Do you feel bombarded by all the emails, social media posts and articles about how to make 2020 your best year ever? I’ve got to admit, I’m a little stressed out about all the information about how I can improve myself in some way. Obviously, I’m not good enough as I am!
Here are a few of the email subject lines showing up in my inbox lately: “New Year, New You; Will You Accept the Challenge?; Don’t Miss Out On……; It’s the Magic Formula; Get a Head Start on …..; 5 _____ Mistakes You Don’t Even Know You’re Making”! The list could go on and on with subject lines and titles that imply I need to know more, do more or be more.
Even the title of the article I’m sharing with you today implies I should have done something that I didn’t do – “Why Didn’t I Think of That?” Well, the reason I’m reading the article is to get tips that I didn’t think of! And if I had already thought of them, I wouldn’t need to read the article.
You are enough. Just the way you are. (Wow, I’m sounding a little like Mr. Rogers here!) But my best advice to you this new year, new decade is not to try and reinvent yourself. I cannot think of one year in which I made New Year’s resolutions that I actually accomplished . Most of my past resolutions never made it into February! So that means I started off that new year as a failure.
I don’t mean for you to sit back and do nothing to improve yourself. But be selective and make choices that help you improve the quality of your life or make life a little easier or more efficient for you. And that’s where I aim to help.
My goal is to offer tips and hacks that you can use with little or no effort. I hope to provide a smorgasbord of ideas from which you can choose to implement if they meet your needs.
And that brings me to my request of you. How can I help? As I offer Home Economics Reimagined to you, what are the things you need to make your life a little easier? Comment and let me know what you need to know. Or click on the Contact Me page to email me. I will respond to each and every suggestion.
In the meantime, check out this article of simple tips to make life simpler: https://vickiloves.me/handytips. Number 7 alone is worth the read!
Do you really think homemade sweet pickles can be made in 10 minutes? I can do that! Well, maybe not completely in 10 minutes (and maybe semi-homemade), but I can certainly finish the making part. The sugar takes longer to do its part. Let me show you how I do it.
Recipe – Sweet Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients:
Sour pickles
Sugar
Directions:
Drain liquid from jar of whole sour pickles
Trim off ends of pickles
Slice pickles (in food processor, with a mandoline or by hand with a knife)
Return pickles to original jar.
Spoon sugar on top
Replace jar lid
Keep adding sugar daily until syrup covers pickles and they are sweet to your taste
I usually let the pickles sit on the counter for several days and keep adding sugar until they are sweet enough. And that is the easiest and fastest way to make semi-homemade pickles! Check out my video for how to do it. It’s just a little over 5 minutes.
My two gallons of pickles were sweet enough for me in about five days. And I use a LOT of sugar!
In a previous post entitled Roots and Wings, I spoke of Henry Ward Beecher’s beautiful quote, “there are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots…the other wings”. The roots of my childhood made me who I am today. This post addresses those roots and how they are reflected in my current home.
I have many tangible examples of those roots throughout my home. I really did not realize how much my home was filled with these items until I began to list and take note of them. Some have been updated to fit in my personal style. Others are displayed as sentimental reminders of special family members on both sides of our families.
As I chronicle the expression of my personal roots through items in my home, I will be revealing them categorically by the room in which they are found. In this post, I am sharing general items that reflect my (and sometimes my husband’s) roots, which include doors, items in hallway and porch posts.
Welcome to me and
my home as you enter
through the front door.
Welcome to me and my home as you enter through the front door. Even as a child, I thought the exterior doors of our home were especially beautiful. They were finished with an almost black tar-like substance, which also covered many of the pieces of furniture. I did not realize how pervasive this finish was until I began to refinish the doors.
The front door of my current home was also the front door of my childhood home. From what I know about my grandparents and when they were married, I assume my childhood home was built in the early 1900s. Therefore, I imagine this door was made prior to 1920.
