Shampoo in the Shower

Let's face it. As much as I enjoy my nightly baths, there are times of the week and times of the month when an invigorating morning shower hits the spot. On Saturday and Sunday mornings - when I sweat hard during a 65-minute walk at the park - I need a shower to feel fresh and dry for the rest of the day. And when Aunt Flo pays a call, I couldn't do without a shower before heading out in the morning to face the world. The rest of the time, I'm perfectly cool with a nightly bath. I've come to prefer 'em. I love that squeaky clean feeling when I crawl under the covers at night --- and there's something about all that hot water that puts my head in just the right space for dreamland.

Folks in the '40s were just coming themselves to appreciate the virtues of a great shower, and showers were becoming popular enough additions to postwar American bathrooms that Good Housekeeping dedicated an article to washing your hair in the shower in its March 1947 issue. I'll bet they've got some advice that might be helpful to me:

Why not wash your hair in the shower? Once you get the hang of it, you will never go back to shampooing in a bowl. Try it this way. Before you strip, have everything you need at hand - cream shampoo or a cup into which you have measured enough liquid shampoo for two sudsings, a small brush, a towel placed where you can reach it with your eyes shut. Wet your hair thoroughly; then keep away from the spray when rubbing suds into the hair. To rinse, face the spray or turn your back, as you like. Either way, shut your eyes, and as the water begins to run clear, turn so that a strong spray can be concentrated on every part of your head. Your hair will be more thoroughly rinsed with less trouble than ever before; you'll step out clean from top to toe; and you won't have to mop the bathroom floor.

Good Housekeeping seems sold on showers! At least when it comes to washing hair. Isn't it funny how something which seems so natural to we shower-takers today had to be broken down step by step like this. Even the process of rinsing the hair. Well, I suppose washing my hair in the bathroom sink would seem just as unnatural to me. Here are some additional tips included in the article. Thank goodness I don't have to worry about dandruff!

• Whether you shampoo in a bowl or in a shower, always brush your hair thoroughly before you start, in order to loosen any clinging dandruff.

• Be sure to suds every part of the scalp and hair. Uneven cleansing is often the cause of drab locks.

• Use a hand brush or small hairbrush to rub suds around the hairline, behind the ears, and on any spot where dandruff is likely to be troublesome.

• Rinse until the water runs clear. Without perfect rinsing, it is impossible to have glossy, springy hair. Use a hand spray if you don't shampoo in a shower.

• In hard water, use a soapless shampoo or a soap shampoo specially made to rinse out in hard water. Or follow soap rinsing with a lemon or color rinse, to remove curd.

Can anyone guess who's famous gams those are in the photo at the top of this post?

Brown Sugar and Butter

Well, I don't have much to report on my date Saturday afternoon. It never materialized. We got our signals crossed and he apologized profusely, but it turns out email is a terrible way to try and plan something as simple as a cup of coffee. (I could've told you that! I was perfectly willing to give this guy my phone number in the beginning, but now I'm feeling like it's just not worth it.) We're planning to get together on Thursday evening, so I'll keep you posted...

Not much to report here from the home front. I've just finished giving my bathroom its extra special monthly cleaning. This morning's wash has been folded and put away, my ironing is prepped and ready to go tomorrow night, and I'm gearing up for some evening exercises. One of my Sunday rituals is planning my breakfast menus for the week ahead and - as I'll run out of frozen baked goods by the end of the week - I got to pick a new recipe to try next weekend: Butterscotch Biscuits. It's one of about a dozen variations on the basic Baking Powder Biscuit recipe in my 1945 cookbook. Even the name sounds scrumptious! Can't wait to try 'em out.

It occurs to me that butterscotch is a very vintage flavor. You don't see a whole heck of a lot of modern sweets taking advantage of everything that classic combination of brown sugar-and-butter has to offer. Butterscotch pudding mix is still kicking around and you might see somebody toss some butterscotch morsels into a cookie recipe from time to time, but - just for comparison's sake - The American Woman's Cook Book includes eight recipes featuring this flavor: Butterscotch candy (in hard or soft varieties, along with a variation called Maple Scotch), Butterscotch Biscuits, Mock Butterscotch Custard, Butterscotch Pie, Banana Butterscotch Pie, Butterscotch Sauce, Butterscotch Slices (cookies), and Butterscotch Toast. Do you have any tried and true family recipes that could join this line-up? My mom makes some lovely butterscotch brownies she calls Blondies.

Butterscotch was a popular color of the era, too. Have you noticed how much butterscotch-colored bakelite there is out there? From bangles to flatware handles, that rich buttery color was hot.

Oy, can you tell I'm PMSing? I've gone from bitter to butterscotch in a single post!

38 + 3 = 41

That's more like it! 41 lbs. this morning... which means I've reached my half-way point and left it in the dust. WHOO-HOO!!!!! I weighed in at 153 today. Gosh, I can remember way back in April when I counted forward to the end of the year. I figured if I could lose 1 lb. per week, I'd weigh in at 155 by New Year's Eve. Here it is late September and I've hit that mark already. My next goal? 145. I'd like to see it by November 21 at the latest.

