Coloring outside the Lines

Before Max Factor "helped" the lovely Ms. Crawford to a new look.


After.

Beauty experts of the 1940s regularly counseled women to take artistic license when it came to applying lipstick. Is your lower lip too "prominent"? One 1940 newspaper article profiled model and actress Eleanor Chandler, revealing her solution to this thorny problem:

First, she covers her lip a fraction of an inch when applying her cake foundation and then outlines the desired size with a lipstick pencil. Since Eleanor is a natural blonde, she finds a lipstick which is true red in color most flattering to her type. She spreads it to the very corners of her mouth thereby increasing its apparent width and further minimizing the fullness of her lower lip.

The St. Petersburg Times' Betty Clarke agreed, adding that "[a] thin upper lip can be made to look fuller by shaping mouth over natural line with darker lipstick and applying a lighter shade to lower lip." She also advised her readers in 1944 that if a mouth is too wide "it can be made to appear narrow by lipsticking center full, and tapering off gradually before it reaches the corners."

Despite all the enthusiasm, you occasionally come across a word of caution. In 1943, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Antoinette Donnelly slammed Joan Crawford and her "blob of enormous width and shapelessness" --- warning young women, in particular, that you could go horribly wrong once you started playing around with the natural shape of your mouth. "A passe performance that! Some go in for the 'sultry' lower lip insofar as it can be attained by lipstick loading."

I still feel a bit like I'm drawing on my lips even just by applying cosmetics to my natural lips. But I do have to admit that I felt a little naked this morning when I was halfway from my parking lot to the office and realized I'd forgotten to put on my lipstick before leaving the house! The washroom was my first stop... The more I get used to wearing lipstick, the longer it seems to last before needing to be reapplied. I was so self-conscious when I first started wearing it that I was always rubbing my lips together and running my tongue across my front teeth (just in case anything had rubbed off on 'em). I must have looked like a crazy woman! Now I can easily go through the morning without having to reapply until after eating lunch.

Are you an artist when it comes to lipstick - or do you stay inside the lines?

7 + 4 = 11

A week or so ago, I was studying up on dusting painted walls and learned that - instead of buying a dust mop especially for that purpose - you could fashion a sort of "apron" for the head of the broom out of a piece of flannel and use that to softly sweep the dust from your bedroom walls. Well, yesterday I was giving the bathroom its special monthly cleaning and came across that chore once again in The Manual. I was playing around with a flannel dusting cloth and realized that I could actually fashion a kind of kerchief for my broom. I centered the cloth across the end of the broom head and held down the piece facing me while I pulled both of the sides together and tied them. My broom looked a little bit like a woman of the '40s heading off to work at the war plant! And most importantly it did the job.

Another little thrill this past week has been the success I had with a recipe called Graham Gems. Imagine all the goodness of home-baked biscuits with the added heartiness of whole grains. To die for... The recipe starts out with a basic Baking Powder Biscuit dough, only you substitute one cup graham flour for one cup sifted flour.

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BAKING POWDER BISCUITS

2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold shortening
2/3 cup cold milk

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together and cut in shortening with 2 knives or a pastry blender. Add milk and mix quickly. Knead for a few seconds on a lightly floured board...

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You could stop there, pop 'em in the oven, and they'd be perfect. But the recipe for Graham Gems actually calls for a little more creativity. I didn't have 8 to 10 custard cups on hand, so I used a muffin tin and they turned out fine. I guess they're supposed to look a little like gemstones --- maybe if you squint your eyes. Like I said, though, you could just cut them with a biscuit cutter and bake at the same temperature and they'd be just as delicious. Super easy, too. I made these on a work morning.

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GRAHAM GEMS - Roll dough 1/3 inch thick... and cut into 2-inch strips. Place 4 strips one on top of the other. Cut into pieces 1 3/4 inches long. Place each of these sections upright in buttered custard cup. Bake in hot oven (425 degrees F.) 15 to 20 minutes or until browned. Makes 8 to 10.

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It's been nearly two weeks since I added some limbering and stretching exercises to my morning routine, so it's high time I gave them a little attention in my blog. I do the first exercise before I get out of bed. In fact, I'm usually still partly asleep. My legs most certainly do not go over my head, but it really works the abdominal muscles just raising the legs until they're perpendicular to the body - then lowering them:

1. Before you get out of bed in the morning, do this routine five times: stretch body out with arms out at sides. Lift both legs simultaneously as high as you can, even, if you can, over your head; then down again, slowly.

I do the next several exercises while I'm sipping my morning glass of water and am still in my nightclothes. None of these next exercises really instructs you as to an exact number of reps, so I've been doing five of each. No. 2 opens up the ribcage and probably works the abs as well when done slowly and carefully:

2. Here is a good stretching exercise that helps to develop the bust and improves the posture and figure generally: Stand with feet slightly apart, arms down at sides. Stretch arms in front up and over the head slowly as far as you can, without straining, then slowly return to original position. Repeat this several times.

I haven't quite felt No. 3 working anything more than my waist as yet, but I'm open to some improvement in the hips!

3. To improve hips and waist and improve general line of figure: (A) Stand with feet slightly apart, abdomen in, seat well down, fingers interlaced and raised high over head, arms making a frame for the face. Keep face framed by arms throughout exercise, and body absolutely steady from waist down. (B) Swing forward till body and arms are horizontal. Swing body round to right side and travel upwards till arms are over head once more. (C) Turn to the left and swing the body round and down till body and arms are once again horizontal, as in B.

No. 4 makes me yawn. In a good way. I do feel more awake after doing this exercise:

4. The first exercise is for the purpose of air washing the lungs and keeping the chest in form: Stand erect, feet fairly far apart; clasp your hands behind your neck. Force the head and elbows back, inhale through the nostrils, expel the air through the lips. Breathe in as the head goes back; exhale as you return to first position.

You gotta love deep knee bends! All of the advice I've heard by fitness experts in my own lifetime comes back to me now in bits and pieces. In the '80s, my sisters and I would work out in the basement to a Jane Fonda record of our mom's. ("Bridge over Troubled Waters" was the cool-down track.) By the '90s, step aerobics were all the rage and I remember working out with Denise Austin on TV and ordering her step and weights set on QVC. Jane and Denise alike cautioned women at home to be sure the legs were positioned far enough apart and the knees slightly bent before doing exercises like this one:

5. This for keeping waist, thighs and hips slender. Stand tall, hands on hips. Lift on your toes, let the knees spread, lower your body until you are in a squatting position, buttocks resting on the heels. Rise slowly.

Allow plenty of space when doing this exercise or your liable to hit something with your arms! The last few words are great advice. The more conscious you are of the movements you're making, the better you're probably working the muscles. If you zip thru the motions, you may not get all the benefits of doing fewer reps more slowly.

6. Wig-wagging exercise for keeping bust and arms normal: Stand tall, lift the hands high and far back. Swing the hips from one side to the other, stretching the arms full length, keeping fingers and thumbs spread. Use your muscles. Be conscious of them. Mere movements don’t mean a thing. It must be a real workout.