I love the detail and design of the door. The outside has raised carvings and a small ledge just below the glass. I wish I could remember when I refinished it, but I’m sure it was long before we built my current home. My guess is that would be approximately 50 years ago, probably just before or soon after my wedding.
I do remember it took hours of scraping off the tar-like finish. It took many coats of paint remover and hour upon hour of sanding, which was all done by hand. The wood turned out to be a reddish-brown color, most likely permanently stained by the original finish that had been applied to it. So, I left it the color that emerged and simply applied some type of oil to protect the wood. I’m not sure what I originally used, but now I occasionally wipe it down with Danish or teak oil.
This door became the front door of my home in the mid-’90s during the first remodel of our home. I commissioned a local artist who created stained glass items to design, create and install a new glass insert. We also installed a lock. None of the doors in my childhood home had locks. We never even thought about locking a door. The porch doors had a simple latch that was used mainly to keep the screen doors from blowing open by the wind. But we seldom secured them.
When we built our home, our front door was a double door. When we changed to this single front door, we installed sidelights to fill the remaining space. The local artist also created matching glass inserts for the sidelights.
I love the imperfection
in those doors…
a reminder of the
imperfection in all
of us.
These double doors are the entrance to the study. In my childhood home, they were exterior doors near my parent’s bedroom, opening onto the left side of the large wrap-around porch. They also were finished with the black tar-like substance on the exterior side of the doors.
However, unlike the front door, I paid a furniture refinisher to remove the original finishes. An interesting fact I discovered afterward was that one of the doors was originally installed backward. If you look closely in the picture, you can see that the molding on the panels of one of the doors is raised and it is inset on the other door. Apparently, when they were first hung, one of them was installed backward! I don’t think my parents or grandparents ever recognized that fact. And I don’t think I would have recognized it had it not been for the removal of the original finish, exposing the wood in its natural state. But I love the imperfection in those doors, making them all the more dear to me – a reminder of the imperfection in all of us.
I commissioned the same artist who created the glass insert for the front door to create matching glass inserts for these doors to replace the original plain glass.
You had to go
through this door
onto the porch
to get to the kitchen.
The above door was an interior door in my childhood home. It opened from the hallway that connected the front entrance with the back porch. You had to go through this door onto the porch to get to the kitchen. In the wintertime, it was a very cold trek through this door onto the porch and to the kitchen. But the hallways were also unheated, so there was a lot of rushing to get from one heated room to another!
This door needed a lot less work to refinish. Since it was an interior door, it did not have the tar-like finish on either side. However, it was not tall enough to fit the exterior door opening in my home (from study to the side of the wrap-around porch). So, my contractor, who was my next-door neighbor, added about 6 inches of wood to the bottom, which I stained to match the door and had covered with a brass kickplate on both sides. Unless you examined the door very closely, you would never know it had been altered from its original state.
I requested that
particular post be
placed at the front
entrance and the
words of its origin
kept unpainted.
The above picture illustrates something I really treasure. When my childhood home was torn down, my father saved the front porch posts. When we remodeled the exterior of my home in the mid-’90s, we added a wrap-around porch and used those original posts. As we examined the posts to pick out the least damaged ones, we found an inscription on one of them where the paint had worn off. It read “Lilley Bros. Williamston, NC”. Those porch posts and I assume all the lumber and doors in my childhood home, had been cut at a sawmill owned and operated by three brothers, one of which was my great-grandfather! What an exciting find!
When the posts were added to my new front porch, I requested that particular post be placed at the front entrance and the words of its origin kept unpainted.
Also, the porch posts were too short for my porch, so we had to add a block of wood at the bottom, which we hid with molding. As with the side exterior door, you would never know the entire post was not original.
The shelves were
originally one long
board that was
13.5″ wide and
almost 2″ thick.
The above bookshelf needs a detailed explanation, partly because I want to record what I can remember about its origin and partly because I want my children and grandchildren to know the story.
