I’m at home tonight, ignoring all the fireworks. July 4th is my least favorite holiday – it involves picnics and sudden loud noises, two things which I don’t really enjoy (and yes, I know… everyone loves a picnic except me, but I have major bug phobia.)
Instead I have started the packing process (half our things are already packed away in storage, so it really isn’t too many boxes) and I’m still working on babette!
I still have lots of squares to go, and I’m starting to feel the need for another break… I don’t want to burn myself out. I don’t think I ever before understood how long it takes to make a blanket, but you all have my respect now! Maybe I will try working on Joy some more (I stopped because the denim was hurting my wrists and the pattern was hurting my brain… I wish more Rowan patterns had charts!)
Last weekend we visited Marc’s family, and we managed to hit some of the thrifts there. For some reason they have better Goodwill stores there. Ours, while cheaper, are always junky and overcrowded with poorly organized stuff. I got some t-shirts for the upcoming home renovations (I always look for the strangest ones to get paint on) and I also found one of my favorite thrifted books ever.
It’s a sort of guidebook to being a wife, and while I suspect that even at the time of publication (1964) it was outdated, I still think it’s super fun! It has a whole chapter devoted to picking out furniture for your new home, and includes such admonitions as “make sure to get furniture large enough for your husband!”
The chapter on furniture arrangement helpfully shows you how to display way too many things over your sofa.
I think it’s funny that the random letters on the wall thing seems to have come back, and whose family didn’t have a giant key on the wall (mine did – and you could hang keys on it too!) I seriously covet the sofa, even in a drawing. Our sofa (see above) was reasonably priced, but it’s still too overstuffed for my taste. Ah well – I had to get one large enough for my husband, right ladies?
The book has lists of things to outfit your kitchen, and a chapter on setting a nice table (tablescapes!) It also contains a number of recipes, and the photos accompanying these are predictably bad, as they always are in these old books. But the recipe below… even the nicest modern camera couldn’t make that look good.
Why yes… those are indeed brussles sprouts in a cranberry rice ring, why do you ask?
Green apples - Stitchywitch Creates 
Fortunately it was rainy here in Louisville so there weren’t THAT many fireworks. At least, not out by me that is. I hate loud noises (especially fireworks) also.
I sure don’t have the patience for a blanket – I can’t wait to see how pretty yours is when you’re finished!
Wow, that brussels sprouts/rice/cranberry ring is so barftastic I kinda wanna make it now! I love old housekeeping books too…they make me feel so much more, er, evolved. 🙂
I agree with Yoel in regards to the meal featured 🙂
I love the sofa in the drawing as well, but my husband is too large for it as well. Ours has the same shape but is not quite so dainty.
He, he …. the dish really looks “interesting”.
um wow…brussel sprouts in a cranberry rice ring…um wow!!
I’m always amazed at what you can find at a thrift store, which is probably why i can barely stay out of them..lol!!
Very cool! I had to search it out at my local library (sad to say, no jackpot).
fyi: you’re not the only one with anti-picnic sentiments. I never liked them, for the same reason!
ahahahaha. Funny.
Haha! That book is hilarious! Love the Brussel Sprout/Rice ring. I would love to make Babette, but I’m scared it would take me years to finish…then it would always be haunting me as a UFO, I can’t handle the stress! Seriously, though, I really look forward to seeing yours done!
Brussels sprouts in a cranberry rice ring?! I have got to make that for Christmas dinner this year, just for the shock value!
What a great find. I love the old haousekeeping books like that. I have a few from my Grandmom!
I love those old “homemaking” books! I remember one that had an entire chapter on how to prepare for your husband coming home from work in the evening. How to apply fresh lipstick and freshen up a bit, greet him at the door with a kiss and have the house smelling of dinner.
I wonder if it was really like that even then. I can’t imagine either of my grandmothers being that way. Maybe it was Martha Stewart marketing before Martha Stewart?
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I’m laughing at the instructions to make suer furniture fits your husband! Mine complains daily about the length of our sofa…
Urgh. Flurgl. Just looking at that brussels sprout cranberry concoction turns my stomach! Not sure if it’s better or worse than the jello salads I’ve seen in 1950s/60s cookbooks, but it sure looks atrocious.
I don’t like picnics either. Mr. Batty lovingly nicknamed me Buglunch after I got 50 mosquito bites on one leg alone while sitting at a restaurant in the Virgin Islands. I don’t like the outdoors. It’s got bugs in it.
I LOVE old cookbooks and housekeeping books! The pictures are so saturated with color, and the recipes are (sometimes) so hideous. I am forever scarred by a recipe I saw once that was just filling an avocado with mayonnaise. Blech!