I'm not sure if it's the humidity or the limbering-and-stretching or the smaller portions at dinner, but something's working. I weighed in this morning at 183! According to my scale, that's 4 lbs. lost in the last 6 days. HIP HIP HOORAY!!! I thought I'd celebrate with this wonderful series of photos from a 1940 LIFE magazine pictorial on reducing salons. (And I thought Bally's didn't look like fun.)

Symphony

One of the blessings of having turned off my television is getting to listen to something a little different - the sounds of home. Surely, I must've heard these sounds before, but I guess I never really listened to them...

Like the snap of a clean towel when you're folding laundry. I love to give my towels and washcloths a sharp, precise shake before folding them, just to shake any last wrinkles out before they're folded and tucked away in the linen closet.

And the cheery sound of voices when I turn on my radio in the morning. I usually turn it on as I'm heading into the kitchen to get breakfast started. And whether the news is good or bad, the voices are welcome companionship after a long, quiet night with nothing but the air conditioner to interrupt the calm.

Like the tap-tap-tapping of an egg in a covered pan as it bubbles away for my breakfast. And the ticking of my Toastmaster, growing ever faster as the toast gets closer to the finish. Happy sounds indeed after a long snack-less night!

I love the sound of hissing steam as my iron heats up on Tuesday nights... It's a promising sound - one that betokens a closet soon replenished with smooth, neatly pressed garments.

On Thursday evenings, it's a "Whap! Whap! Whap!" outdoors on the landing when - after airing my bed covers and pillows for an hour - I give the pillows a good shake and smack them against each other a few times. Just to get the dust out. (Though it's handy, too, in working out any workaday frustrations.)

I'd forgotten what a satisfying task snapping string beans can be. And it makes another fantastic sound!

Mashed Potato Cakes
String Beans
Salad of Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes
Apple Brown Betty

It was all about comfort food for my vintage dinner last Sunday. Mashed Potato Cakes are a clever way to serve up leftovers. Add salt, pepper, and egg yolk to a dish of cold mashed potatoes. Form into patties, place a dab of margarine on top of each, and bake in a greased pan. Just long enough to brown the bottoms of the patties. The Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes made for a very rich salad - which would have been even richer if I'd laced it with French Dressing (as instructed by the recipe)! I've never eaten Apple Brown Betty before, so thought it might turn out something like an apple crisp. Not quite. Kind of like a soft apple crisp - without the crunch. Ruth Berolzheimer, the author of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945), must've been nuts about bread crumbs. They show up practically every week! I'm beginning to get suspicious now every time I see them. Hmmm... what kind of missing ingredient is she trying to cover up with bread crumbs this time?

Wax On, Wax Off

Now that I've got my housekeeping routines for the bedroom just so, it's time to begin fleshing out my routines for the kitchen. Up 'til this point, it's been just about following the routine in America's Housekeeping Book (1945) to the letter. It's high time I turned my attention to some of the missing pieces in the puzzle.

The floors, for example. Dusting, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, waxing --- floor maintenance is addressed in the "skeleton housekeeping schedule" for every other room of the house, but when it comes to setting forth daily and weekly housekeeping routines for the kitchen, they aren't even mentioned. But for this single clue: just before the housewife finishes her daily chores in the kitchen, she's advised to rinse her mop; "hang outdoors if possible." After the kitchen gets its weekly cleaning, the mop is to be washed, rinsed, and scalded and - again - hung outdoors to dry.

Happily, there's an entire chapter dedicated to floors, though I can't say my no-wax vinyl flooring really fits any of the categories of flooring addressed in the book. I guess linoleum is the closest I'm going to get.

Daily: Dust with an untreated mop. The areas near work surfaces in the kitchen may need to be damp-mopped every day.

Weekly care of a linoleum floor depended on the type of wax you used (paste or liquid vs. self-polishing):

• Women who used a paste or liquid wax on their linoleum were instructed just to use a vacuum cleaner, "soft hair broom," or untreated mop to remove dust. Otherwise, the floor only needed to be washed twice a year after the old coat of wax was removed and before a new coat was applied.
  
  
• Women who used a self-polishing wax on their linoleum were instructed to use a damp mop at least once a week. "Kitchen floors may need to be washed once a week or oftener." Self-polishing wax was presumably a less sturdy product as it needed to be reapplied on a monthly basis.

I know I've been living under a rock when it comes to housekeeping, but I don't think I can get away with washing my kitchen floor once every six months. So I'll follow the instructions for the self-polished waxers. Kinda. The '40s housewife may have had the time to dust and damp mop her kitchen floors on a daily basis, but it's going to be a weekly chore in this household --- and until I invest in a dust mop, my broom will have to do. The floor should probably be thoroughly scrubbed once a month when I give the kitchen its intensive monthly cleaning.

What's your routine when it comes to floor care for the kitchen? I'll bet those old linoleum floors were tough as nails to keep clean. Have you ever lived in a home where you had to wax the kitchen floors?

Sweet Dreams

One of the projects I'd like to get started on when I get back from Maine is to begin laying away some Christmas gifts for my nieces. My dream is to give them some lovely old-fashioned flannel or muslin nightgowns - matching, of course! I can picture just the thing in my mind... The problem: I'm no seamstress. And practically the only girls' nightgowns you see out there these days are those dreadful polyester gowns screenprinted with one character or another. I can crochet a mean trim, though, and have some vintage pattern books with trims that would look just darling around the cuffs or neckline of a little girl's nightgown. So I'd like to find some basic flannel gowns that could use a little embellishment. Lands' End offers a red flannel gown that might work and Vermont Country Store has a floral gown in stock with an eyelet trim. Have any of you eagle-eyed shoppers seen gorgeous girls' nightgowns out there lately? Kitten will be just a few days shy of three this Christmas and Poppet will be 19 months old. (Gotta catch 'em while they're young with these matching outfits!)

As for us grown up girls, here are some of the 1940s nightgowns I've been coveting for myself lately. Can you tell I'm longing for cold winter nights?



Marjorie: You won't believe how wonderfully my prune whip turned out last night.
Helen: It can't possibly be better than mine, dear. Bill can't get enough!





Even the pajamas are pretty! I adore the floor-length rayon nighties with the lacy trim and plunging necklines. And the cable-knit bed jacket looks so soft...



Mustn't let the milkman catch us in our night things! A robe (or two or three) should do the trick. Check out the military influence in the red piece below. It was offered by Ward's for Christmas 1944:





No vintage night ensemble is complete without a pair of slippers. Sears offered slippers in every shape imaginable. It looks like blues and plums, crimson and dusty rose were the colors of the season in 1947.

