ENTERTAINING FOR DINNER IN 1871

I had to come back and post this adorable excerpt
from the 1871 revised printing of
The Young Housekeeper's Friend by Mrs. Cornelius.
With lots of you expecting company for dinner
tomorrow, you might find this humorous compared
to the way we approach housekeeping in this century:

Enjoy your day tomorrow!

graphic from vintageholidayimages.com

TO OUR DEAR FRIENDS AND FAMILY NEAR AND FAR...

Hi, Primmies, we want to wish you and yours a very
Happy Thanksgiving.
Those of you who have been regular followers are
probably sure of what we are thankful for this year.
Yep, the simple fact that we are here and talking to
all of you just like nothing ever happened! 
Mr. Glen Oaks is hammering away right now; he's
installing a door to block the staircase from the 
living room to the upstairs since there is quite a lot of
demo going on up there. Biggy, our youngest cat
managed to jump on top of the bedroom door (quite
a balancing act) and vaulted up into the hole in the
ceiling, into the attic and right through the tarp and
onto the roof. He looked around, screamed his head
off, and came back down the way he went up! So the
door isn't just to block the cold air from coming down
here when the roof gets taken off, both cats seem
determined to check out what happened to "their room".
I came across a really cute idea for a simple snowman;
you could actually make a gang of them. Get this, use a
fuzzy paint roller cover. Cut them if you want to make
'kids'. Use cute wool socks for the hats and the scarves.
Use cloves for the eyes and "coal" mouth and buttons.
Use a little bit of sculpey clay for the nose, or paint a
bamboo skewer orange, cut little roughly sharpened bits
for noses. And of course, twigs from your yard for their 
little arms. Plop a little craft snow that comes in jars on 
their arms or joint compound mixed with mica or clean white sand. Use vintage mica if you have any (spray on a
little bit of spray adhesive where you want it to stick)        and if you want him/her to be a little grungy use your favorite mix of grungy spray here and there on the bodies and clothing. Sandy from Olde Country Cupboard adds a little brown craft paint to her coffee or tea water, cinnamon and vanilla mix for a really good grunge. That's it, that's all I've got in my head right now. I'm still a little shell-shocked
from our house/car disaster and the upstairs has been
moved to the downstairs and there isn't any room to do
anything even if I was feeling ambitious enough. Do you
believe I still have the bronchitis and cold/virus whatever
thingy I caught from Halloween week? Geesh, now my
Ashley is sick, her MIL has a pre-school daycare in her 
home and she's sick all the time. They went to the movies
last Friday and somewhere Monday so Ashley is pretty
certain she's got what Timmy's mom has. She's doing O.K.
though, she doesn't mention the baby much but I know
that they have been given the go-ahead from the doctor to
try again. Sooo, keep your fingers and legs crossed for them!!

Have a beautiful day tomorrow and a wonderful vacation
week/weekend!!
Warmest Thoughts To You Always,
Susan


GRAPHICS BY THE GRAPHICS FAIRY AND VINTAGE HOLIDAY CRAFTS.COM