I've honestly had a tough time this week getting back into the swing of things. Last minute social plans, the need to buy some clothes in my new size... there have been lots of things disrupting my routine, but I'm determined to put my house in order this weekend. The one thing I've clung to like a life raft has been my reducing and fitness plan. No matter what else is happening around me, I've got to keep riding this momentum for as long as it lasts. The next plateau could be around any corner.

So I may have a date - of sorts - this afternoon! Nope, not Curly. Just the fellow my friend set me up with. The emailer. I adopted the vintage attitude of waiting for him to make the first move and it took, well, I think it's been a few weeks now. Maybe a month. He finally wrote and asked me, "Would you care to get together sometime this week?" We've had to plan the date via email, but it looks like we might be meeting this afternoon for a cup of coffee at a restaurant which serves desserts only. And we'll see what happens. I'm not expecting any chemistry --- but you can't plan that kind of thing, right? He seems like a nice man. I wanted to see it through to an actual date because of our mutual friend. And I could use some practice with this whole dating thing! Perhaps we'd better check in with Lily Haxworth Wallace in The New American Etiquette (1941) to see if she has any advice that might help me out:

As explained in the section on "dating" it is quite proper for a young lady to ask a man to call on her and her mother or it is quite correct for him to ask if he may.

The inclusion of the mother in the invitation or request is one of the ways we have to show that we do not entirely forget the proprieties of the past, because, most assuredly, the mother will probably only stop for a few words after the young man has been presented to her. She will then vanish into another part of the house and only appear again just before she goes to bed or when the young man is leaving. When bidding the mother good night, the young man should ask her permission to call again. This need only be done at the first call.

The young girl who has an apartment alone or with another girl is faced with an entirely different problem. The girl en famille is never criticized by Mrs. Grundy when she entertains a young man even though she may be as much alone with him as the girl who entertains him in her apartment. There is no difference at all in what happens, but the girl alone, who entertains her men friends, is often the target of all sorts of gossip. Even the men who call, of course eliminating those who know her very well, seem to feel a difference between her and the girl in her own home.

The girl alone had better insist that her men friends leave early, not after midnight. It is better if she makes her dinner parties affairs for four. She should not invite her escort in if they arrive home after twelve. Her parties should never be loud affairs and it would be best if liquor is kept at a minimum. If she so acts, the single girl who lives alone will give Mrs. Grundy little to talk about.

The wealthy girl, who for some reason lives alone in her apartment, would be wise to have a companion - something like a chaperon - and then she can entertain to her heart's desire. Of course, if she has a retinue of servants, they, also, tend to keep gossip at a low ebb.

So far, so good. I'm not planning on entertaining this young man in my apartment. Thank goodness for restaurants and other public places! My fellow diners should help to keep Mrs. Grundy at bay.

A Few New Finds

Does shopping for the perfect skirt in a size 12 count as marketing?

I sure hope so. Then I can happily check Wednesday's mission off my list for the week! Actually, I did make a super quick stop at the natural foods store on my way home, but the better part of my evening was definitely spent shopping for new clothes. For the second time this week no less. My boss has come back to work and I've been spending all my newfound energy trying to replenish my wardrobe. There's nothing worse when you've lost a lot of weight than feeling scrummy in clothes that just hang on you, so it was off to the stores this week. Yesterday, I found a darling little plum-colored sheath which is flattering as can be --- and machine washable! Tonight's find was a little brown skirt with pleats along the hem at the sides and a fabric buckle-y doodad just above each set of pleats. Way too hard to describe, but I love the way it looks on me. I was awfully tempted by a gray skirt, but it was a bit loose around the waist and I know there's only one direction I'm headed when it comes to my waistline! Better to buy things that fit perfectly now - as they'll (hopefully) be too big for me before long.

The more time I spend cruising the racks, the better I get at shopping for clothes. What seemed awkward to this reforming frump a few months ago now feels like a skill I'm learning. Trying things on is a must. No matter how scared I am by the lighting in those dressing rooms! (Is it ever not absolutely frightful?) If it doesn't fit me perfectly, back to the rack it goes. And as I experiment, I'm getting to know what kinds of coverage I need in order to feel feminine without feeling immodest. What different colors do for my complexion. And how you can't always predict while a garment's on the hanger how it's going to look once you slip it on. I've been pleasantly surprised from time to time. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I enjoy clothes shopping - I'm too thrifty to ever really experience "retail therapy" - but it doesn't wear me down like it used to.

I guess these would have been the kind of skills a woman of the 1940s would have been practicing since she was a girl and accompanied her mother to the department store. True, there were plenty of women still making their own clothes at home, but there were probably just as many who never learned to do any dressmaking and purchased all their clothing ready-made.

The Manual describes clothing - like food - as a "flexible expense." Though about 15% of the average household budget of the era was spent on clothing, a skillful housewife could spend a little less when times were tough and some of that 15% was needed on other expenses. Here's one area where endless Mondays in the laundry room and the ability to think ahead could truly pay off:

...every wife knows the importance of her husband's appearance being suitable to his vocational position; and every mother knows that children involve sacrifice of parental outlays in dress or other items.