Round One to Jitterbug

As my portions at dinner and at lunch shrink, I'm beginning to find myself spending more and more time reheating leftovers. A dab of this, a dab of that. They take up a lot of room in the fridge, but I find that it certainly saves some time in preparing a meal when you've got lots of leftovers on hand! My technique isn't very creative yet: I'll hunt around the fridge for a minute, looking for items that have been there longest - I won't let anything stick around longer than two or three days - then make sure I've got a good serving of veggies to fill up my plate. The crowning touch? A dill pickle. Just a little something "new" to keep things exciting. I'm hoping to see this pay off soon when it comes to my grocery bill.

Ruth Berolzheimer, author of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945), applauded thrifty housewives for their creative use of leftovers and recognized how critical this was when you were "cooking for two." This was particularly important during the war when women's work in the kitchen took on a fire and urgency like never before... It was unpatriotic not to use every last bit of the food you'd purchased or grown! But leftovers had to be combined carefully. Men, women, and children heading off to the war plant or to volunteer work of some kind needed nutritious, well-balanced meals and dishes that tempted the tastebuds.

And so in the month-of-menus in the back of this cookbook, you find lots of examples of ways to incorporate leftovers - and planned leftovers - into new meals. When Steamed Rice is on the dinner menu one night, the reader is instructed to prepare extra rice for the next day's Spanish Rice at lunch. The water in which prunes have been stewed for breakfast one morning is chilled and served as juice two days later with a squeeze of lemon. Leftover Corn-meal Mush is refrigerated, then sliced, sauteed and served for lunch the next day with Cheese Sauce. "Scraps" of leftover vegetables are served in a cream sauce in Buttered Noodle Nests at the lunch table.

Berolzheimer's favorite things to do with leftovers are a bit more dramatic. Practically anything could be mixed with a white sauce and some potato or egg and fashioned into a croquette. Little bits of this or that could be popped on skewers and slid under the broiler. Bell peppers, acorn squash, and tomatoes were perfect for stuffing with mixed leftovers.

Wartime episodes of "The Great Gildersleeve" are peppered with ads for Kraft's Pabst-ett --- melt it into a cheese sauce and turn leftover vegetables into a meal "your whole family will love." You could even entertain company with leftovers if you did a nifty thing like pressing Kraft Dinner into a ring mold then serving with creamed bits of this or that in the center. (Garnish with sliced tomatoes.)

I almost became a coyote's leftovers the day before yesterday! I got home about 8:00 from my morning walk at the park, pulled into a space between two cars in the parking lot of my apartment complex, locked my car, turned around and a coyote was standing right in front of me, blocking me in. "This is so not a dog," I said to myself. It wasn't baring its teeth or growling or anything --- I don't know what I'd have done if it had! I really didn't have time to be afraid. Just started shouting - "Get away! Get away!" - and shaking my baseball cap at it. It trotted a little ways away and I started walking very deliberately towards the stairwell up to my apartment. By the time I'd reached the bottom step, the coyote had trotted right after me. So I started shouting at it again. It trotted on into the courtyard while I booked it up the steps, dashed into my apartment, and barricaded the door! (Like that would've helped.) I looked down into the courtyard from my bedroom window and could see the coyote sniffing around looking for it's next meal.

Now if that isn't motivation to lose some weight! I must have looked a tempting morsel. Who needs to chase the Roadrunner when a plump little Jitterbug is handy?

Intervention

Well, 187 sucks. Especially after having seen and tasted 186. And because I did make it through four out of seven nights last week without snacking! I can't say the other three nights really earned me any weight loss, though, so those are the breaks. My immediate goal is to make it down to 185 before heading home to Maine on vacation in two weeks. I haven't seen my parents or older sister since New Year's Day (when I weighed 195). These are some changes I'll be making, effective right away:

Fitness
As I continue adjusting to using the indoor walking track for my weekday workouts, I'm going to add a few more "limbering and stretching exercises" to my routine. Here are some morning exercises recommended specifically for "business women" by beauty expert Helen Follett (St. Petersburg [Florida] Times, June 11, 1940). "Busy women, you who work… we ask for five minutes of your time between the leap out of bed in the morning and the leap into the bathtub."

4. The first exercise is for the purpose of air washing the lungs and keeping the chest in form: Stand erect, feet fairly far apart; clasp your hands behind your neck. Force the head and elbows back, inhale through the nostrils, expel the air through the lips. Breathe in as the head goes back; exhale as you return to first position.

5. This for keeping waist, thighs and hips slender. Stand tall, hands on hips. Lift on your toes, let the knees spread, lower your body until you are in a squatting position, buttocks resting on the heels. Rise slowly.

6. Wig-wagging exercise for keeping bust and arms normal: Stand tall, lift the hands high and far back. Swing the hips from one side to the other, stretching the arms full length, keeping fingers and thumbs spread. Use your muscles. Be conscious of them. Mere movements don’t mean a thing. It must be a real workout.

Reducing
The real change this week is that I'm doing away with the 7:30 cut-off. From here on out, should I feel driven to snack late at night, I'm going to allow myself to eat fruits or vegetables. I'd rather be coping with the effects of having snacked on a banana late at night than having eaten half a bag of ranch-flavored rice cakes! I'm also going to continue reducing the portion of the packaged, pre-processed foods I typically eat for dinner, cutting down to half the serving I would've helped myself to just a couple weeks ago. Now my dinner plate should be half prepared foods/half veggies.

Fluff Piece

Dear God in heaven, how could they have done this to food?

Bread Stuffing
Baked Acorn Squash
Salad of Grapefruit Sections and Avocado
Prune Whip

I don't like to just point and laugh (or gag) at vintage recipes, but Prune Whip --- I'm not sure how this qualifies as edible. I have issues with foamy, bubbly food to begin with - so I shouldn't even have gone there - but I wanted to know for myself what all the fuss was about. I'm only halfway thru my cookbook's vintage dinner menus, but some sort of fruit whip has already turned up twice for dessert. Come to think of it, folks seemed to be really into frothy, fluffy desserts in those days: chiffon pie, chiffon cake, fruit whip, meringue, apple snow. I wonder why...

It's not the prunes that were a problem for me, mind you. I've enjoyed those at the breakfast table all these months and I probably wouldn't have minded a dish of stewed prunes for dessert with last Sunday's vintage dinner. The first time I came across Apricot Whip as the suggested dessert, I skipped it entirely as I wasn't interested in eating uncooked egg whites. When I took a closer look at the recipe last weekend, I realized that you could bake the Whip and serve it warm. "Why not?" I thought. I've tried to approach this experiment with a sense of adventure.

Here's the picture: Stewed prunes, mashed into a puree. Egg white beaten until stiff, sugar folded in. Blend and bake. Top with nuts.

That's certainly one kind of motivation for passing on dessert. The small taste I had is still seared into my mind. Fortunately, my dinner last weekend wasn't a complete wash. There are about a dozen recipes for stuffing in The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) --- all but one made with bread crumbs, not the bread cubes we typically use for stuffing today. I tried one of the more basic bread-crumb recipes and used it to stuff the centers of my Baked Acorn Squash. Tasty, but I think I'd rather a heartier stuffing made from whole-grain bread. The salad was a classic '40s combination: grapefruit, avocado, romaine lettuce, and a vinaigrette dressing.

