Sunday, April 10, 2016

The 1950's Housewife Experiment: Thoughts and Lessons Learned

It has been a long while since my last post. Unfortunately, the last 10 days of the experiment were quite a dud. The cold that swept through our household seemed to knock me out completely. Right when I thought I was improving it knocked me over a second time. As the third week of the cold approached, minor hearing loss and unbelievable pains sent me to the doctor where I discovered I was no longer fighting the kids cold but a quite progressed sinus infection. So 10 days of pumping my body full of medication and then a week of more resting finds me here, feeling nearly normal again. My head is finally feeling clear enough to mull over how the earlier weeks of the experiment had gone.

So what did I learn?

1. Housework kept women fit as a fiddle. No matter how hard I tried it seemed I could not keep up with the expected cleaning. But, our home suddenly felt so much more inviting and it was actually very relaxing at night. Which leads me to number 2 . . .

2. Top cleaning is awesome! Not that I enjoy cleaning but it is amazing what 2 hours spent tidying, dusting and sweeping can do for the house each day.

3. My oven was embarrassingly neglected! I am still disgusted by the thought of my before picture and must admit, I quite enjoy the easy wipe down each week now. So much easier to just upkeep than to do an occasional all out scrub down.

4. Giving up electronics during the day made for an amazingly productive day. As soon as I went back to checking social media I found my productivity dropped drastically. I can get so much done in a day if I leave the tablet in my bedroom. This also made for more bonding between the family. We found ourselves reading together, doing puzzles, playing games and sometimes just sitting and talking the night away.

5. I really like Gin!

6. Old housecleaning books actually hold some great tips (as well as many outdated ones). But the worth while ones really were helpful. My favorite is using a broom to scrub the tub instead of killing my back bending over and scrubbing it down.

7. We really do Love Lucy! The whole family enjoys watching and my kids think Lucy is the funniest. My nearly 2 year old will mimic Lucy's sound of disgust when I ask her what Lucy says. Too cute!

I think I could go on for hours. But suffice it to say that a lot will be adapted and kept in our daily routines. We will definitely be continuing with restricted electronics usage and I will continue to wake up with my husband every morning. It is amazing what that 45 minutes of adult conversation has done for us. We also discovered the joy of taking time for date nights as a result of our project. We have taken up dance lessons and are enjoying ourselves completely!

I will continue my weekly cleaning routine, most importantly keeping up with the daily top cleaning. I will also continue to carefully plan our weekly meals around the super market specials and coupons. But most importantly, I am going to carry my head a little bit higher as I place more value on the role that I play within my household. Not only do I care for each and every one of my child's needs but I am keeping our household tidy, well stocked and budgeted.

So what does the end of the experiment mean for the direction of this new blog. Well, one other thing I am going to keep up with is the goal of sewing at least 2 garments a month. Something I failed at miserably this past month thanks to my cold/sinus infection but something I hope to succeed at going forward. To keep it fun and interesting, I will sew as many retro inspired items as I can. Not too hard for me to do as I tend to drool over the beautiful designs from the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. This will also be the perfect spot to share my vintage finds from my thrifting adventures.

Stay tuned . . . I will be sharing a little something I created by tweaking a modern pattern to fit a vintage need later this week as well as some thrifty vintage finds!

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