However, many factors affect the amount that must be spent for clothing - climate, activities, interests and social or business obligations, all are involved. A list of the year's needs should be made for each member of the family, and the items on hand checked off. It is often necessary to look ahead two or three years in order to plan wisely for a major purchase such as a winter coat. An estimate of the cost of items to be purchased can then be made. Actual expenditures depend upon your ability to compare quality and price, to watch for sales at reliable stores, to read labels and to follow directions for care. If you know the best methods for laundering, mending and pressing, you can prolong the useful life of clothes.

Now if I could just find the perfect new pair of brown shoes to match my new skirt...

36 + 2 = 38

Ooh, so close! I weighed in at 156 lbs. this morning. Just 1 lb. shy of my midway milestone. Soooooooooo close!!! I have to hold off on the confetti and streamers for a little bit longer. How's that for some incentive for the next week. I want to see that 155 so badly I can hardly stand it!

So I guess I was a little over-optimistic about my boss' vacation when it started. :) What a week. I went from feeling completely capable to feeling absolutely overwhelmed and struggling to get as much done at home as I had the energy to do. It's almost over, thank goodness. She'll be back on Tuesday. I'm grateful to have a couple days at home now to recuperate and get caught up on some housework. It's my kitchen's turn this week for an extra special, super-duper monthly cleaning, but I thought I'd sit down and catch up with my blog before getting started on that big job.

My vintage breakfast menu this morning called for Sweet Rolls, but there was no way on God's green earth I had the patience or energy to attempt any yeast breads this weekend! So I flipped through the pages of my cookbook to try and find a quick bread that'd be hearty and filling. You know what's wild? Being able to do that - knowing that I've got the ingredients for most things already there in my own pantry. That still gives me a rush. Here's the recipe for the Raisin Bran Muffins that caught my eye. This is a sugar-free wartime recipe --- the only sweeteners being molasses and the natural sugars in raisins. They were tasty, but nowhere near as yummy as the Rolled Oat Muffins I made a month or so ago.

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RAISIN BRAN MUFFINS

3/4 cup sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup bran
1/2 cup seeded raisins
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon melted shortening

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together; add bran and raisins. Beat egg and mix with remaining ingredients. Add dry ingredients, mixing only enough to dampen all the flour. Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full and bake in hot oven (400 degrees F.) 30 minutes. Makes 12.

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Have muffin pans gotten larger since 1945? Not the Texas muffin kind, the everyday muffin pans... This recipe only yielded 10 muffins for me and a few of them were very small.

You'll be proud of me - I finally managed to choke out a conversation with Curly this last week! He came by my office a couple times on Wednesday, the second time to toast one of the bagels in the kitchen that somebody had brought in for a birthday. So his bagel's in the toaster, he's looking at a map on the wall beside my desk, and I'm finishing up a phone call and thinking to myself, "Jitterbug, it's now or never. You've got to move this beyond, 'Hi. How are you?' This is it!" I moved right into his space and asked him something I knew would make him laugh. And he laughed out loud. What a smile! I just wanted to see it again and again. He told me a funny story, then his bagel was finished and I needed to get back to work anyway. Goodness, anybody walking by would have instantly seen how attracted I am to him - he couldn't not have seen it himself --- I must have been smiling and blushing and batting my eyelashes like no tomorrow. I felt a little embarrassed afterward, but decided that if he didn't come by again for awhile that was a sure sign that he was uncomfortable with my attention. Well, he came by again the next day. That's all I needed to know. Open season!

Just so you know how hard it is for me to talk coherently when Curly's anywhere in the vicinity, here's a hint of what's running through my mind. Check out these beautiful pictures taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt at Penn Station in 1944. They're almost a little too personal to look at...

Gremlins

How many days 'til my boss gets back from vacation?

Four, I guess. Which means - unhappily - that I'm only halfway done. I'll be so happy to get back to my own job next Tuesday!

Gremlins of every size and shape have been sitting on my shoulders for the last couple days. Procrastination, Sloth, Self-pity... it turns out they've been with me all this time. I just haven't hear their voices very clearly for the last several months. Tempting me to cut corners, put chores off, just skip things altogether. And so I find myself here on a Tuesday evening trying to finish cleaning the bathroom (this should have been done over the weekend), fold and put away my clean laundry (last night's chore) - and, well, forget about the ironing! I'll have to save that for tomorrow evening. I haven't packed a vintage lunch once yet this week. So I'm struggling, but I'm trying to keep my eyes on the prize and get as much accomplished each day as I possibly can. Whatever I do, I cannot let the stress translate itself into snacking or skipping my exercises. Nothing tastes as good as the success I feel when I step on that scale the morning after a snack-free evening.