There were many barns on our farm, and they were named according to their use. The Mule Barn, of course, was home to our mules. I can remember having seven mules. I can only remember the names of two of them, Molly and Big Red. During the day, they roamed and grazed in the “lot”, which was fenced off behind the house and barns. There was no fence on the back side of the lot, because it was naturally fenced by a creek.
In the evening, my grandfather would open the gate to allow the mules to go into their stalls in the barn. They would first stop at the water trough, which was the front of the pump house (this housed the water pump for the entire home). My grandfather and I would stand between the water trough and the road to direct the mules into their stalls. But each mule knew where to go, and they would obediently enter their assigned stall after a long drink of water.
My grandfather and I would then lock the doors of the stalls and climb the stairs to the upper loft of the barn where peanut hay was stored in bales. We opened the bales and dropped the hay into holes in the floor. The mules then ate it from triangular-shaped, slatted bins in their own stalls. In the morning, we would reverse the process by opening the gate and then the stall doors and the mules stopped by the water trough on the way to the lot for the day.
Now, to get back to the bookshelf in the picture. In the first stall on the left side of the barn was a long trough at the front of the stall. Although the details are a bit fuzzy in my mind, I think we put additional hay in it for the mules.
So, many years later, my husband and I removed the thick heavy board that was the front of that mule trough. It was so thick and heavy that we needed a chainsaw to cut it out.
We made this bookshelf from that piece of wood. The shelves were originally one long board that was 13.5 inches wide and almost 2 inches thick. Although I sanded and sanded the board, it never got completely smooth, because I assume it was rough-hewn. So, I’m guessing that particular piece of lumber was cut in the early days of the brother’s sawmill.
We used black industrial pipe and flange fittings to create the unit. Although we are happy with the results, especially being able to save that historic piece of lumber, it was not as easy as we thought it might be!
It was originally
the stair railing
of the home
in which my
father-in-law grew up.
When we built our home, we had this special stair railing installed. It was originally the stair railing of the home in which my father-in-law grew up. I love how smooth it feels to run my hand down it as I descend the stairs. And it means a lot to know our home has historic roots for my husband as well as me.
I realize this was a long post, but I wrote it for myself and my children and grandchildren. The My Home page of my blog is where I chronicle my story starting with my historical roots and going through the planning and building of my home and the many changes I’ve made to it to its current status.
Every Christmas season, friends and neighbors talk about the
beauty of our home. As you can see from the above picture, our decorations are a
simple and traditional Southern farmhouse style. They are also relatively inexpensive
and can be done quickly and efficiently.
Our exterior decorating consists of garland around the front
porch, wide ribbon and other touches of red, wreaths on the windows, a tree on
the gazebo corner of the porch, Christmas topiaries by the front door and
candles in the windows. It’s a classic look that never goes out of style.
We bought the artificial garland for half price after
Christmas several years ago. My husband has it labeled in large plastic
containers, so he knows exactly where to start. Within 30 minutes, he has the
garland in place, and I finish up with touches of red. I layer wide red ribbon
on top of the garland, held in place by occasional twists of garland. At each
porch post, I insert dollar store poinsettia stems and stems of red berries. At
the porch steps, I wire hand-tied red bows with ribbon streamers around the stair
railing.
The red tree with red lights on the gazebo corner of the porch
shows up beautifully from the road so it doesn’t need ornaments. The two
smaller trees flanking the larger one are old topiaries that needed to be
discarded. However, I wrapped them in red dollar store tinsel and red lights
and they also show up well from a distance.
Wide red velvet ribbon frames the front door, held in place with clear packing tape. I made the Christmas topiaries last year and they are assembled within minutes. You can see how I made them at https://youtu.be/sRVHGPTV2Cw .
Long strips of red velvet ribbon hold up the artificial
wreaths (also over half-price) by securing them in the top frame of each
window. For more color, I wired inexpensive red balls on each wreath. Candles
in the windows are set in the middle of the wreaths for a final touch.
