I am just learning and in my realizations am probably saying many things some of you already know. But, you see, I am so FAR from where I want to be in this realization that I welcome things like that. On my own I will catch myself in my moments of ‘I need to buy this’, but I don’t always, and that is why I like the community of this blog. I can definitely see, though, that with an actual community of people whom you would be involved with on a daily basis, you would most likely be a ‘better’ person, not because you were trying to be who you aren’t in front of others, but because you are trying to be the ‘best you’ you can and having others around almost fuels you to be ‘good’. It is so much easier to be slothful and ‘bad’ when you are more isolated. Even those of us with busy social lives, compared to 1950’s families, I think there is still a lot of alone time. Today children may have to be driven to soccer and ballet and have this and that and go with friends etc and when they are home everyone is on their own computer or individual TV. That most likely was not happening in 1950’s (especially the computer) there was more together time as you just really had to have it. Even TV time had to be together as there was only one if you were lucky enough to own one.
Yesterday at dinner when I was discussing the new dining room with hubby and gussie they both sort of laughed and said, ‘Until you get sick of it and change everything around again’. Normally I would have laughed and they would have been right. But, I got serious and said, “No. That person is gone now. I am doing this house over both to make a nice place for us to live in as well as a way to just get my life more solid and tangible. After that, I am focusing on my community.” It was odd to hear it out loud. It was true, as well. It is as if this redoing of my home, this settling into this one place, is a sort of cathartic moment to rid myself of all the things I don’t like about who the modern me was/is. I still have that need to consume and shop and collect up things. But, it is becoming less important. Even my decision to construct built in furnishings into each room is almost a physical statement to myself and others that ‘this is it’, this stays here and this is where these dishes go. They look nice and I love them as an object but that is it, I can walk away and care more about other things like people and community. I am hoping, by the end of 1955, that I have done a lot to have my home ‘set’ and I have unfettered myself quite a bit from the modern concept of buy, change, collect up, unorganized and feel better by going shopping and buying more etc. The endless hamster wheel of consumerism is no place to be a real adult or to be a fulfilled human being. I want off, and I am getting off. Who knew buying things could be so harmful and simple things like caring for your home mending socks could be so fulfilling. I don’t want to listen to the modern lie of ‘gimme gimme it’ll make me happy’ any more.
Now, I know, I really do, that I should just leave my house alone and go out NOW into my community. I can harp on about consumerism all I want, but it is a hard habit to break. I honestly feel like my doing over my house (which honestly I sort of had to do as we are turning a duplex back into a single house) is a cathartic moment for me. It is a big part of this year’s project which has come to mean more about changing my personal life into one in which I can be proud. I know that I do not NEED to go out and buy new trim work and paint to make over my dining room. I know I don’t NEED to donate my old stuff and buy ‘new used things cheap’, but somehow I feel like I am in consumer rehab. I am in the rehab center to cure my disease: 21st century consumerism. It is very contagious and it sneaks up on you and it is a monkey on your back and hard to shake.