It's time to re-kit my wardrobe again. My size 16 pants are falling off me and the size 14s are getting baggy, too. I did some shopping last night and I seem to be fitting into a size 12 in most brands. That seems almost surreal to write. A size 12! That's a number I haven't seen in ages... Unfortunately, most of the stores here in town are stocking all kinds of new fall/winter clothes even though it's going to be far too hot here to wear anything but summer clothes until about December. So I hit an online store today and picked up two new pairs of cropped pants that should help tide me over. (I have these same pants in a size 16 right now, so I know the cut will work for me!) By the time I'm in a size 10, it'll be cool enough to pick up some of this warmer clothing. Thank goodness those online merchants are a little less slow to run out of seasonal inventory! I'd have been out of luck sixty years ago. That is if cropped pants were even suitable for a woman my age.

Thanks for listening to me blather on for a bit about my crazy week. Here's to much more vintage fun very soon!

The Housewife's Tool Box: Radio

Whether you owned an electric set or a battery-operated set, the radio was a constant and boon companion to the 1940s housewife. I used to think of the housewife as quite a lonely creature. From the time she saw her husband and children off to work and school until they began straggling home mid-afternoon, the work at home must have seemed a bit isolating at times. Especially for women whose children were all in school. But I'm not inclined to think that way any longer. Between marketing, callers, the round of chores they shared in common with neighbors, and - most importantly - the radio, I'd guess that most women didn't feel isolated or lonely at all. The outside world was regularly dropping by, so to speak.

There's an extraordinary recording which survives from Thursday, September 21, 1939 (70 years ago next week) when WJSV, a CBS affiliate in Washington, DC, recorded its entire broadcast day for the National Archives. The reason they picked that particular day is that President Roosevelt was expected to address the House and Senate in joint session regarding the war in Europe, but what's most fascinating to me is all the other stuff. All the mundane, ordinary programs that could be heard by anybody who tuned in a radio between 6:30 in the morning until 1:00 that night. This recording gives you such an amazing window into the kinds of things a typical housewife might hear piping out from the radio as she went about her daily work. It's probably as close as we'll ever get to a time machine... Check out how The Manual's skeleton housekeeping schedule for a Thursday compares to the radio programs as heard on this Thursday in September 1939:

Early Morning: Preparing and serving breakfast
6:30 - 8:30 am: Sundial (a morning radio program/part music-part DJ banter-part local ads)
8:30 - 8:45 am: Certified Magic Carpet (quiz show)
Forenoon: General pickup. Light cleaning of all rooms
8:45 - 10:00 am: Soap operas, in 15-minute episodes (Bachelor's Children, Pretty Kitty Kelly, The Story of Myrt and Marge, Hilltop House, Stepmother)
Thorough cleaning of bedrooms
10:00 - 10:15 am: Mary Lee Taylor (cooking program)
10:15 - 11:00 am: More soap operas (Brenda Curtis, Big Sister, Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories)
11:00 - 11:15 am: Jean Abbey (local department store infomercial disguised as news)
Noon: Preparing foods for lunch and dinner. Lunch, dishes, cleaning up kitchen.
11:15 am - 1:00 pm: More soap operas (When a Girl Marries, The Romance of Helen Trent, Our Gal Sunday, The Goldbergs, Life Can be Beautiful, Road of Life, This Day is Ours)
Early Afternoon: Thorough cleaning of bathroom
1:00 - 1:15 pm: News
1:15 - 1:45 pm: Still more soap operas (The Life and Love of Dr. Susan, Your Family and Mine)
1:45 - 3:15 pm: President Roosevelt's Address, along with pre- and post-address commentary
Late Afternoon: Rest, relaxation, correspondence, reading, personal care, etc.
3:15 - 3:30 pm: Another soap opera (The Career of Alice Blair)
3:30 - 3:45 pm: News
3:45 - 4:00 pm: Scattergood Baines (a Western)
Final dinner preparation
4:00 - 5:15 pm: Cleveland Indians vs. Washington Senators (baseball game)
5:15 - 5:30 pm: The World Dances (music)
5:30 - 6:00 pm: News
6:00 - 7:00 pm: Comedy programs (Amos and Andy, The Parker Family, Joe E. Brown)
Early Evening: Washing dishes
7:00 - 7:30 pm: Ask-it Basket (quiz show)
7:30 - 8:00 pm: Strange as it Seems (true stories/tabloid-type program)
8:00 - 9:00 pm: Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour (variety/reality)
9:00 - 9:30 pm: The Columbia Workshop (drama)
9:30 - 10:00 pm: Americans at Work (true stories/documentary-type program)
10:00 - 10:15 pm: News
10:15 - 10:30 pm: Music
10:30 - 11:30 pm: News
11:30 pm - 1:00 am: Live big band music from city ballrooms and hotels (Teddy Powell Band, Louis Prima Orchestra, Bob Chester Orchestra)

Even today, in 2009, when I could just as easily have something playing on the television or the computer while I do my housework, it's always the radio I reach for. Sometimes it's vintage radio programs like The Great Gildersleeve or Suspense - which is great for cleaning the bathroom! There's nothing like a suspenseful drama to get you through the grimiest chores. I read one reminiscence from a Michigan housewife who remembered that she loved listening to Dragnet while she cleaned house in the late '40s. I can totally identify.