I'm looking ahead now to the menu for tomorrow's vintage dinner and prunes are once again on the menu. This time in the salad. Stay tuned!

The Smartest Coiffures

Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

One of the gifts my mom and dad gave me last Christmas was a lovely vintage dresser set. A brush, comb, and mirror with gold-tone handles and a burgundy moire-type panel set into the back of the brush and mirror. They were still in the box they'd been sold in and, to all appearances, had never been used. Well, I decided it was time to break 'em out this week in honor of my latest grooming mission. What luxury to use a brush with nylon bristles! I haven't spent all that much time in the hairstyling aisles, but it seems like all the brushes today have either those hard plastic bristles - with the knobby ends that often break off - or boar bristles.

Here's an article from the January 22, 1940 edition of St. Petersburg, Florida's Evening Independent. Didn't think there was a technique for hairbrushing? Leave it to the beauty experts of this era.... There's a technique for everything! The article promotes hairbrushing as a nightly ritual, but there's no reason why the same techniques wouldn't come in handy when setting your hair in the morning.

The smartest coiffures at the moment absolutely demand healthy, shiny hair which shows the excellent results of meticulous grooming. Whether you have retained your long bob, are wearing your hair up in front and down in back, or really quite short all over the head with soft curls or a roll in the nape of the neck, your coiffure won't be completely flattering or manageable unless you brush it at least five times a week.

If your present hair brush is indeed a sorry sight, by all means invest in a new one. Choose a brush with long, flexible bristles and a handle which fits your hand...

Hold your brush lightly in one hand, lean forward, relaxing your body as you do so, then place the bristles against your scalp at the hairline and continue on out to the ends of the hair. Let the bristles become embedded in your locks. Don't simply brush the surface, neglecting scalp and hair underneath.

When you straighten up, brush upward from nape of the neck to ends of the hair. In other words, don't stop brushing until the scalp is tingling and every hair has been brushed and polished. Repeat five nights a week and, within three months, you'll notice an enormous difference in the texture of your hair and the ease with which the waves and curls fall back into place after the brushing.

If you have dandruff or your hair is too oily or too dry, supplement the brushing routines with weekly scalp treatments. There are special tonics designed to correct scalp ailments. Brushing is most important, however. It's the great cure-all.

Track and Field

My routine descended into pure chaos last night.

I was late getting out of work. Rushed to Trader Joe's to do my light marketing. Raced home to wolf down my supper and change. Hurried over to the rec center - which closes at 8:00 - and found myself nauseous before I had walked for even 10 minutes. A quick supper and a workout do not mix. I powered though 30 minutes, then gave up the game. (I'll make up the missing 30 minutes during my lunch hour tomorrow.) I was still feeling so crummy when I got home that I just curled up and went to sleep. Hey, I had a great night's sleep --- nine hours for a change --- but when I finally crawled out of bed, my apartment was in disarray and there was extra tidying to do. Believing that the envelope I needed to drop at a mailbox was my Father's Day card, I rushed out to work without even having finished my morning routine. It turns out just to have been a student loan payment with plenty of time before the due date. My Father's Day card was mailed a few days ago! One misstep after another this week. There must be a full moon approaching.

Actually, it's only when I make mistakes like this that I have a chance to really learn what's working - and what's not - with my routine. Like perhaps it isn't a good idea to try and do my light marketing as well as my workout on the same night. I think I'll move my light marketing forward to Thursdays. There'll still be plenty of time for cleaning the bedroom if I get home 15-20 minutes later than normal on Thursday evenings. Wednesdays will be a workout-only kind of night.

Something else that's not working is trying to add errands to my morning commute. "I'll just stop at Walgreen's on the way in" or "I'll just drop this off on my way past the post office" or "There's plenty of time to run by the library book drop." With all the extra haircare and lipstick and stretching-and-limbering exercises in the morning, there simply isn't time to do anything extra. And I usually end up with these errands in the morning, because I've been to lazy to stop and do them on the way home from work. The evening commute is a much better time for errands --- unless it's workout night, that is!

And it turns out that I'm not very good at styling my hair. I've attempted a 1940s pageboy twice this week. The first one was semi-successful. The second was a flop. Hairstyling is definitely a craft that requires patience, and that's never been a forte of mine. I know so little about my hair. Would it take a wet set or will it need heat to hold a curl? What do you even use to make pin curls? I've been using a curling iron, but I'd much rather use a method which would take less product to stay in place. It sounds like the pin curls create the longest lasting curl. What kind of curlers were women using in the '40s? Or are pin curls literally made using pins?

I'm going to need another inch or two in length before I'm able to do a good pageboy, so in the meantime I'm going to try and assemble the tools I'll need and get plenty of practice. My mission doesn't really dictate that my hair be styled in vintage fashion, but I think there's something to be said for having a vintage quality to my hair - even if it's styled with a more modern look sometimes. Our grandmothers wouldn't have dreamed of leaving the house with the frizzy bedhead that's so popular today. (Imagine the looks they would've gotten!) Hairstyles were glossy, sleek, controlled - and curls were king. It probably looked a lot healthier, though I'm not sure they were using any less product than some women use today even if only to achieve to perfectly tousled look. I think I'll strive for something in the middle here. Can I achieve a shiny head of curls with minimum product?

Oh, how I wish I was having an easier time with reducing my calories... Truth be told, I should probably have held off on this step for just a little while. I did great last week in changing my snacks to fruits and vegetables --- during the early and middle part of the week, at least. At the end of the week, I was strafed with cravings late at night. Pushed through them the first time, but gave in to them the next two nights in a row. When my scale showed a loss on Monday morning, I figured I'd go ahead and jump into the next mission. But thus far I've cheated two out of three nights. The same experience. I don't have any real powerful cravings until late at night. Bedtime. Sure, I could try doing the small, healthy snack thing, but I know me. One bite and I'd go bananas and eat much more than I'd planned on. I'm an all or nothing kinda gal, I guess. The only reason last night went okay is probably because I was already asleep!

I'm not proud of any of this, but I wanted to put it down here and lay out what this experience has been like. Those late-night cravings feel like a hurdle - and if I could just jump over it once, I'd be able to do it again and again. I must have really done a lot of snacking late at night in order for this to be such a problem now. They're phantom cravings in a way. Like the phantom pain somebody who's lost a limb feels in the place where that limb used to be. It's going to take some time for those cravings to subside.

It's strange what an emotional experience reducing calories - really getting to the nitty-gritty of dieting - is turning out to be. For years after an illness I suffered in my mid-twenties, I ate everything and anything I wanted. I was so frustrated with the side effects of medication and the complications from surgery that I figured the least I deserved was to eat whatever I wanted. In the beginning, I needed to. I was dangerously underweight and needed to put some weight on my bones. (That stage didn't last too long!) Eating was an easy fix when the process of physical recovery in other ways was prolonged and painful. During the two years after my next-to-last surgery, I gained about 80 lbs. And so when I feel those cravings late at night, all those old anxieties come right on back with 'em.

