This is a wonderful era to be privileged to be alive in, and I want to share some reasons that I think this is so.
*Communication is more accessible. I can remember when it took a long time to get in touch with a relative or friend overseas. We even had to book a trunk call in advance if we were going to get in touch by telephone. Now I enjoy interactive communication with loved ones daily and I can see them on camera.
*I find it exciting that I can find a passage or word in the Bible just by typing it in E-Sword or Bible Gateway or other online sources.
*People are learning more about free enterprise and developing their own family businesses, using online resources. We used to depend on catalogs, and there were not many of them, so our choices were fewer. Today there is more competition and a variety of prices to choose from, for any household need.
*Tea time is now part of our culture. I can remember when the tea cups sat on display in tall cabinets and no one every touched them. Now there are tea rooms everywhere and people are also serving tea foods regularly at home. It provides a pleasant way to share our homes with others and extend instant hospitality. Anyone can find crackers and cheese, or bread and butter with jam and serve it with hot tea. It is not something that is limited to experienced cooks.
*There are more women interested in being homemakers, making life comfortable for their husbands, and creating wonderful memories for their children.
*More ladies are getting interested in teaching others to quilt and sew, cook, clean, and show them how to make their homes desirable places to live.
*There is a lot more giving and sharing. Many people I know are eager to pass on things they do not need anymore. With more women staying home, they are available to aid others by showing hospitality at home or taking something to someone in need.
*Transportation and mail delivery are better.
*Natural health care is promoted more.
*We have a vast knowledge of the past available to us and can adopt any good thing from any era into our lives today.
*Cameras and other technologies are available to everyone, not just a few. Magazines used to be published by only a few companies, and now, there are so many more people who publish their own magazines, plus all the blogs that are online magazines. An average person can produce his own video, and the photography from ordinary cameras is so much better than in the past.
*The new technology provides access to preach the gospel in places that the average person might never be able to go.
*In our country onions, leeks and cucumbers are available year-round. Those who read the book of Exodus might appreciate that.
*More women are recognizing that they do not have to spend a lifetime in a career and that they can spend that time at home, helping in the destiny of their famlies, guiding the house, and showing hospitality.
*Women are learning to sew or showing interest in learning to sew their own clothes and household things.
*One thing I especially like about living in this era is that many of the things that were once high priced and unavailable to people, are now surfacing in discount stores and second-hand stores, and other places, making it affordable to have some things that were once considered luxuries only for the well-off.
*Household things are more convenient. Floors in cold northern areas have radiant heating (warm water pipes) and insulation is better for hot and cold climates. My favorite store is the hardware and home improvement-building supply store. The new things amaze and delight me. Pull-out drawers in shelves, and ovens at waist level (so that you do not have to bend so far), as well as fridges with ice machines---these are all things not available to us way-back-when. Home living is much more convenient, clean and comfortable.
*There is so much more information and help available for those who want to grow food or create appealing landscaping around their houses. Garden centers are huge these days. I can remember when seeds were ordered in the mail. Now, you can pick out the plants you like after seeing them in bloom, and you can find many garden plans photographed in color.
*Roads are well built and maintained, at least here in the U.S. and Canada. I can remember when you did not know what lay ahead on a road, but now there are regular reports about the condition of highways.
26 comments:
I like your part about better mail delivery and transportation and the internet allowing for more home business options. History really is cyclical and I think that within the next decade, more and more jobs will be done from home, with more husband/wife teams working together which allows for the elimination of long stressful (ans expensive) commutes and more quality family bonding time. Also, your mention of crafting is also correct. One of my high school students taught me how to crochet blankets and everywhere I look, young girls are knitting, crocheting, etc and it's seen as cool and trendy. Happy New Year!
Dear Lady Lydia....
So glad for your reminders of our modern day blessings....that was a help and thank you.
LM
How wonderful to read Liora's note of young girls and their knitting, etc...I was not aware of this trend...hope it will be national soon!
LM
My niece attends a public high school and there is a knitting club and she has learned how to knit, which is really neat!
Thank you Lady Lydia for your inspirational post,sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the negativity of this world. You always bring me back to what I am asked to do daily, which is to create a refuge in this little corner of the world that the Lord has been kind enough to bless me with.
Thank you for these positive thoughts, Lydia.
Wishing you a very blessed New Year. Thank you for the example you set and the wise words you speak to us. May the Lord continue to use you as a mentor this year as well. In Him!
thank you for this. Good reminders. i do have a question or topic. How do you or others ( I am thinking of your mother in a cabin in Alaska) with isolation? My daughter lives on a 7000 acre cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.She has 2 very small children.Normally she can get along okay-but there are days when she can't run to the library, etc.& it can really cause anxiety.Her churchis quite a ways away also.Becky
It is good to be reminded of the good things when it feels we are overwhelmed by the bad. All we can do is take it one day at a time and do our best!
Internet service is essential in that respect. If you wanted to get a gift for her, you could provide that. But if not possible, then catalogs are great for ordering things you need, even books, and some are free. If you cannot go out to see the world, the world can come to see you. There are so many things to do at home, too. When growing up, we ordered kits of things to do--knitting, sewing, woodworking, painting, etc. and those things are still available. We ordered our food, also. And there is the fun of sending and getting mail. Visit the blogs and see what ideas other homebodies are coming up with. Isolation can be a blessing when you share your world with others online or through the mail. It gives you more time to make a quilt or be creative in other ways. On the homesteads I visited, their personal libraries were extensive. They often belonged to book clubs where you could get so many free books with the purchase of one or two. They had book exchanges with other homesteaders. And each day has to be treated even more special, diaries kept, and improvements made on the home and within your own self. Mother was good at keeping us busy when we were children . In my book, I tell about one thing she taught us---how to get all our things and play store. We made money out of cardboard and paper and we set up store by using big boxes. We got our toys and our clothes out and sold them to each other and then when it was all done we would round it all up and start all over again.