Sometimes it's modern radio, like a local country station. A great beat or a melody you love singing along to (especially when there's nobody around to hear) can make all the difference when you're doing something repetitive - like ironing or sweeping. In fact, if you could peek into my kitchen on Tuesday nights, you'd probably find me dancing at the ironing board! And I bet there was many a housewife in the 1940s who jitterbugged her way through her chores and sang along with Bing Crosby as she sectioned the family's grapefruit for breakfast.

Incidentally, what I think I love about radio most is just its randomness. I can choose the genre, but I don't have complete control over what music I'm going to hear. Modern entertainment has become so controlled. Between our TIVOs and iPods, we can easily choose precisely which programs and songs we want to see and hear every day of the week. We don't even have to listen to commercials. But isn't there something kind of exciting watching TV or listening to radio in real time and discovering new programs or songs you might never have planned on catching? These days, it feels a bit like I'm walking on the edge.

33 + 3 = 36

I'm 36 years old and I've lost 36 lbs. as of today. There must be something lucky in that! I weighed in at 158 when I stepped on the scale this morning. Just 3 more lbs. to go to reach that midway point...

I've been experimenting with my Oatmeal and have just about decided that my favorite way to flavor it is with cinnamon and honey. I add a dash or two of cinnamon to the pot as the Oatmeal is cooking - which makes my kitchen smell divine - then drizzle on some honey. Toss a few Stewed Prunes on top --- and perfection. I like my Oatmeal a little chewy, too, so I always take the pot off the burner just before the cereal is completely finished cooking. How do you like your Oatmeal?

As we speak, my Drip-O-lator is bubbling away with a pot of coffee. That's one of my favorite rituals of the week. Saturday morning, a pot of coffee, and a chance to catch up with my dear readers. There'll be plenty of time later this morning to set my kitchen back to rights. And my one-year-old niece, Poppet, is going to be my date this evening. Her parents are taking Kitten to a show - they're trying to spend some one-on-one time with each of their daughters - so I get to have Poppet all to myself for a change! I don't think I could have asked for a more wonderful way to end the week.

It's funny how excited I get when I've got plans with my nieces. It's just like getting ready for a date. What will I wear? Do I have something sparkly or something with buttons she can play with? Poppet loves it when I wear a necklace. She'll turn it over again and again in her chubby, little fingers, then tug at it to see if it comes off. What should we do this evening? Should I pick up a new toy or book before I go over? One thing I know is that I'm definitely getting a goodnight kiss on this date - though it might come along with some cracker crumbs. Poppet's learning how to kiss right now and she loves giving lots of open-mouthed kisses on the lips!

Vintage etiquette guides are chock full of advice when it comes to dating, a term so newfangled in 1941 that Lily Haxworth Wallace still uses it with quotation marks in her New American Etiquette. Let's take a peek. How much of this advice would you say stands the test of time?

Many a girl or young woman is liable to rate the popularity of her girl friends according to the number of "dates" they have. Don't make that mistake. It is the quality of your "dates" rather than the quantity that counts. You probably had a better time with Tom tonight, even though he was the only one who asked you out, than Mary, who turned down three other invitations after she had made a "date" with Harry.

When you meet a young man on a party and enjoy his company, either you or he may properly take the step that will bring about another meeting.

When you are parting, he may say, "May I call on your mother and you some evening?" or you might say, "Mother and I will be home Thursday evening. I should like to have you meet her."

However, do not make the "date" unless you are quite sure that you really want to know the young man. Do not invite him or accept any invitation from him merely for the sake of a "date." Only make "dates" with friends or those you believe will be worthy of your friendship. Anyone you would prefer to class as only an acquaintance should not be your partner on a "date." If you are doubtful at all, make some excuse and withhold your favor until the doubt is removed.

A young man on a very limited budget has a right, if he goes about it properly, to seek "dates" with any nice girl, even though she comes from the richest family in town. He should not give her any false notions about his position but should tell her frankly that he would like to take her to the cinema and ice-cream parlor because that is all he can afford at the time. If the girl likes him, she will have more fun out of that date than she would with a man she doesn't like although his pockets may be well filled.

When you have made a date do not be tardy. That is very rude.

Never attempt to bring a girl friend along and, to the man I say, it is equally rude for you to bring a chum. Three was a crowd in the past, it is a crowd today, and will always be one too many in the future.

When you start out on a casual, unplanned "date," do not force your escort and others in the party to do what you want. Let other people make the suggestions most of the time. However, it is always welcomed if you can provide an answer to the question, "Where shall we go?" when everyone else is stumped.

Rats. Are you telling me I can't date unless I move back in with my mother? I sure hope Ms. Wallace has some advice coming up for the bachelor girl who lives alone.

Week Forty-three: The Mission

Time to step things up again... When the latest additions to my routine begin to seem super manageable, I know it's time to take on a new mission!