“Hello, I am 50’s Gal and I am a consumer” I seem to be saying, here at my meeting of Consumer Anonymous. It is not easy for me to shake what I really feel has been a part of my physical and emotional makeup. It is such a part of me that I have to do a sort of personal lobotomy to loosen myself from the grip. I am sure many of you are not as bad as me, perhaps and I am asking for you patience. I will slip up. I will make mistakes and I will fall back into the ‘Oh, I need to go buy that”. It is a hard habit to break, but honestly I am trying. I am doing it because I have seem moments of my life when it has been better that I wanted to do something on my own instead of having someone or something do it for me. That I have felt good, walking through HomeGoods, filling my cart with this or that for a few dollars and then stopping myself and saying, NO and walking out. I like the feeling. When I would spend an afternoon shopping now I spend it in my yard or tearing down a wall or simply shinning my coffee maker. Maybe I am still a product of ‘things’. Maybe in my need to make my home a certain way to feel I am in control of it is still a part of a society based on things, I don’t know anymore. I just know that I do want my home clean and organized and free of unnecessary clutter. I want to be able to go out and be a part of my community. And, please, be patient with me in that respect as well. I want to and need to, but I am a little afraid almost. I tell myself, “when I get the house done I will do this” and I know I should not say that but do it anyway. I do need to and I will try. I think having this project to hold myself accountable for is a major aide in helping to change my life. I think many of we modern people have very little accountability. I am finding when that is gone, many people won’t do or act or live the way that maybe they should. I used to think, modern girl that I was, ‘who cares’. I have no specific beliefs and I felt that most of the roles and rules had broken down and for the better too. You can do what you what, have fun, there really is no ‘right way’ to be. But, I am finding, even if that might be true, there should be a right way. Without structure we can feel disconnected and with no connection we feel little accountability for our actions. Perhaps much of the breakdown of society as we know it IS due to that very fact. What to do to change it, I don’t know. All I know is I have turned to the 1950’s as a sort of guide. A wiser older woman as mentor who does not judge, but by her actions, her clean home, happy smile, nice meals, pretty and clean appearance makes me want to live up to her. Who do we have to live up to now? The other day I saw some modern magazines, women’s magazines, and they all had various stars on the cover in skimpy outfits with headings about who was heavier or whose body fat got caught on the camera. WHO CARES! Honestly, who cares, but many must or they wouldn’t be putting it out there. Maybe, if anyone wants to change their life, they should find that accountability factor. For some it might be religion, for others perhaps the ideals of the past could stand as a guide for them, an older wiser person who, by their example, you want to live up to. Would this person do this or that? No. I admire and respect that person, so I am not going to do it.
That is probably why this project is so good on me. I am and have been such a consumer and a person who wanted and reveled in instant gratification, that this trip to being a responsible homemaker of another era is that much more a stark contrast for me. I am sure there are plenty of you who already ironed your sheets, shopped locally etc, but I didn’t. This somehow makes me a good guinea pig, I think. Speaking of being a Guinea pig in my own experiment, I was a subject of such an experiment:
Yesterday I was hurled into the 21st century. In the moment of it, I first felt guilty and then thought, ‘well this is fun anyway so who cares’. Here is what happened, and this is my confession.
What is a vintage girl to do? Honestly I am not a true time-traveler but in the sense that I am one, I was suddenly rocketed to the modern world in a rush. I felt that at that moment I was a true time-traveler and here is my journal entry from that moment:
“I had spent the afternoon working in the house, as was normal for a Tuesday. The ironing basket called out to me, it’s contents brimming and waiting to be pressed. The day was sunny and I was going to allow myself some garden time as a treat, in between making dinner and my other daily chores.  Then, like a flash of light, I was teleported to the modern world. There were loud noises, flashing lights, and laughter. A group of people were apparently plugged into some odd machine and staring at a wall filled with images as one would see at the picture show! The colors were vibrant and they danced upon the wall. The people seemed to gyrate and move with the rhythmic music that was more noise than song. They pressed their fingers and beat upon a strange series of circles, there were mutterings of “dang, oops I missed’ mingled with laughter as the pulse , the cacophony of noise and sound washed over me. The scantily clad cartoonish people on the virtual stage seemed to mock my crisp ponytail and neat skirt and neck scarf. Where had I landed? Was this some strange new world? Was I even on earth?”