I guess I can only take this one night at a time. Just focus on the one in front of me and no further. If I can fill the rest of this evening with good, honest work - the bedroom is calling! - maybe I can jump the hurdle tonight. Tomorrow night can take care of itself.

Absolutely Absorbent

Straighten towels and wash cloths. Put out clean linen when needed (fresh linen for all on Wednesdays and Saturdays).

I think it's time to take stock of my bath linens. As I was folding my clean laundry last night, I found myself shaking my head at the condition of my towels and washcloths. And I don't even own any hand towels these days! In fact, it's high time that most of these unfortunate dregs of toweldom were recycled right on into my rag bag. (They'd still make great dusting cloths.) What kind of condition are your bath linens in? I think the problem with mine is quite simply that they were cheap. I didn't invest in bath towels and washcloths the way a woman of the '40s - who might even have monogrammed them - might have done. I didn't pay for the kind of quality that could be expected to be serviceable for a generation. But it is a shame to spend as much time and energy as I do on Saturdays cleaning my bathroom and not have beautiful linens for my guests --- and for me!

I'd better consult Lily Haxworth Wallace's New American Etiquette (1941) before making up my wish list...

Bath towels - There has been a trend toward solid color bath towels ranging from deep pastels to very dark colors. However, the demand for these is slowly decreasing and, today, the fastidious bride is choosing fine white towels with her monogram in color to match or harmonize with the bath.

How to know good, absorbent bath towels - There are many grades of bath towels, but there is only one grade to invest in - a soft, spongy towel that is absolutely absorbent. Look closely at the individual looped threads that go into the weaving. Be sure they are long, and firmly and closely woven. Crush the towel in your fingers. If it feels soft, then all these attributes mean that the towel is absorbent and will give long service. And most important of all - when buying bath towels, place yourself in the hands of a store that has rightly earned a reputation for integrity.

Size of bath towels - Sizes vary according to the preference of the individual. Most men, however, like a large, generous-size towel. Women prefer a smaller towel of the same absorbent quality.

Wash cloths -Should be as fine in quality as the bath towels. It is best to have each cloth match a bath towel for identification purposes. [The Manual recommends that each member of the family have a unique color for bath linens.]

Hand towels - Come in medium and large sizes. Irish huck of fine quality is still the most popular choice. [For those of you as mystified as me, Irish huck is a type of textured linen.] On white hand towels, colored monograms to match your bath towels are in good taste.

Bath mats - Should be absorbent, good quality to withstand hard and frequent washing.

Bath rugs - Many housewives use bath rugs that are not washable. Today, however, there are many extremely good-looking ones that have a heavy pile and wash like handkerchief. The colors, too, are lovely.

Following are the bath towels needed in every home:

Two dozen Irish huck hand towels.
Four dozen Irish huck face towels.
One dozen bath towels - medium size for women.
One dozen bath towels - large size for men.
One dozen wash cloths.
Two bath mats.
Two bath rugs.

7+1=8

In the immortal words of Gabriel Heatter, "There's good news, tonight!" I've finally found the edge of that plateau. When I stepped on the scale this morning, I weighed in at 186. That's eight pounds. Eight hard-won pounds.

I'm eating the first of my portion-controlled suppers - complete with a serving of yellow carrots, spinach, and cannellini (courtesy of Green Giant) - and I'm off to the rec center in a few, but I wanted to make a quick post and share the good news with my dear readers.

Here's my question for the day... I had my hair cut over the weekend with a 1940s interpretation of the pageboy in mind. Something like the hairstyle in the picture below. Can any of you talented divas give me any advice on pulling off a style like this one?

Week Thirty-one: The Mission

Fitness
As I continue my transition to using the indoor walking track for my weekday workouts, I'm going to begin adding some muscle toning exercises to my daily routine. In the 1940s, they were called "limbering and stretching exercises" and recommended by beauty experts as an ideal supplement to a brisk daily walk. I've found a ton of these in vintage newspapers and magazines, but here are a few from a 1940 edition of the St. Maurice Valley [Quebec] Chronicle for use before and immediately after getting out of bed in the morning. I'll start with these:

1. Before you get out of bed in the morning, do this routine five times: stretch body out with arms out at sides. Lift both legs simultaneously as high as you can, even, if you can, over your head; then down again, slowly.

2. Here is a good stretching exercise that helps to develop the bust and improves the posture and figure generally: Stand with feet slightly apart, arms down at sides. Stretch arms in front up and over the head slowly as far as you can, without straining, then slowly return to original position. Repeat this several times.

3. To improve hips and waist and improve general line of figure: (A) Stand with feet slightly apart, abdomen in, seat well down, fingers interlaced and raised high over head, arms making a frame for the face. Keep face framed by arms throughout exercise, and body absolutely steady from waist down. (B) Swing forward till body and arms are horizontal. Swing body round to right side and travel upwards till arms are over head once more. (C) Turn to the left and swing the body round and down till body and arms are once again horizontal, as in B.

Reducing
In the spirit of reducing my calorie intake, I'm going to begin limiting the portion size of the prepared, pre-packaged foods I typically eat at dinner and for lunch on the weekends. One of these kinds of foods would usually make up my entire meal. Now, I know perfectly well that I can't go from 0 to 60 overnight, so I'm going to do this in steps. This week, I'll try to cut the portion size by a third --- where I would normally eat three pieces of frozen tomato/pesto/mozzarella pizza, I'm going to eat two. If I would normally have 3/4 of a bag of frozen mushroom fettucine, I'll make it 1/2 a bag. What I'm going to do at the same time - and this is equally important - is to fill up the rest of the plate with veggies. They don't have to be anything fancy or anything that requires much time or energy in the kitchen. Frozen or canned vegetables will do just fine for now. Something to try and trick my body into feeling just as full as it would have with that larger portion of the pre-packaged foods. If I can make a go of this, I'll cut the portion size of the pre-packaged foods by another third next week.

Grooming
My face has been powdered, my lips are painted... it's time to attend to my hair! Here's the next step in the 1946 morning grooming routine for young women:

Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

In honor of the occasion, I betook myself to the salon this weekend. A rare event indeed for this reforming frump! I'm launching the mission with a new haircut and some freshly manicured eyebrows.

From the Top Down

When I began giving my bedroom a weekly cleaning last February, my round of chores was pretty bare bones. I've been fleshing it out ever since and have finally come up against the last of the bunch - the one I was avoiding. This chore was recommended by The Manual on a weekly basis. For me, it's going to be a monthly chore:

Brush ceilings and walls when necessary.

I've been puzzling over this one for awhile now. Standing in the brooms-and-mops aisle of every store I've been into - gazing at all the tools and trying to decide which would do the job. Luckily, The Manual devoted a chapter to "Walls, Ceilings and Woodwork" - so back to the book I went. Time to study...

It is extremely important that walls be dusted regularly and often if more difficult cleaning tasks are to be avoided. Walls that are neglected in this respect soon acquire a film of greasy dust that attracts and holds still more dust and which inevitably becomes embedded and difficult to remove.

