Get Out Of Bed, You Sleepy Head!

Ivy says:

So far this morning, I’ve been a hairstylist, a garbage (wo)man, a pharmacist, a taxi service, and a waitress. Welcome to mornings at Chez Ivy. I can’t even tell you what I would give for kids who knew how to straighten their own darn hair.

This all got me to thinking, however. When I get up early, I get more done during the day. If I sleep in, I slack. I don’t know why this is, but I find it’s true with many people. Think about the people you know that work third shift- now, there are people who have been working third shift for years who have gotten good at it, but most third shifters I know basically just work and sleep. Even though it seems like there shouldn’t be any difference, there is.

My mom always said that the earlier you get up, the more you’ll get done. I figured these were just words of a steenkin’ morning person, but the older I get, the more I see she was right. Everyone has their natural circadian rhythm and some people are, indeed, morning people while others are definitely night people. But I find getting up even an hour earlier than my normal wake time causes me to get things done.

So, if you’re unhappy with your productivity, try getting up earlier. You might be surprised with the results!

Dealing With Holidays After Loss

Ivy says:

While my one grandma is still going strong at 91 years old, we lost my other grandma very suddenly on August 31, 2007. She was 79 years old. As that grandma was part mom, part grandma, and part friend, it was a very deep loss for me. Now I’ve had over a year to come to terms and I have some advice on dealing with holidays without your loved one.

Keep in mind, the first of any holiday without your loved one will be hard, particularly if they were the family matriarch or patriarch. If the holidays were held at their house, you may be scrambling to figure out which holiday goes where. Understand that things will never be the same.

You will discover a new normal. You’ll still have thoughts about how you need to tell your loved one something, you’ll have moments that will take you completely off guard, and you’ll feel the grief all over again, as raw as it was when you first found out.

Do NOT let anyone tell you the way you are grieving is not okay. When my friend Molly’s dad died, she laughed with us through the entire funeral. People thought she was being inappropriate, but that was how she dealt with it. Everyone deals with things differently. Give your family the respect of letting them grieve their way. It’s easy to be very selfish about the loss you feel, but remember- you are not the only one who lost when that person died.

And while I’m not that I’m telling you how to grieve, I want to warn you of falling into a trap of remembering only the good or only the bad about your loved one. After my grandma died, I began thinking of her as my sainted grandmother, she could do no wrong. I was lucky and acquired her diary from the mid to late 1960s and was able to remember her as a whole person- good things, bad things, funny things, completely batty and off the wall things. It was really then, that I was able to let go and say goodbye appropriately. Remembering her as my sainted grandmother and what a terrible, terrible loss it was, did not do me or anyone else any good.

This also applies to people you have anger towards. It’s easy to think, good riddance, adios. But deep down you’ll remember the good, and it will niggle at you and cause guilt. When I lost my grandfather, it took nearly ten years to let go of the anger I harbored. Remembering him as a whole and fallible person instead of the spectre of my anger and hurt has gone a long way in the improvement of my own mental health.

But back to the holidays- remember it’s okay to reminisce. Think of the funny times, the happy times, and even the sad times. It’s totally normal for those first holidays without your loved one to be a little sad, a little deflated- even a little angry. Pull together with your family, even if there are problems with things like the division of that person’s property. After a loss, the family you have is more important than ever.

5 Household Helpers My Grandma Didn’t Have

Ivy says:

I’ve been reminded several times over the past weeks that I have an “unusually old” grandmother. She’s 91 which is pretty old, alright. She was born in 1917, which means the changes she has seen in her lifetime are amazing. She was born into a household with no electricity or indoor plumbing. By the time she was married in 1940, things had changed mightily. Their new “modern” age, however, was nothing compared to what we have now. What lessons can we learn from these changes? Let’s take a look.

Her own car

Grandma was married in 1940, but she didn’t learn to drive until 1943. So if she needed something from the store in the middle of the day when my grandfather was at work, she had to get on her MULE and go into town. Needless to say, this was more trouble than it was really worth, so she had to plan very carefully and make sure anything she might need from the store was bought when her husband took her to town on Saturdays.
Lesson learned?
Plan carefully. My grandmother taught me the most important step of baking is to make sure you have everything you need before you start.

Central heat and air

Every time we watch A Christmas Story, my dad laughs at the part where the dad is downstairs cursing at the furnace. Dad tells me about things called “clinkers” which is apparently leftover junk from the coal they used to heat their house. Heating a house back in those days took work. Needless to say, they didn’t keep their home at the toasty warm temperatures we generally keep our homes at today.
Lesson learned?
Do you really need to keep your house as warm as it is? Can you put on a sweater and set the temperature a few degrees lower? Save even more money by using a programmable thermostat to keep the house cooler while you aren’t home or as you sleep.