Fitness
You know I'm the first to give it up to vintage advice, but these limbering and stretching exercises are transforming my figure. I'm amazed at the changes I've seen in my waistline and my arms since adding these exercises to my almost-daily walks. Don't get me wrong. The walking has made a tremendous difference, especially in my legs, but - after about three months of these vintage exercises - I'm feeling leaner and lither and more flexible than I have in years. These may be some very basic movements, but when done slowly and regularly they seem to be making a real difference.

Here are a few more I'm going to add to my evening exercise routine beginning tomorrow night. These hip-busters were written up during the early 1940s by Betty Clarke, a syndicated woman's page columnist:

20. Stand with feet apart, arms out at side, bend body, touching left arm to right foot, then right arm to left foot. (20 reps)

21. Put feet flat on floor, raising arms overhead. Bend forward, touching floor with palms of hands. Raise arms over head, bend body back from waist. Relax. (20 reps)

22. You’ll need a three-foot rope, but your lounging robe belt will do if you can make a secure loop at each end of it. Lie on your back and put a foot in each loop. Lift your right foot as far from the floor as the rope permits. Alternate lifting right and left. (5 reps)

Reducing
My weekday lunches are still a challenge. Particularly because I get tired of eating the same thing more than once or twice in a row. The hot dishes called for on these menus, even the coleslaw on my most recent menu, are hard to prepare in just one or two servings --- and there's only so much room in my freezer for storing additional servings! I'm going to continue plugging away at this mission, though. It's made me truly appreciate the convenience in convenience foods, but my figure and my health are going to benefit immeasurably in the long run from moving towards whole foods at lunchtime.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. After taking my evening bath (a morning shower on the weekends), drying briskly with a towel, applying deodorant, and brushing and flossing my teeth:

Down with a nice, long glass of water - and so to bed.

I can do that. I've usually reached my water quota by the time I head in for my bath, but it can't hurt to save that one last glass for a little bit longer. Plus it keeps me from trying to down too much water too quickly in the evening. The more I spread this water out throughout the day, the easier it is on my bladder!

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

One of the rules widely touted out there by dieters these days is that you're not supposed to weigh yourself very often. Once a week, tops. This is one rule I've been breaking regularly. In fact, these days, I weigh myself each and every morning. Is it a roller coaster? Yes. Up an ounce, one day. Down seven ounces, the next. Up three ounces, the day after that. Down 1 lb. the next day. My weight fluctuates on a daily basis --- it could make me dizzy if I let it. But it also allows me to see instantaneous feedback.

There are times of the month (*ahem*) when I have to read the scale without letting myself react to it. Water retention throws everything off. For the most part, though, what I see on the scale in the morning directly correlates to my behavior the day before. (Oddly enough, I've learned that I tend to see more ounces fall off during the week - when I'm only getting 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per day - than on the weekends - when I'm getting 65 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. This isn't what I would've expected, but it's an interesting pattern.) If I indulge in a less than ideal evening snack, it's right there in those numbers the next morning. Knowing that I have to face the music in just a matter of hours can sometimes be all the incentive I need not to do that snacking. And if I'm disappointed by the morning's numbers, it gives me that much more of a push to do the very best job I can do at reducing during the day ahead.

Are there any diet "rules" you've broken with successful results?

Did I ever tell y'all about the Jelly Omelet I tried making a few months ago? I was eating an Omelet the other day for breakfast and remembered the disaster. Well, I don't know if it was exactly a disaster, just not a very appetizing dish. Jelly Omelets were all over the place during the '40s. If a restaurant or diner served breakfast, you'd be hard pressed not to find a Jelly Omelet on the menu. I guess they've been replaced today with dishes like Denver Omelets and Stuffed French Toast. They were one of the culinary fads of the time. At any rate, I was dying to find out what they tasted like. So when I came across a recipe in my 1945 cookbook... I had to try! It's actually just a variation on the basic recipe for a Plain Omelet:

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JELLY OMELET - Spread any jelly or jam over the omelet just before folding.

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Maybe my omelet wasn't quite set enough when I added the jelly. The grape jelly I used just soaked itself into the eggs and I ended up with, well, a purple omelet. Let me clarify: a sweet, purple omelet. I lost all of that lovely egg-y, peppery flavor that I'm looking for in an omelet. Ah well, I had to give it a shot.

It's been a busy week. My supervisor is on vacation through September 21, so I'm going to be one tired little Jitterbug while I'm covering for her. I remember feeling panicked last winter when she was on vacation. Worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with my new household chores --- and it was quite a short list at the time! Seeing her off on vacation again has been a kind of yardstick for me. I know it's going to be a tiring couple of weeks - and I might not have the energy to blog as frequently - but it's not going to impact my housekeeping or my vintage beauty regimen. These routines have become just that: routine. I may have to shuffle some chores around sometimes, but the work gets done. It's kind of neat to be able to look back and see how things have changed. Once things get back to normal at work, I've got some exciting new fall projects in the works. I'm looking forward to tightening up that kitchen routine a bit more, adding a weekly cleaning of the living room to my list of chores, and doing some long overdue decorating. (My apartment is sorely in need!) And plenty of weight left to lose. That's for sure.