The only exception to this rule occurs in the case of papered walls. In soft coal regions or industrial sections dusting papered walls is not advised, because soot will be grimed into the paper no matter what method of dusting is used. An annual cleaning with a dough-type cleaner is recommended.

In other regions where dust and cobwebs are the only problem, papered walls may be dusted with the suction attachment of the vacuum cleaner.

There are three tools for dusting walls:

1. A soft wall brush of hair, nylon, lamb's wool, yarn or sponge rubber, with a long handle.
2. A fiber or corn broom covered with an "apron" of soft clean cloth, such as cotton flannel.
3. The dusting attachment of the vacuum cleaner. If you have this attachment use it, by all means, because it eliminates any scattering of dust.

Work from the top down, giving special attention to high mouldings. There is one exception to this rule: if cobwebs are present, whether they are spider webs or dust cobwebs, remove them with an upward lifting stroke to avoid streaking the walls. Cobwebs of any sort are sticky, and if they are pulled down against the wall they will leave a trail of dirt that is hard to remove.

The hose on my little bag-less vacuum works just fine when I'm using attachments to clean something near or along the floor, but I certainly can't stretch it high enough to reach the upper parts of my walls. There were some lovely extension dusting tools in the stores - complete with pictures of happy people dusting their ceiling fans on the packaging - but I hate bringing home another one of those tools with plastic handles. And that's practically all you can find these days. I didn't mind purchasing a new mop or broom back when they all had wooden handles. You know that's going to break down someday at a dump somewhere and return to the earth. But all those plastic handles... Eek! They'll be here long after the human race has run its course. Alien scientists will spend their summers doing digs on the third planet from the sun and have to presume that Swiffer was the name of some ancient god - and that ancient peoples were performing some sort of religious ritual in waving these brightly colored sticks about.

I've kind of settled on option #2, laying a flannel dusting cloth over the top of my broom and using that to dust the walls. It's not terribly efficient, though, as I keep having to readjust the cloth. (And how to dust "from the top down" when you get down to about the height of your waist? I find myself having to dust from side to side at that point.) What kinds of tools and methods do y'all use when dusting your walls? Should I be using a larger piece of flannel - something big enough that I can literally tie it up around the top of my broom? Maybe that's what the authors of The Manual meant in calling that an "apron." I see this chore popping up on the list for my bathroom as well as my living room, so I want to get it right.

Any ideas for brushing the ceiling? My ceiling has a pebbly kind of finish, so my improvised tool doesn't work at all on this part of the job... And is the tool in the foreground of the photo below the one this Illinois housewife was using in 1941 to dust the ceiling and walls of her living room?



Well, it's time to fly. One more push in cleaning the bathroom and I can have all my drudgiest chores out of the way in time for the Sabbath. (My Saturday hasn't been all work! I spent the afternoon having a lovely picnic in the mountains with my sister and nieces.) Here's my newly revised weekly housekeeping routine for the bathroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

Pick up and replace small articles belonging in bathroom.

Gather up to take out soiled linen (to hamper, if dry), and articles belonging in other rooms. Collect trash in waste basket. Roll up bath mat or rug.

Wipe mirror.

Wipe tile behind washbowl and tub.

Clean bathtub and metal fixtures (be sure to wipe shower fixtures and clean soap holder).

Clean toilet bowl with brush. Wipe outside of bowl and closet with cloth used for that purpose only.

Clean washbowl (be sure to wipe base as well as top; also clean soap holder).

Straighten towels and wash cloths. Put out fresh linen.

Sweep floor. Gather up dust in pan.

Floor should be washed.

Replace bath mat or rug. Close windows in cold or damp weather.

Sunday, Monday, or Always

"Oh, yeah," I thought to myself this morning when I heard on the radio that today was the big day. The transition from analog to digital television was made today here in the United States. At least, I think it was. I felt the tiniest bit tempted to turn my TV on to see if it was picking up the new signal, but decided against it. This was big doings in the Jitterbug household last winter when they were planning to make "the switch" in February. I'd purchased my converter box, fussed about trying to pick up stations, figured out - finally - that my set would need a digital antenna, set that up and fussed about some more. Everything was in order when I parted ways with my television three weeks ago, so I'm sure it's fine now.

One of the things I'm certainly not missing about TV - analog or digital - is the constant grumbling about weather. Oh, those local newscasts... They'd moan and groan if it was in the 60s ("Too cold!"), they'd moan and groan if it was in the 90s ("It's a sizzler out there!"), they'd gripe about the slightest breeze ("Gusts of up to 40 mph!"), and rain? Forget about it. The softest shower was built up to be some massive rain system moving through the city. As if the griping and groaning and going over it again and again is going to make the slightest difference. It is what it is outdoors. All you have to do is open a window and you can see and feel what's going on out there. If your allergies are acting up - yep, there's pollen on the move. I can see how important forecasts would be if you were a farmer or if you lived in a Northern climate during the winter. I know firsthand how great Doppler radar is when a snowstorm is moving in. I used to get really frustrated hearing all that grumbling from the anchorpeople several times a day. (Not frustrated enough to just turn off the TV, mind you!) But it's an irritant that's gone now. Completely absent. I don't think I've heard a weather report of any kind in three weeks and I'm surviving quite nicely.

Another subtle shift for me is that I think I'm becoming more attentive to things like song lyrics. Music that was once more background for me than foreground is now the main attraction. If I'm sitting here tapping away at the keyboard and listening to big band, I'm really paying attention to the song. And this is probably going to sound goofy, but it's as if the lyrics of ballads and things are beginning to seem more passionate - and sexy at times - than they used to. Frank Sinatra singing "Sunday, Monday, or Always" is all crazy sexy to me now, and I probably would have written it off as a nice tune several weeks ago. It's kinda funny. Today's singers think they need to practically have intercourse on stage in order to elicit the same reaction that Sinatra got just from the way he paced his lyrics. And the catch in his voice. The bobby soxers were swooning in the aisles, but I'll bet there was many a housewife who stopped - iron in mid-air - to close her eyes and listen with a smile...

I'm getting ready to spend a few hours catching up with my kitchen. Because of the changes I've made to my housekeeping routine this week, I just wanted to post the revised list of chores I'll be doing on a weekly basis in the kitchen. These would have been daily tasks for the '40s housewife - and probably still are for many of you!

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air, or open kitchen ventilator.

Rinse and stack dishes, pots and pans.

Check and reorganize foods; put away.

Collect all refuse and put in garbage can.

Wipe off top of refrigerator and all work surfaces in need of cleaning.

Wash dishes. Dry and put away, if not room to rinse with hot water and leave to dry.

Wipe off surface of range. Clean spilled food from drip pan or oven.

Dry damp work surfaces.

Dust radiator or register.

Take out garbage; put clean lining in garbage can.

Clean sink. Rinse dishcloth or mop; hang outdoors if possible.