Dishwashers

My grandma didn’t get a dishwasher until my uncle was old enough to stand at the sink. Seriously, though, she never did have an automatic dishwasher. I suppose to someone who had to use a pan of water heated on the stove as a child, just having a modern sink was pretty fabulous. She always had to make sure her dishes didn’t pile up or else she was in for a long time of washing, drying, and putting away.
Lesson learned?
Don’t let your dishes pile up. Just because you can knock all your dishes out with a load or two from the dishwasher doesn’t mean you need to let your dishes pile up. Clean as you go and you’ll have an easier time cleaning up.

Microwaves

Just this morning, I peeked into my mom’s refrigerator and saw leftover bacon. I’m always amazed at people who can have things like leftover bacon, since the locusts at my house can wipe out a package of bacon in 11 seconds flat. I popped the bacon in the microwave and in just a few seconds, I was enjoying tasty, tasty bacon. In my grandma’s day, there was no such thing as a microwave for fast and tasty leftover bacon. She’d have to wait while the oven heated and wait again while her food cooked. 
Lesson learned?
How much snacking do we do because we are spoiled with unlimited access to fast snacks? If we had to go through all the trouble my grandma did to have a tasty snack, we’d probably skip that tasty snack. Make a rule: The microwave is only for non-snack items.

Washing Machines (as we know them)
My grandma had in her basement one of those old fashioned wringer washing machines (just like the one in our header). I was always fascinated with it when I was a kid. She told me to be grateful for the washing machines we have today. This might be the single most time saving invention for housewives. Laundry used to be an entire day of hard, hard labor. And then you’d get to spend the next day ironing. Fun for all.
Lesson learned?
Be grateful that we have such a time saving device. I know a lot of people hate doing laundry, but how much more awful would it be if we didn’t have the machines we have today to save us time and labor?

Of course, I could go on all day with things my grandma didn’t have that we do- the internet, cell phones, etc, etc, etc. It makes me very glad to live in the times we do.

Tell me, home-eccers, what’s one modern invention you could not possibly live without?

Election Day Reminder

Heather says:

If you are one of our American Home Eccers, you would have to live under a rock to not know that today is Election Day. This has been an incredibly long and often bitter race. All but the squabbling should end with the closing of the polls (much to my relief).

I do want to remind our US Citizens that voting isn’t just a right, it’s a responsibility. If you don’t agree with either candidate, vote anyway. To those outside our political system it may seem as though we are divided by a chasm too wide to cross, but the reality is we are coming together to choose our next leader. Families fight, but strong ones eventually make up and carry on.

Yes, the lines may be long and yes, the sign wavers can be obnoxious. Vote anyway. Ask your neighbor if they would like a ride or some company, whether or not you agree politically. If they snub you, vote anyway.

Bring a book and a lot of patience.

Go, vote, then rest in the knowledge that you fulfilled your obligation regardless of the outcome.

Home Ec 101 is an apolitical, non-partisan blog and reserves the right to delete inflammatory comments.

A Word To The Non-Cooks In The Crowd

Ivy says:

My inability to cook is legendary. Want a cake or a pie? I’m good at that- I can bake. But if you want some fried chicken, I am not your girl. That said, I have three kids and I’m on a budget. I have to cook. And in order to save money and try to be healthful, I have to cook from scratch as much as possible.

It’s funny. Some people, I think, are born with a natural ability to cook, and some people are not. The difference, I think, is personality driven. Baking is a fairly exact science. Follow the directions exactly on a good recipe, and you’ll generally end up with a good product. Cooking, on the other hand, is way more subjective. Try getting a recipe from a cook. They’ll normally rattle off a bunch of ingredients, and not much more. Ask for amounts or cooking times and they’ll shrug and tell you they’re not sure.

So what are those of us who are non-cooks to do when we want to actually cook something? First, you have to find some good recipes. We have a ton of good, easy recipes on this site. Also, I love AllRecipes.com.

And here’s a surprising place I found interesting things to make- the game Cooking Mama on the Nintendo DS. Now, the game doesn’t have actual recipes. It’ll teach you to cook in the same way Guitar Hero will teach you to play the guitar. However, it does have a lot of very interesting things that you make, and you get an idea of what goes into the recipe as well. I’ve seen things on there and googled them to get an actual recipe.

Cooking mama has taught me several things about real world cooking. Like the fact that you won’t always get a recipe perfect on the first try, and that’s okay. Like, last night I was making rice pudding (in the real world) and I managed to end up with a bunch of burny bits in it. Next time, I’ll know to stir while I’m waiting for the recipe to boil. See, all your cooking failures are just learning steps to success. And while it definitely sucks to have to throw out food, especially in this economy- at least next time I’ll know the right thing to do.

So, to all you just-learning cooks out there, chin up! Find some recipes and give them a try. I especially find various ethnic foods to be good to start with- many of the recipes are very economical, and since several of them require cooking techniques that are unfamiliar to Americans, they tend to be better explained on the internet, I have found.

Let’s hear it from the experienced cooks- what tips do you have for the newbies?

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