Gossip Girl

Lily Haxworth Wallace continues her chapter on dating in The New American Etiquette (1941) with a stern word of caution about the power of gossip, especially in smaller communities. And even in a large city, there might be plenty of gossip about the apartment building or the office. It reminds me just how precious a woman's reputation still was to her in the 1940s. Most of us live in communities today where there's such anonymity that we can lead our lives with whatever code of conduct feels right to us - and where it's no longer considered politically correct to "judge" anybody else - but there was no such anonymity sixty years ago. If a young woman damaged her reputation, she might destroy her chances to marry well and have a home to keep. She might even damage her children's chances to do the same. Wagging tongues and long memories:

To maintain your standing and reputation in the community it is not alone necessary to be absolutely proper in your behavior. In addition, you must give the appearance of absolute propriety if the tongues are not to wag.

You know that there is no harm done when you invite Tom into your apartment at 2:30 o'clock in the morning after a wonderful evening but a gossip across the corridor can find a lot to talk about in that. After the story has traveled the rounds, it is quite likely to be keeping Tom alone with you until daylight.

Wouldn't it have been better to have explained to Tom that your neighbors cannot seem to leave your life alone and that, therefore, it is best that you omit that late cup of coffee?

Not long ago I was in a restaurant in a small town. A young married couple entered and, just inside, were joined by a single man who was a friend of their family. On the way to find a table, the husband stopped for a minute to chat with a business associate. The wife and other man found a booth and took seats. Across the way were two women, both acquaintances of the wife. They had not seen her husband enter with her. Immediately their heads went together and I eavesdropped on the following conversation:

"Look at that, my dear, who would have thought that Helen could be so brazen?"

"Oh, you can't always tell about these young girls. I am certainly glad I found out about this."

At that moment the husband came on the scene and sat beside his wife. I never saw more disappointed expressions than appeared on the faces of the two Mrs. Grundys.

Of course, such a thing would never be considered a topic for gossip in a large city but it serves to show what type of stories the small minds of some persons, and they are not always women, can create from perfectly innocent facts. You cannot avoid, entirely, gossip about you founded on pure untruths and circulated by malicious persons. But, in relations with men you will be wise to be as circumspect as possible in order to do nothing that will lend credence to any such slander.

I don't have much to worry about myself in the way of wagging tongues around my apartment complex. Not only do most of my neighbors not even greet each other in passing, but the man my coworker set me up with has yet to hint about getting together for a cup of coffee or anything else. Which I can't say I'm exactly disappointed about. We've exchanged four or five emails during the past week, and he is becoming more of a dud with every email. Oh my goodness, he actually started telling me about the board games he likes to play! I'd have been more than willing to meet the guy - plenty of people sound much different in person than they do by email --- but my interest in even this has an expiration date. I don't need another pen pal.

Now if it were Curly we were talking about, it would be lovely indeed to find myself in the predicament of the young lady being escorted home in the wee hours. Unfortunately, I've lost all power of speech around him. He's been growing out his hair this summer and, the longer those curls get, the faster my heart races whenever I see him. All I can do is blush like a madwoman and stammer out a word or two - which is completely embarrassing and makes it impossible even to try and flirt. We seem to be stalled at "Hi! How are you?" "Good, and you?" Yet my office-mate is convinced that in all the years he's worked there he's never come by the office to use our kitchen this frequently. And if eye contact could make up for words, we'd be having some pretty fascinating conversations. He definitely lingers a bit when it comes to looking at me.

Who knows? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm shrinking. I probably look a little different every time he sees me. My face is changing pretty dramatically as I lose this weight. The bone structure is starting to emerge and my neck and chin are slimming down enough that I like wearing my hair up again. Oh, and it turns out I have a collarbone - it was in there all this time!

Now if I could only get some poise back...

29 + 4 = 33

The halfway mark (155 lbs.) is finally in sight! Just close enough that - barring disaster - I can glimpse it at a few weeks' distance. I weighed in at 161 this morning, with a loss of 4 lbs. this past week. I was pretty nervous during those first few days when I'd worked my abs too hard and couldn't do most of my limbering and stretching exercises, but I was super stringent about my eating to try and compensate - and it paid off handsomely. (My abdomen is feeling back to normal again, thank goodness.) Here's to cracking into the 150s when I step on that scale next Saturday morning!

One of the areas in my kitchen that isn't really addressed in The Manual's daily or weekly housekeeping routines is the breakfast table.