Collect soiled towels; wash. Hang fresh towels.

New Routines

Did you ever notice that as soon as people find out you're regularly walking, they come out of the woodwork to try and make you their walking buddy?

First, a co-worker asks me if she can match me up with a friend of hers who needs a walking buddy. Then another person I know through work tries to get me to commit to a walking relationship. I hope I don't come off as impolite, but I'd really rather walk by myself. Let's face it. Sometimes walking with another person can speed you up --- sometimes it can slow you down. The people I pass when I'm walking are almost always in pairs. And the last thing I want to do is to have to rush to the park to sit around and wait for somebody who might be late showing up - and then might show up toting a kid or two. Complete with strollers. I've got business to take care of!

I gathered up all my courage Monday evening and went into the rec center to purchase a membership and take my first indoor walk on the walking track. The rec center may be located just a few steps away from the park where I've been walking on the weekends --- but it's a whole new world in there! It's louder for starts. The walking track is built around a basketball court with racquetball courts nearby. There's lots of testosterone in the air as most of the people using the basketball court are young men in the 15-25 age range. I've only been there twice, but I'd say there's a more competitive feeling indoors than there is with the folks using the outdoor track. (It's actually the first time I've wanted to check my rear view in the mirror to see whether those new exercise pants are flattering or not!) The track is pretty small, so I can easily do 30 laps in a 60-minute walk. Thank goodness for that iPod. I'd perish without it! I'll still have a chance to walk outdoors one day a week. The rec center is closed on Sundays.

As for snacks, I'm doing remarkably better at the only-fruits-or-vegetables thing than I thought I would. Of course, it helps that nectarines are in season here. I picked up some beautiful, small nectarines last weekend at one of the natural foods stores. They've got a great selection of produce and I was in quest of some parsnips for my vintage dinner - but the nectarines caught my eye. Have you seen how big the fruits are in some of the supermarkets these days? They must be breeding super-sized fruits for super-sized customers. And bigger isn't always better. I'm a nectarine nut, so imagine my excitement when I saw these massive nectarines at the supermarket last summer. Ack! They were mealy and bland and never got to that lovely soft stage where the fruit just melts in your mouth. Anyway, I've been having one nectarine every day at about 3:00 in the afternoon. That's it for snacks. This weekend will probably be more challenging than my weekdays have been, but I'm feeling ready to face the enemy.

Here's the menu for my vintage dinner last Sunday:

Parsley Buttered Potatoes
Pan-fried Parsnips
Molded Salad of Cranberry Sauce (canned), Celery and Apples
Butterscotch Pudding with Nuts

I haven't had Parsnips in years. In fact, I remember being slightly traumatized the last time I ate them. It's been a long time, though, so I figured I ought to give them another shot. They have a spicy, celery-type scent as you're working with them, but once cooked they were pretty bland. Didn't taste like much of anything. What I've heard since then is that Parsnips are tastiest in the fall when they're fresh from the soil. Alas, my first attempt at a non-gelatin Molded Salad was a dismal failure. I tried just heating up a can of the jellied cranberry sauce, adding the celery and apples, and putting the concoction in the fridge to chill - but it never quite set. I'm going to track down some of the agar a couple of my readers mentioned and try that next time.

It's Thursday evening, which means that it's time to clean my bedroom. The first order of business will be the daily chores recommended by America's Housekeeping Book (1945). This will be my new weekly routine for the bedroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

Remove all bed covers; stretch over end of bed, or over chairs, off the floor. Remove soiled bed linen; place near door to be taken out. Place mattress pad over chair near window to air.

Bring in cleaning equipment: carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner (according to need), dust mop, dust cloth, damp cloth. Bring in fresh bed linens.

Turn mattress top to bottom one week, and end to end the next week. Make bed.

Dust high objects if necessary (mantels, high shelves, window frames and sills, tops of bookcases, etc.).

Dust radiators covers if necessary.

Brush upholstery if necessary. Straighten covers. Plump up pillows.

Dust furniture and low objects if necessary.

Dust exposed wood flooring with dust mop if necessary. Use carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner on rugs or carpets.

Polish or wash accessories and return to place with other objects removed during cleaning.

Final touches: Straighten draperies, shades, curtains, etc. Take out cleaning equipment and waste basket. Bring back clean ash trays, accessories, flowers and waste basket. Close windows if desired.

I'm kicking off my new monthly chores (recommended in 1945 as weekly chores) by making my bedroom the featured room this week. So here are the extra chores I'll also be doing in there tonight. Brushing walls is a whole new thing for me this week. More on that in another post...

Collect lamp bases, bric-a-brac and dressing table fittings that need polishing or washing, and dresser scarves to be laundered.

Brush walls when necessary. Dust high mouldings, door frames, window shades and Venetian blinds when necessary. Brush draperies (or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner). Dust mirrors, pictures, lighting fixtures, lamps, woodwork; wash any of these articles if necessary.

Dust radiators (covers and coils) or registers; clean thoroughly when necessary. Brush baseboard or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner. Dust book shelves and books as necessary. Wash windows when necessary.

Remove cushions from upholstered furniture. Use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner on furniture (getting into all crevices) and cushions. Replace cushions.

Rub wood surfaces of furniture to polish; apply wax or polish when necessary. Polish metal hardware if necessary. Wash glass table tops.

Use vacuum cleaner for cleaning of rugs and carpets.

The evening is short and I've got a bed to strip. Time to shed my dress and get to work!

"Rest, Relaxation, Correspondence..."

When I embarked on this experiment, I knew there was no way - with a full-time job outside the home - that I could keep house to the standards of a 1940s housewife. Without hesitation, I moved most of the jobs that were done on a daily basis in the '40s household to my "weekly" column. Yet, all these months, I've stuck to the goal of being able to get all of the jobs my '40s counterpart did on a weekly basis done right on schedule.

Well, maybe this would've been possible if I didn't have any friends or family. Or unexpected errands to be run or workouts to be done. But I do, and so it's not. Adding a weekly cleaning of the bathroom to my list of chores has tipped the scales, so to speak. Even a 1940s housewife built time to rest into her day. I see it right there at 2:00 p.m. on weekday afternoons: "Rest, Relaxation, Correspondence, Reading, Personal care, etc." Sundays don't even show up on The Manual's skeleton housekeeping schedule. They were set aside in most American households for a well-deserved and much-needed rest, for worship, visiting with family, going for a drive... maybe even just sitting a spell on the porch.

So my housekeeping routine's about to undergo a little renovation. What I'm planning is to move most of my weekly chores to a monthly basis. Not all of 'em. Things like laundry, ironing, and changing the bed linens do indeed need to be done on a weekly basis. Each of the rooms in my home will still be getting some pretty dedicated attention once a week, but I'll rotate between the rooms each week when it comes to the more thorough chores done on a weekly basis in the '40s. The bedroom one week, the kitchen the next, then the bathroom, then the living room. If I master things at this pace and feel like I could step it up a notch at some point, so be it. For now, I think these chores will be more than enough to make a lovely home. And me a lovelier person than the grump I became last weekend!

