Oh, for a cool change

The articles for early January 1939 talk about the need to keep cool. Nothing much seems to change and the weather is still hot in 2019! The newspaper article for how to keep food fresh without an ice box is an interesting read. Depending on where you live refrigerators were advertised and many had them.

The garden for January 1939 talks about keeping up with the watering during hot days, and to plant out celery. Now a days gardeners don't bother with the trench method, they blanch the stems when they are almost fully grown by wrapping cardboard or newspaper around the plant to exclude the light to blanch the stem. Blanching the stem of celery will make the plant less bitter tasting.

I've planted my celery out. I left them a little too long in the seed planter but they will bounce back. It is important to keep the water up to the plant.

I'm going back to old fashioned bar soap this week, instead of using liquid soap. I've chosen to go with the Lux soap as the brand is advertised more than Palmolive soap. I wonder if I will end up with a complexion as: 'lovely as Joan Blondell!'

The scrapbook I have for the newspaper articles of the time is starting to fill up with a wide variety of home and garden sections. There's a lot of things I can't do with the articles I do have due to the obvious reason some items are no longer available or they are not something I want to do just yet. But I save what I find and it will be a good record to have on hand.

Don't get me wrong, I love vintage, but I also love our modern cons and technology. Without the latter, I wouldn't be able to research and save what I find. It would also mean long trips to the library. I think eating and living like our older generations once did makes sense in these times of uncertainty we seem to be in, but it is also wise to balance our technology with theirs too.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

The new year and 1939

As the new year comes in for 2019, I'm heading back in time to 1939. Last year I did a lot of research and saved many of the articles I found for this time. This year will be putting much of what I found in the research into proper use as I only just touched on the subject towards the end of last year. Now it is a new year, I'll start with the articles from January. The article above is what housewives could buy for themselves in the summer sales after Christmas.  It is an interesting look in what was available to buy for the home at the time.

With Christmas over, the January articles give recipes for using up leftovers. We had traditional meat for Christmas this year and my favourite used a vintage recipe with pineapples and ham. I kept the ham bone to use it in a recipe for ham soup.

I'm continuing to build up the garden patch. I'm following the planting guides for 1939 and I have a few things planted out now. So far the heat, along with the wild storms we have had; hasn't done too much damage and everything is growing well. The growing guides encourage planting flowers, they obviously had seperate gardens for these. I have a small garden space so the flowers I have are mixed in with the veggies and in pots.

By following 1939 it means slowing down with home chores. They did have vacuum cleaners and washing machines but washing up was still done by hand in many homes. I now wash up by hand instead of using the dishwasher.

The meal time recipes for January call for salads and using up the salads available in the home garden. The recipes are obviously very seasonal for our hot weather. The main recipes are mostly for salad dressings and ways to add fruit to salads such as oranges.

In the beauty sections, soaps such as Lux and Palmolive show up in advertisements. Vaseline is encouraged for all uses and cold creams for skin care is being recommend, Ponds is advertised regularly. I have Nivea which was available at the time. Yardley isn't advertised until late in the year when war was announced and advertisements were encouraging to buy British. I received a bottle for Christmas and I will buy more as I like the scent which is Lilly of the Valley.

I think it will be an interesting year living during 1939 and recreating the home life ways of the time.  

For now, I wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope the year will be happy and bright for you all.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.