If predictions are for colder weather than normal, I might
insert pine boughs or cedar in the garland to make it look fuller and more
natural. In colder weather, the natural additions will last through the
Christmas season. But often, we experience spells of warm weather in December, and
the natural elements dry out too quickly.
All of this decorating takes less than half a day and
everything was purchased at the dollar store or at least half price at a craft
store. All decorations are kept in labeled large plastic containers, which were
purchased at after-Christmas sales and stored in our barn. We have a system for
decorating the house exterior and a system for removing and storing the
decorations. Beautiful Christmas decorating doesn’t have to be expensive or
time-consuming. Keep it simple, shop the sales and develop a system for
decorating and storing the decorations.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year – or so a familiar Christmas song says. But it’s also a time of hustle, bustle and stress, with so much to do and so little time to get it done. Some people revel in the shopping experience, getting to stores early to get that special deal of a doorbuster. I’m not one of them. I prefer laptop shopping.
For either way you like to shop, you probably need some method of keeping up with all you have to do and all you’ve already done. I use a phone app called Santa’s Bag. My daughter introduced me to this free app last year and it has replaced my little notebook with scribbled and crossed-out lists.
First, I enter the names of everyone for whom I need to purchase a gift. You can set up an overall budget and/or individual budget. Unfortunately, I have great difficulty sticking to one, so I just try to keep a close look and make sure I’m equitable with purchases. When I purchase a gift for a recipient, I enter the name of the gift, the store from which it was purchased and the purchase price.
Once the name of a gift is entered for a recipient, there are several icons to select that put the item in a list that tells you the status of what you have completed and what you still need to do. Those include: Idea; To Buy; Ordered; To Wrap; Wrapped; To Send; and Given. An additional icon identifies a gift as Stocking Stuffer. I request wish lists from family members and label the items as Ideas. Then, when I purchase a gift, I select the Ordered icon. When the gift arrives (I am well acquainted with the UPS and FedEx delivery people!), I
change to the To Wrap icon. The last icon I use is Wrapped, and then the gift goes under the tree
You can use none, any or all of the icons. When you click on the appropriate icon for a gift, it creates a to-do list by moving all similarly labeled gifts together. Then at a glance I know what has been ordered, what I need to wrap and the final list I work toward is Wrapped.
I like the simplicity of Santa’s Bag. It is intuitive and easy to set up and use. I can use as many or as few of the many features as I need. Screenshots of some of the features and layout are below.
Budget Page
Recipient List
& Status
How to Sort Lists
Gifts for
Individual
Additional Features
Gift Ideas Search
Some other gifting apps available and their main features include:
Christmas – similar features to Santa’s Bag; matter of preference as to whether you like Christmas or Santa’s Bag
Giftry – this app is more of a year-round gift planner; can select favorite stores and enter or search for possible gifts
Giftster – is an online gift registry connecting family and friends; gives options to create groups and lists and share wish
lists with others in your group; use for all types of events and holidays
Gifted – keeps track of gifts, people and events; can add or import people; add birthdates, anniversaries and other
events; then add gift ideas; has progress slider to keep track of each gift; has profile pages for each person
GiftPlanner – similar to other apps for gift planning. Upgraded paid version allows you to import gift ideas from the web
In addition to Santa’s Bag, I use one other indispensable online shopping app – Rakuten. Formerly known as Ebates, Rakuten allows you to earn cash back from online stores. During the Christmas holidays, cash back percentages are often doubled or even tripled. Since I have been using Rakuten, which has been several years now, I have received close to $2000 back in ebates! I never shop online without checking Rakuten for stores offering cash back. You can earn additional cash back by referring friends to Rakuten.
A few other must-have shopping apps include:
Honey (joinhoney.com) – best for online coupons and price alerts
Fakespot (fakespot.com) – best for choosing what and where to buy by spotting fake reviews and flagging most helpful reviews
PriceBlink (priceblink.com) – best for price comparisons for an item among other stores; PriceBlink does not have a mobile app, so you could use the ShopSavvy mobile app instead
RetailMeNot (retailmenot.com) – best for in-store coupons and sales
For your best shopping experience, consider your priorities and what you want an app to do for you. There are a lot of choices out there. I hope these few get you started.
