Living the Slow Life

Holiday Impressions by Susan Rios (click for a closer view)

Christmas Cottage by Susan Rios (click for a closer view)

These homey scenes are the newest creation from http://www.susanrioseditions.com/ Just click on "Christmas Cottage" on the left side and view 4 or 5 pages of her altered paintings, where she has added colors and ornaments for the season, to many of her original paintings. Since I enjoy the altered looked (making more than one use of things) I think these paintings would be a bright spot for the home.

Snowed In Today

Snowed in can be a good thing, as it encourages the slow life as we once knew it. The fifties were only 10 years, and contrary to the rumors spread by those who were not even there, those years were not "fantasy" but reality. Much of the slow life was due to the fact that most women were home-based, and even if they earned money from the home, they were not as pressured to do everything. Men worked and brought home the bacon, as it was said, and women guarded that money and watched the out-go of it as carefully as they watched the in-come. That is one reason that we made so many things. We saved the money for things we could not possibly produce ourselves, but we also did not feel we needed a lot in order to be happy and fulfilled.

My own family spent many days snowed-in on the homestead, which I wrote about in the chapter called "Songbird in the Snow" in "Just Breathing the Air."

This is the beginning of the snowfall here where I live. It got much deeper after the photo was taken. In winters in the 1950's my parents enjoyed a large puzzle that would take all winter to put together. One of my brothers did not like puzzles, so my mother and father would always save out the last two pieces for him to put in place. It became such a tradition, that now that he is in his 40's, they still leave out two pieces for him, for when he drops by for a visit.

I recently put together the pink house by the sea by Nicky Boheme (available at the Dollar Tree for only a dollar) but it was very complicated. I got stuck around the seacoast of the painting and decided to give it up and go take a bath and get ready for bed. When I came back, there was the entire puzzle put together, with two token pieces left out for me, by my daughter, who loves puzzles. I don't care for them particularly, but the pink cottage by the sea was so tempting, that I made an exception. Personally, I could never figure out how some manufacturer could take a perfectly beautiful photograph or painting, chop it into a thousand pieces, and torture someone to put it back together.

For relaxation, I like to play around with different looks in table settings. When the photo-shoot is all finished, the family sits down to a meal using the new arrangement. Here I have used fabric and a few old cups for a green scene. Everyone enjoys the next "scene" for a meal time.

When I have homemaking classes for girls, I get out a variety of mismatched dishes and let them create their own place settings and centerpieces. Aqual lame fabric used as table cloth for this setting




This is another altered box, and can be made from a tissue box or half a saltine cracker box. It is first covered in white paper, any kind. Paint white glue on with a brush and just wrap and cut paper to size. Then paint glue over the top of that white surface and place tissue wrapping paper or any kind of napkin with a pretty print on it. While still wet, sprinkle with white glitter or iridescent glitter. Let dry in front of a heater or just let it set for an hour or so until dry. With a hole-punch, make holes on the sides and thread a wired piece of tinsel or ribbon through it. This box will hold a supply of hand made soaps. or maybe some small loaves of pumpkin bread for someone. In the 50's we used boxes for many different things and were always thrilled to get a nice box, so much so, that when a new box of Kleenex or any kind of dried food like oats, came into the house, we would say "I get the box!" and the first one who said it got the box.






There is a way to make a book binding out of the cardboard of some boxes, much like a three ring binder, which I might show sometime in the future. We used to have hours of engrossed contentment making our own little books.








It seemed that people were not in any particular hurry in those days, and if they could not get something they needed or go where they wanted, people became very resourceful with what was available. My mother spent a lot of time writing letters, reading books, knitting, making jewelry from resin (she bought a kit and put sea shells and local dried flowers in the pieces) and telling her own stories. Many women of the time worked very hard at home, and so their relaxation and luxury was in these things, which meant that others would benefit from their efforts.






To afford more time for things like quilting or painting (it seemed like everyone, including the men, were artist in those days and they loved to paint the scenery), women would put a huge pot of soup or stew on the wood burning cook stoves and a big pan of corn bread in the oven. When anyone got hungry, they would take a break and get the plates filled. Sometimes women brought their ironing (everything had to be ironed because you could not even get your shirt buttoned if it was not pressed. Fabric was that wrinkly), and ironing boards and visit with each other while they did their work.






I will try to write more about some of the ways of women in the 50's before life began to be so fast, including how they dressed, and what sort of feminine things they liked. Yes, they did like dresses and they did fix their hair and enjoyed pretty things like a new purse, shoes and gloves, and yes, they did make themselves presentable in the home. I've heard that people think it was all a fantasy, but even the every-day photographs of the time show the women looking as though they looked after themselves. Some did not, but it was not the trend to look dressed down or casual.