We used a lot of pretending in our isolated days on the homestead, and mother was very good at this. She had read "Anne of Green Gables" when she was a little girl back in the late 1930's and early 1940's and she used that knowledge to pretend that we were on a train one day, and made us into waiters and waitresses and passenters; a passenger ship the next day, using bedrooms as staterooms, or a lodge in the mountains the next day, where we would all gather around the fire and introduce ourselves as travellers from somewhere else. It was loads of fun and it is part of my childhood that I hang on to when I need to get through anything tedious or any isolation.
Thank you for this cheerful post, reminding us of things we can be thankful for today.
Its a good thing to find the good in an evil world we live in today....God's Holy Spirit is at work in the hearts and lives of many,turning people back to the simple things in life,while still appreciating the many wonders of todays modern society ...blessings on your new year friend.
thank you for your wonderful ideas-i will pass them on to her.
Becky
My brother, and cousins sometimes played store or school and it was fun to climb trees and pretend we lived in them like the Swiss Family Robinson did in the Disney movie of the 1950's.
In reality my family lived close by on the same three acres. Grandparents lived behind us and cousins lived next door.
We raised chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits and goats. We had no want for things to do or someone to take sides with us and to love us.
Mrs. J.
I really enjoyed reading your very positive post. It was a good way to start the New Year. I'd like to add another positive to your excellent list. I have seen a real change in women's attitude to homemaking and motherhood over the past ten years. Many young women, even those from non-Christian backgrounds, aspire to be full time mothers and homemakers. They don't feel perhaps that it is an attainable dream, but they do aspire. I know this from chatting to friends and colleagues at work. I think blogs like yours have had a real and lasting impression on women who want to dedicate themselves to family life. If we can build up a good and functioning home culture we can begin to rebuild a fractured and harmful society. I'm reminded of Psalm 34, "do good, seek peace and pursue it."
Thank you for sharing this list. As you mentioned each item, it was like a little light went on in my mind!
There have been difficult events that come so regularly lately, and without warning, that it can be easy to lose sight of what is good in life, and that for many reasons, this time is even greater than any other era of time.
I am thankful for bloggers like you who choose to share their light with anyone who seeks for some encouragement. Bless you!
Eve
Inchworm Chronicles
What a wonderful list and we have much to be thankful for. I am particularly pleased with the world wide access I have to friends, family and for purchasing things - something I would never have dreamed of as a child. Its also wonderful that we have many choices that we often now take for granted.
Yes, we are blessed and often don't realise how much.
As for the sewing (knitting and crocheting), I will leave that to those who enjoy it, not my thing at all, but I do love photography and art. We can't all be good at everything!!
Blessing for the New Year.
Thank You.....Boy did I ever need to read this post. I try and stay away from news and such, but it's hard to avoid it completely and they just seem to thrive on keeping us all scared. I don't have my head in the sand, I know there are *real* problems, but I'm so tired of it being thrown in my face all of the time.
This post was like a breath of fresh air. :)
I had an opportunity to get that exact Royal Albert tea set you have posted pictures of for my 40th birthday from my hubby and kids. I said no at the time because of the price and I just may change my mind! The pink is just my favorite!
If you will click on the title under the picture of the tea things, you can go to Lovely Whatevers and see that this version of tea set also comes in a white back ground. Just scroll down at Lovely Whatevers to see a picture of it. Both are lovely.
Photography is certainly an art and a skill!
I'll chime in with the rest, Lady Lydia, and give you a big "thumbs up" for this post. How very easy to slide into depression just by listening to the daily news! One of your commenters mentioned that the media seems to thrive on keeping us afraid....too true! It's very wearying.
Your photo of the pretty dishes makes me want to share a bit myself: for Christmas, my husband went to one of my favorite thrift stores in town and bought a box of dishware to match my white everyday ironstone, simply because it had a few pieces in there that I didn't have. He went through it all, with the help of one of my daughters, & kept the best pieces. So now I have a beautiful coffee pot, a covered vegetable dish, a cream pitcher (now the sugar bowl has its mate!) and a shallow serving bowl, as well as a few more dinner plates, soup bowls, and cups & saucers. There wasn't much money to spend this Christmas...but my husband's gift pleased me very much. :o)
These January days always find me clicking away on my knitting needles...I just finished a pair of mittens for myself, & am thinking of starting a pair of socks,or perhaps I'll take a look at a couple of prayer shawl patterns I have for our knitting group at church.
A Happy New Year to all your readers, Lady Lydia. And may we all keep our focus on our Lord... through prayer to God, & service to others.
Brenda
Thanks to you and this post, Lady Lydia, I had a peace-filled, enjoyable day. And I enjoyed a special afternoon teatime as well. If you'd like to read about it you can HERE.
Thanks again! I know writing posts takes time and effort, but you're such a blessing to *so many*.
Mrs. B. I will mention your post in the next post I write, hopefully today if I can EVER get out the kitchen ;-)
Post a Comment