To your less stressful and more enjoyable shopping experience!
Thanksgiving is the holiday that’s just too good for its own
good. This unassuming holiday is sandwiched between holidays that are the two
biggest bullies of the year. Okay, perhaps that is a little harsh, but think
about it.
Halloween has become the little giant of commercialism.
Whole retail stores pop up a few months before Halloween and then disappear as
quickly as they came. I never owned a store-bought Halloween costume. Come to
think of it, I don’t remember ever having dressed up for Halloween or going
trick or treating! We did live in a very rural setting, and people just didn’t
go trick or treating on Halloween.
But now, children are asked what they want to be for
Halloween just like they are asked what they want to be when they grow up! And
adults are even worse. The retail stores are really for adults. At least I
think they are; I’ve never been in one. As you can tell, Halloween is not among
my favorite holidays.
And what about Christmas? I’ve seen homes decorated for
Christmas in early November. It’s like people are going straight from Halloween
into Christmas! I’ve even seen homes that leave up their Christmas decorations
until almost spring! Well, maybe not that long, but when 25% of the year is about
Christmas, I’m thinking that’s a little too much. And we won’t even talk about
the excessive shopping for Christmas, something that some people do year-round.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Christmas. I love giving
gifts, especially for my grandchildren. And I try especially hard to give gifts
that my family members actually want, need and use. I love Christmas music. It
lifts the spirits and brings back wonderful childhood memories.
But, let’s get back to Thanksgiving, the introvert of
holidays. It doesn’t stand a chance. I
believe celebrating the true spirit of Thanksgiving helps ease you into the
spirit of Christmas. By being thankful for your blessings, you can then
approach Christmas with the joy of sharing. It’s so easy to get caught up in the
frenzy of Christmas decorating and shopping that we sometimes forget the real
reason for the season.
I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal for some time now, and
it’s been a spiritually rewarding experience. Every evening, I write five
things for which I’m grateful. I write them in complete sentences, starting
with “I am grateful for”. This practice
has made me more aware of the little things I encounter every day that are a
blessing to me in some way.
Of course, I find myself often being grateful for family
members. But I have grown from just saying I’m grateful for them to seeing
qualities, character traits or good deeds that fill my heart with thankfulness.
I’m also more aware of little things I previously overlooked that enrich my life. Now, I often pause to be thankful in the moment when I see a beautiful cardinal at the bird feeder or watch two squirrels playfully scampering up a pine tree.
All I’m saying is that if we give Thanksgiving a chance to be more than a turkey feast with family, it can enrich our lives throughout the year.
We all know that eating right is
sometimes impossible. Our busy lifestyles don’t lend themselves to cooking our
own healthy meals. Easy becomes our go-to choice, whether it is a conscious or
unconscious decision. That drive-thru is so much easier at times.
And everyone indulges now and then
with foods that would not be considered healthy. Doing this is not considered a
problem. However, when people make poor food choices as part of their regular
diet, that is problems emerge.
The foods you eat are based on your habits. It takes time to
develop these habits and requires you to
stick with them to make them work. It’s also about making a conscious choice of the ingredients that go into your foods. Do
you check nutrition labels at the supermarket?
But, just checking the labels is
not enough. You need to understand the impact of the foods and how they affect
a balanced diet. You can have too much of a good thing when eating. For
instance, eating fruit is good. Eating too much fruit could increase your sugar
levels. Even though fruit sugars are natural, they contain sugar just the same.
But where do you start to develop
good eating habits? Trying to be too restrictive in the foods you eat is often
a pattern for failure. Start with trying to create balance by eating more
healthy foods than fast food. For instance, it’s okay to eat salt, and your
body requires a small amount of it. But you shouldn’t load up on foods that are
high in sodium. The better approach is to prepare your meals with basic
ingredients. You can control the ingredients when you do this. This means you can choose how much salt or
sugar, or whatever ingredients to add.