No, I was in my friends living room and they were playing Rock Band. I am not sure all of you know what that it is, but it is a video game that allows you to ‘play’ on instruments that are plastic controllers molded to be like a guitar and set of drums and a microphone etc. I was lured in with the siren song of bad music, flashing lights, and laughter of my friends. I thought, “Oh, well. I don’t get to see this friend very often, so I’ll just join in and that way we can hang out”. Two hours later we wondered where the pretty sunny day had gone and I said maybe 20 odd words to my friend. There was a pleasure to it, but it sort of represented all I had been thinking about that day. The no accountability and instant gratification. Why learn real instruments or just hang out and talk with your friends when you can be a group of grown people ‘pretending to play in a rock band’. It should just  be a simple fun time, but I thought of what I had missed. I had let the rest of my day go. My shirts went un-ironed. My dining room missed a day of my redo schedule. The garden sat, wondering where I had gone, as the sun set on it. Did I have fun? I had the sort of fun I have had in the past, which was actually the future (21st century) but now that sort of fun is ruined for me. I don’t think it is bad, but I cannot enjoy it. There is so much I would rather do than that. At the end of the day of even a simple day of cleaning and decorating, I feel good. I have an exhaustion and happiness and can see and live in my results. After a few hours of such a video game I felt tired, dizzy and dreaded going home and working on dinner. The thing I actually enjoy doing. I can see how easy it would have been to just order pizza, let the house go and continue on. I can see the lure of the modern world and it’s ease, but now I see the result of it. That person I was in 2008, I don’t want to go back. I was a child, I had fun, but now, I actually LIKE being a grown up. I am sure this sounds silly to many of you who are much more advanced than I, but I know for me the realization of adulthood is new and I strive for it. IT will be a long a rocky road ahead, but by the sweat of my brow and the use of my brain and intellect I will build a better me and not be made by the things around me, what I put in the shopping cart and sit back and idle in.
I am not really sure where I am going with this rant other than I want to change, that I know I do, but realize what a long road ahead of have. It will be hard work and I will slip up, but I think that will make the voyage the better and me a fuller more real person at its end. Easy is there for any of us. We can be a rock star with our friends, just plug in watch the screen and push the buttons. But, we can also learn the guitar in real life and play it quietly for ourselves or with our friends around a fire or even put a video of ourselves up on youtube for others to enjoy, but we don’t have to all be famous. I just think that the marketing plays into that need and makes us feel that way. How will we ever be truly happy if we want to chase a false dream and only fulfill it in a false reality.
I hope I can be forgiven. I am back, safely in 1955, but bruised and battered emotionally. You see, I have to realize how much of the modern consumer and instant pleasure world is a part of me? When I begin to strip that away, what will be left of me? Am I person under all my objects? It is truly, sometimes, frightening, but I don’t want to turn back. I realize, as well, that I cannot honestly just live safely as if it is 1955. I am going to continue this year to adhere as much as possible to it, as it is this which is helping me to realize the truth of my modern time and to be a better person, but to be able to touch up and brush up against 2009 whilst living in 1955 is more educational than just closing my eyes, shoving my fingers in my ears and shouting “I’m in 1955! LA LA LA”. I am glad that yesterday happened. It made the things I am finding and learning sparkle a little more today. I felt a little bit more grounded in the present while surrounding myself with the past. This is becoming an interesting ride and I am glad you are all along with me.
I never want to seem like I am trying to tell anyone how to live. I am only just discovering these things new myself and am finding a new sort of happiness I have not felt before. I am not perfect and I have so much to still learn. I really do feel, though, that I cannot go back. I have gone too far in now. To use a modern comparison, I have taken the red pill (whatever color pill it was, I don’t recall) in the Matrix and now I see the reality. I don’t want to go back and lie down in the goo and be plugged into a false world. I think I would rather be isolated and feel what I now feel than to feel connected to others through things that don’t honestly give me any true happiness or fulfillment. That is not for everyone. Many people need that feeling of ‘belonging’. I just wish that feeling could come outside of some of our modern ways. I have not found such a group as of yet and who knows, maybe when I start my vintage club I will meet others as wholeheartedly committed as am I, but until then I feel I may have to bump up on those in the modern plugged in world for moments of that sort of happiness, but like a foreign friend I will be able to visit a little but then must again return to my native land. As I said, this land has a very low population right now, me and I do get visitors, but maybe someday I can increase the population. I cannot completely not be connected to my current friends, but there is a part of me, now, that makes me unable to be wholly there with modern fun. I hope I have made the right decision, but I know I cannot turn back now, I have looked behind the curtain. I know the wizard is just some guy pulling levers and I cannot close the curtain and pretend to believe in the GREAT OZ. Have I ruined myself? Am I becoming an anachronism to my life? Who can tell. Only time will tell. I do appreciate all of you coming along for the ride.