It's funny. Being an aunt has given me the ability to see the world anew as my nieces discover it for themselves. Being a housekeeper has given me the ability to protect and cherish my free time. I used to squander all my free time on neither work nor rest. I value it now in a way I never did several months ago. More than ever before, I want to be really enjoying myself in my occasional hours of rest --- to be with people, to see the sights, and - most of all - to be outdoors.

Calorie Reduction

If you think the 21st-century diet industry is a wild and crazy place, check out this article from the August 21, 1940 issue of the Milwaukee Sentinel. The author, Ida Jean Kain, rails against the tricks and shortcuts offered to those needing to reduce. (Incidentally, Kain later authored the diet plan that Roxanne is putting to the test over at Shapely Weight from 1958.) And there were tricks and shortcuts aplenty. Somebody anxious to trim her figure in the '40s could try anything from replacing two meals a day with low calorie biscuits, joining a reducing salon, taking sweat baths or salt rubs, massage, mysterious "slimming" drinks, and even amphetamines... Kain reminds her readers that lowering your calorie intake is the only path to success. I'm printing her article in full here, but it's the next to last paragraph which truly caught my eye:

The latest trick in reducing is the neatest. Some ingenious and enterprising manufacturer with an uncanny understanding of the overweight psychology has evolved a method whereby you take his product in place of two meals a day and reduce. You could take anything in place of two meals a day and reduce. You could take an apple but it wouldn‘t keep the doctor away!

This is just calorie cutting in another guise. Instead of telling you to hold your calories down to 1,000 a day, the proponents of these plans get the same calorie deficit by having you take a synthetic product low in calories in place of the two meals. If you consistently omit two meals a day, you are fairly certain of reducing - but unless the substitute supplies all the protective elements you must have, it’s a risky business.

There are foods on the market which are low in calories and can be safely used in place of high calorie foods - they are in a different class. They do not purport to take the place of meals. It is suggested that they be used in conjunction with well balanced, low calorie meals to contribute satiety. You may find it easier to stay on a diet if you use some of the low calorie biscuits or breads because you can eat more of them without exceeding your reducing allowance.

But nothing in this world can reduce you unless you keep your calorie intake below the number expended daily in energy. Sweat baths, soaps, salts, creams, rubber girdles and all the long list of “reducers” are futile unless you keep your calorie intake below the number expended in energy! Then the stored fat is burned to make up the deficit.

Massage, although often advocated for the overweight, is not reducing. It is an excellent means of stimulating the circulation and improving the muscle tone. It shortens stretched muscles and improves your measurements. But it does not reduce weight.

I don’t even try to sell you on exercise as a reducer! The amount you are likely to take regularly will not help you to lose any appreciable number of pounds. When you consider the number of calories you have to burn in exercise - 4,320 - to lose one single pound of fat, you can see that you would not get very far on exercise if you ate as you pleased! But exercise tones the muscles and gives you a lovely figure.

When you understand the separate roles of a low calorie diet and streamlining exercise, it is not so easy for you to be led astray by the promises of substitutes!

Zowie! You have to burn more than 4,000 calories just to eliminate a single pound of fat?!? That means that even the 60 minutes of brisk walking I did last night (370 calories for somebody of my size) barely made a dent. No wonder I'm having such a hard time actually dropping pounds. I clearly need to investigate some changes in the food I'm eating. Imagine how much progress I could make if I was actually doing the two things at once...

Intervention

*sigh*

I might as well have done nothing for the last two weeks. No exercise, no deprivation. I weighed in at 187 this morning, which means that I've lost 0 lbs. in the last two weeks. Heck, I was losing 0 lbs. per week while I was living a completely sedentary lifestyle and eating whatever I liked! Why not just do that again? It was a lot easier...

This is really starting to piss me off. Of course, I've had a bad attitude about everything for the last few days, including the housework. I didn't get finished cleaning the bathroom 'til late last night and then I had to get up at the crack of dawn this morning to start all over again with the wash. What am I doing it all for if there's no time when it's finished just to relax and enjoy my clean house?

Maybe it's just the heat that's really getting to me. In any event, it's time to stage another mid-mission intervention. Two weeks of hard work for 0 lbs. just doesn't feel like a good trade for me.

Fitness
Walk 60 minutes a day, four days a week. I'm going to make the transition to using the indoor track this week. One more lunchtime workout today to make up for last Friday (long story) and then I'll plan on using the indoor track Monday and Wednesday evenings and Saturdays and Sundays.

Diet
I think it's clear I'm going to have to dramatically reduce my caloric intake if I'm going to begin losing any real weight. All the modern authorities tell us that healthy snacks and small meals spread throughout the day is the best way for people to eat, but I'm going to trust my instincts here: When I lost 40 lbs. in my early twenties, I didn't do it by continuously eating. Instead, I chose not to snack at all between meals. As much as I've enjoyed my little power snacks for the last week, I think they leave me more susceptible to late night temptation. It's as if they're keeping me from getting used to the feeling of hunger - and waiting it out. I think I'll see if I can't find some middle ground here. I'm going to allow myself to snack as often as I like between breakfast and 7:30 p.m. as long as I'm snacking only on fruits or vegetables.

Attachments

So I'm putting the finishing touches on my lips in the bathroom this morning, when suddenly - out of nowhere - comes this terrific explosion and sound of shattering glass. From the kitchen.

I jumped, then cringed inwardly, ticking off the things I'd last done in my kitchen. Had I left the glass I'd just washed on top of a burner that hadn't been turned off --- as happened in The Casserole Dish Disaster of 2007? Had some of the leftovers in my fridge imploded? I reluctantly tiptoed out towards the kitchen and what should I see but my ceiling fan with a bare bulb and the glass globe in fragments. Everywhere.

Scratch what I said a few weeks ago about cleaning those lighting fixtures. Maybe that's not such a good idea after all!

It's Thursday evening. The glass has been cleaned up - at least all the glass that's visible to the human eye (I'm sure my feet will find some more) --- and it's time to get cracking on my weekly cleaning of the bedroom. I think I'd also like to start using some of the tools on my vacuum cleaner to really get into the edges of the room where the carpeting meets the wall. As nice as it is just to vacuum those wide, open spaces, it's the edges of my bedroom that seem to accumulate the most dust and little bits of paper and things. The Manual has lots of advice to offer on operating and caring for vacuum cleaners. Here are some of the gems:

Operate the cleaner slowly in a straight line, lengthwise of the rug.

Go over each section twice to remove embedded dirt and grit.

Familiarize yourself with the attachments and their uses. Once you discover how easy it is to attach them and how many tasks they make easy, there will be no danger of their becoming a poor investment through lack of use.

Pick up pins, hairpins, tacks and any small sharp objects before using the vacuum cleaner.

Empty the dust bag after each use (suction action is lessened by dirt in the bag. Shake the dirt into a deep waste basket lines with a paper bag, to avoid scattering dust.