As part of your routine, you should
also factor in portion control. This is
one of the essential attributes that can make or break a diet. If you manage
proper portion control, you will be able to eat more of the foods you enjoy,
even if a few of them are not considered great choices.
Developing good eating habits is
especially difficult if you’ve succumbed to a lifestyle of fast and easy
instead of thoughtful choices. It does take a great deal of effort to make
healthy changes when demands of your job and activities of your children are
pulling you in so many directions.
The biggest problem with eating
right is the benefits are not seen until sometime into the future. We live in a
society where instant gratification is
the norm. This makes it much harder to stick to healthy eating plans, because
losing weight, and even more importantly, feeling great, won’t start happening
until months later. This is why the early
part of forming good eating habits is so crucial to the process. Try to focus
on the benefits you will see later.
Think about it. How might the
effort of developing good eating habits impact your life, and more importantly,
the lives of your children?
While the dictionary defines happiness as “the state of being happy”, that gives you very little information about what the state of happiness feels like. I used to think happiness was about having things, but then I got older and hopefully wiser. Happiness is more about being. And it is a choice.
I taught Child Care Services several years to high school students. One of the discussion strategies I used was WHIFs. A WHIF is WHat IF a specific scenario existed and you had to respond to it. In the course, scenarios were usually around dealing with preschool children and their behavior. In other words, WHat IF a child (or children) were doing something that required a caregiver to take action. What would you do in that situation? How would you respond that would provide a teachable moment for the children or model a more appropriate behavior or even apply disciplinary action?
I think applying a WHIF to situations in your life is often an appropriate decision-making process for adults. In terms of happiness, as in most life situations, the response you choose can either add to your overall happiness or detract from it. It is especially helpful in potentially negative situations to ask yourself this question: What if I choose to _________? (Fill in the blank with a choice you could make in a situation.) Would that choice fulfill my needs or add to my peace and contentment? Or what if I choose to _________? (Fill in the blank with another choice you could make in the same situation.) What would be the likely outcome of that choice?
Your response to your WHIF has the potential to either add to your happiness and move you further toward your goals and dreams in life or move you further away from those goals and dreams and possibly the people you love the most.
Do any of these attributes or feelings apply to you? Do any of them define or contribute to your happiness? Consider how your choices impact your happiness level by applying your own WHIF.
Your Needs are Met – When a person is happy, their needs are usually being met at the level they want them to be met. It doesn’t mean that someone is not having a hard time, it’s more about how you make what you have fill your needs.
You Feel Satisfied – When you are happy, you tend to feel simply satisfied with your life. You think about your life and feel good about it.
You Feel Content – A happy person tends to feel content about their life in general. They are not in a constant state of stress. But remember happy people do have stress, they’re just better at feeling content even when things aren’t perfect.
You Are at Peace – Peace tends to go with contentment. Happy people tend to know that everything will turn out okay and are good at turning negativity into positivity.
The truth is, happiness is how you define it personally for you. It’s not about getting tons of stuff unless you want that. It’s not about finding a spouse unless you want that. It’s not about having kids unless you want that. It’s all up to you how you define happiness.
Happiness is not a destination that you get to one day and stay at. It’s a lifelong journey that will have many ups and downs and struggles. But, you get to decide how those ups and downs of life affect you. You have it in your power to be happy where you are in your life right now. So, the next time you’re faced with a potentially negative situation, apply a WHIF to consider the impact of your actions. While you do have to do more than think positively to really and truly feel happy, it does start with your thoughts. Make your choices manifest happiness through your actions.
Yes, I “kon mar-ied” my clothes! I know that’s not a word, but it just seemed appropriate as I completed the first step in the Kon-Mari process. Note the “deer in the headlights” look in the featured photo – that’s me at the beginning of the Kon-Mari process! I fully intend to have a better photo (one of me smiling!) at the end of the process.
