...is new again!

I have always been a lover of old things, my grandmother notwithstanding (and especially her cinnamon rolls).  I was given my first cup and saucer of the depression glass collection, "Cameo, or Ballerina Girl," when I was 8 years old by my Auntie Barb.  I was hooked.  I visited antique stores with a zeal and relish that made store owners leery until they discovered I wasn't in the store just to wreak havoc and break something.  I read all the "American Girl" books, particularly Felicity and Kirsten, and you got it: Laura Ingalls Wilder topped my list to.  I became entranced by the PBS series, Frontier House, Colonial House, and Manor House. I insisted on learning my genealogical past from the ripe young age of 9, dragging my bewildered parents to the Brown County Historical Society in New Ulm, MN.  I now have two 3'' binders filled with old family photos, letters, and of course the family trees.  I have both of my grandmother's wedding dresses and was just recently given at my wedding shower a vest that was worn by my great-great grandmother on the boat from Germany. I was a sobbing mess.

And the list could go on and on and on about my fascination with "old things."  But in particular, what has perhaps fascinated me most, was simply how they did it.  How did they churn butter in those things?  What did they do when they had a raging headache and couldn't pop an ibuprofen from a plastic bottle?  You mean they had to wash laundry BY HAND?  Then there's everything that I can't even begin to pronounce on the back of a commercial shampoo bottle that has often left me standing in a pool of water in my bathtub as I struggle to pronounce the number-number-polysyllabic-number word.  What did they do before the advent of petrochemicals, I ask myself?  Not to mention what is in our food and water supply.  Frankly, I don't trust the FDA.  I remember when the campaign was all for margarine, but now they're saying the trans-fats are oh so bad.  Get your story straight, please.  I'm sticking with food I know hasn't been tampered with and has been grown/developed/processed in a way that would make our forefathers happy, like the vegetables from our garden.

 

So  it's most definitely the independent person in me who says, "Well if they can do it, so can I!" I'm giving it a shot, this whole "what is old is new again" thing.

The mere fact that I proceed to document my journey towards a simpler life via a blog seems an instantaneous oxymoron.  Yet with all the other "simple life" blogs out there, and with my mother more likely to be able to check the blog at work and thus stay more informed of our activities, I figured why not?  Plus, let's face it: friends have been urging me for a while now to do it, so to you dear ones--your wish has been granted.

It'll take every ounce of power not to post a gazillion things right away.  One bit at a time...

But if anyone has something they'd like to know about right away, let me know!