If you read my previous post about Kon-Mari, you know it is the process of tidying as defined by Marie Kondo. Tidying is the task of transforming your home into a sanctuary of natural energy that meshes totally with your own natural energy. It should be a celebration, a special event that allows you to confront yourself and discover the balance needed to live your life in contentment and peace surrounded by the things that bring you joy. All of which is how tidying is defined by Marie Kondo.
And Marie was right – starting with clothes is the easiest starting point. For me, the process of handling each item of clothing and deciding whether it sparked joy was a relatively quick and painless process. Maybe that’s because I don’t have a lot of clothes in the first place, and I’m not emotionally attached to most of them.
So, I gathered all my clothes and put them on my bed. It really helped that I had already purged my closet within the past year. Then I held each piece and waited for the spark of joy. I did have a few joy-sparking pieces, but mostly I just felt contentment with items that covered me without drawing attention to areas that needed no attention. So I considered that a spark of joy.
The whole process from gathering the clothes to folding or hanging and putting them away took approximately two hours. I was actually quite pleased with how quickly it went. I ended up with a couple of boxes of clothes to donate, and a few went straight to the wastebasket.
I use an armoire to store most of my clothes, which was originally a china cabinet in the home where I grew up. As you can see in a picture below of the armoire, my husband did not participate in the process. Therefore, he doesn’t know what clothes he actually owns (and doesn’t care), and he ends up picking up the shirt and shorts/pants that are on the top of the pile. He claims the present system of disorganization brings him joy! My clothes are the neatly-folded ones in the clear plastic bins.
At this point, I’m very happy with the process. I can see exactly what I own, making it much easier to find what I’m looking for. And scaling back on the number/amount of my clothes keeps the process of deciding what to wear very simple. (I’m still having a hard time folding underwear, though.)
Scroll through the picture gallery below to see the results of my Kon Mari-ed clothes! Have you considered this process for yourself?
H.E.R – Home Economics Re-imagined is now my mission, sharing life hacks (i.e. shortcuts, tips and wise pronouncements) that help today’s homemakers live their lives with intention. I want individuals to recognize when their efforts are “good enough”, which is something I am constantly working on. There is no such thing as perfection, as only One was perfect. So, knowing when to award yourself the satisfaction that an effort is good enough is a worthy goal.
In addition to being a wife, mother and grandmother, I am an educator. I began as a home economics teacher, which is something of an oddity since I don’t really like to talk. But at the time, I saw that I had three options for a career: secretary, nurse or teacher. Well, I didn’t want a career in which I answered to a boss all day (i.e. secretary). And since I feel faint at the sight of blood, nursing was out. Therefore, I became a teacher. And since I loved my high school home economics teacher, I became a home economics teacher.
Along that career path, I kept working my way toward administrative positions. First, I accepted the position of a local career and technical education director, which means I was in charge of all career and technical education for my county, not just home economics. Career and technical education included agriculture, family and consumer sciences (home economics), business, career, marketing and trades and industrial education.
Then, as I approached my fifties (I am now on the cusp of my 70’s!), I decided to get my doctorate. So, at 49, I started on my Ed.D. in Educational Leadership. And now, I have a 232-page dissertation (and a diploma) to prove it
Finally, I finished my education career as a regional career and technical education coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. I loved that job! It was one of service to all career and education teachers in my region, assisting with curriculum, teaching methods and management of allotted funds.
When I decided it was time to retire, the transition into retirement was not easy for me. It took me about two years to stop playing games on my iPad, putting together jigsaw puzzles and playing sudoku. I really needed a project – something I would enjoy, but that also allowed me to be creative and productive.
So, my husband and I started a non-money-producing business to create furniture and home décor with reclaimed wood. We both grew up on farms with lots of old barns, which were beginning to decay. We started tearing them down board by board and turning those boards into mostly tables and picture frames. (You’ll see pictures later on My Home page)
I framed a lot of jigsaw puzzles with old barn wood and labeled the backs of the frames with plaques designating the origin and probable age of the wood. But I sold none of them. I gave them to family members or hung them in my home. I just hated to let go of something that was so much a part of me and my past.
Then, I started putting together ideas about sharing many of the things I learned through the years about living and homemaking. And thus – H.E.R. – Home Economics Re-imagined was born. And in my “perfectionist” state of mind, it took me another several years to be “ready” to launch my online presence. I have since learned that I am a procrastinator. The first step is to admit that, which I now do.
The home economics I learned when I first started taking those courses had to evolve to fit today’s lifestyles. People are too busy to make their own clothes or raise and cook all their food. But many are seeking a simpler lifestyle, while going back to the basics of whole foods that provide nutrition that promote health. And many want to slow down and enjoy their lives in a way that is more intentional. They are tired of life being something that just happens to them as they react to situations that develop along the way.
So, I hope you’ll join me on this journey of a good-enough life lived with your own defined intent.
H.E.R – Home Economics Re-imagined is now my mission, sharing life hacks (i.e. shortcuts, tips and wise pronouncements) that help today’s homemakers live their lives with intention. I want individuals to recognize when their efforts are “good enough”, which is something I am constantly working on. There is no such thing as perfection, as only One was perfect. So, knowing when to award yourself the satisfaction that an effort is good enough is a worthy goal.
In addition to being a wife, mother and grandmother, I am an educator. I began as a home economics teacher, which is something of an oddity since I don’t really like to talk. But at the time, I saw that I had three options for a career: secretary, nurse or teacher. Well, I didn’t want a career in which I answered to a boss all day (i.e. secretary). And since I feel faint at the sight of blood, nursing was out. Therefore, I became a teacher. And since I loved my high school home economics teacher, I became a home economics teacher.
Along that career path, I kept working my way toward administrative positions. First, I accepted the position of a local career and technical education director, which means I was in charge of all career and technical education for my county, not just home economics. Career and technical education included agriculture, family and consumer sciences (home economics), business, career, marketing and trades and industrial education.
Then, as I approached my fifties (I am now on the cusp of my 70’s!), I decided to get my doctorate. So, at 49, I started on my Ed.D. in Educational Leadership. And now, I have a 232-page dissertation (and a diploma) to prove it
Finally, I finished my education career as a regional career and technical education coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. I loved that job! It was one of service to all career and education teachers in my region, assisting with curriculum, teaching methods and management of allotted funds.
When I decided it was time to retire, the transition into retirement was not easy for me. It took me about two years to stop playing games on my iPad, putting together jigsaw puzzles and playing sudoku. I really needed a project – something I would enjoy, but that also allowed me to be creative and productive.
So, my husband and I started a non-money-producing business to create furniture and home décor with reclaimed wood. We both grew up on farms with lots of old barns, which were beginning to decay. We started tearing them down board by board and turning those boards into mostly tables and picture frames. (You’ll see pictures later on My Home page)
I framed a lot of jigsaw puzzles with old barn wood and labeled the backs of the frames with plaques designating the origin and probable age of the wood. But I sold none of them. I gave them to family members or hung them in my home. I just hated to let go of something that was so much a part of me and my past.
Then, I started putting together ideas about sharing many of the things I learned through the years about living and homemaking. And thus – H.E.R. – Home Economics Re-imagined was born. And in my “perfectionist” state of mind, it took me another several years to be “ready” to launch my online presence. I have since learned that I am a procrastinator. The first step is to admit that, which I now do.
The home economics I learned when I first started taking those courses had to evolve to fit today’s lifestyles. People are too busy to make their own clothes or raise and cook all their food. But many are seeking a simpler lifestyle, while going back to the basics of whole foods that provide nutrition that promote health. And many want to slow down and enjoy their lives in a way that is more intentional. They are tired of life being something that just happens to them as they react to situations that develop along the way.
So, I hope you’ll join me on this journey of a good-enough life lived with your own defined intent.