Here at Casa Jitterbug, mine is also a lunch and dinner table. I don't have a separate dining room, so my only table sits at one end of my kitchen. It's a round wooden table that seats four --- though the leaves that make it round can be dropped when not in use, making it more of a rectangle. Most of the time I leave a vintage tablecloth on top. It adds such a punch of color to my kitchen! I'd like to purchase a few more of these cloths so that I can rotate them seasonally and give the kitchen a different look from time to time. Since there's usually only one person seated at my table, I have it positioned against one wall with a 1950 Zenith radio opposite my chair. A small blue footed stand holds whatever fruit I've got in the house which doesn't need refrigeration. These days, I leave my vitamins and blood pressure medication sitting right there at the middle of the table. It isn't ideal. I'd love to keep them in the cupboard or something, but it keeps me from forgetting to take 'em if they're right there in front of me when I sit down to eat my breakfast.

It's a lovely spot. A cozy, cheery place for a meal I've worked hard to prepare. But my current kitchen cleaning routines don't include any kind of maintenance for this part of the kitchen. I've been sweeping the floor underneath the table on a weekly basis and washing it on a monthly basis, but what about the table and chairs? What about the tablecloth? How about the items I leave on my table? Every breakfast nook needs a little attention... I took a look at The Manual's routines for care of the dining room, but they were so focused on care of upholstery, furnishings, carpets, and "buffet appointments" that they didn't seem to apply very well to this particular situation.

So let's break it down. My kitchen table, first and foremost, is not just a dining table. It's a work surface. Tuesday evenings find me folding the cloth back so that I can set up my tabletop ironing board and work my way through a basket of clothes. (That table's the perfect height for ironing!) On Fridays or Saturdays, I fold the cloth back while I'm cleaning the kitchen so that I can store small items there while I'm cleaning the range and counter tops. If I have any baking to do that involves kneading or rolling or cutting, my tablecloth is whisked away to a safe place while I use the table as my breadboard.

Well, I guess this answers one of my questions. One of my weekly duties in the kitchen has long been to "Wipe... all work surfaces in need of cleaning." If my kitchen table is just as important a work surface as my counters and range top, it too needs a weekly washing. Here are some instructions on the care of wooden furniture which might be of help:

Make a light lather, using mild soap and lukewarm water. Wring a soft cloth out of this lather and go over a small area. Rinse with a cloth wrung out of clear water. Dry with a soft cloth.

The Manual goes on with instructions on polishing wooden furniture, but I'm not going to use any polish which might damage the tablecloth. The table has a good sturdy finish, so a weekly washing should suffice. I think that'll do for now. I'm headed into the kitchen in a few minutes to begin my work in there for the week. Next week, I'll add another step in the care of my breakfast nook to my housekeeping routine.

Lunch Hour

I've been doing a pretty good job with these vintage lunch menus lately... I can only say "pretty good," because even this week I broke down and took one of my pre-mission frozen lunches to work on Wednesday. (I'd eaten the same lunch for the last two days in a row and couldn't face it one more time!) I've finally reached the bottom of that carton of soup, so I'm planning a new menu for tomorrow. First, though, let's take a closer look at the last one. How much of an improvement was this vintage menu over a typical pre-mission lunch? Here's the 1945 menu, with a few adaptations in the interest of my waistline:

Organic Creamy Tomato Soup
Open-faced Cheese Sandwich on Whole-grain Bread with Mustard and Lettuce
Celery
Olives
Fresh Pear

Now let's compare it to one of my normal pre-mission lunches - a frozen Enchilada Pie by Cedarlane.

Typical pre-mission lunch
Calories: 430
Fat: 14g
Sodium: 1,190mg
Carbohydrates: 52g
Protein: 26g

Vintage lunch, adapted
Calories: 350
Fat: 16g
Sodium: 1,530mg
Carbohydrates: 37g
Protein: 16g

Kind of a mixed bag this time. I certainly take a sodium hit whenever soup is on the menu. All in all, though, I'd say these vintage menus are doing well by me. Here's the original menu for tomorrow, straight from The American Woman's Cook Book (1945):

Oven Baked Beans
Catchup
Boston Brown Bread Sandwiches with Cream Cheese Filling
Cole Slaw
Applesauce
Milk

...with a few edits:

Vegetarian Baked Beans
Catchup
Open-faced Raisin Brown Bread Sandwich with Light Cream Cheese
Pennsylvania Cabbage Salad
Applesauce

Lunchtime at work is still a bit rushed. I zoom out the door at noon - as soon as I've slathered on some sunblock and thrown a cap on. I've been wearing heels most of the time these days, so I bought a cute little pair of slide-on canvas shoes with a good sole that make that noon walk so much more comfortable! My iPod in my pocket and away I go... You know, I remember vividly when this routine was new and it seemed like a massive rush to walk for 30 minutes and try to cram down a meal. These days, it doesn't really seem so bad. I'm usually back in the office by 12:35. My lunch takes less time to prepare - maybe two minutes in the microwave for my soup (versus five minutes for one of the frozen meals). That gives me a good 15 minutes to eat, a quick trip to the ladies' room to powder my nose and reapply lipstick, then I'm back to work. Admittedly, I don't always have time for fruit after eating my lunch, so I'm sure to fit it in as a mid-afternoon snack when that happens.

Once a week, I treat myself to a chance to wear a dress with those heels. I have one weekday off from my mid-day walk. One chance to dress up and wear the kind of clothes that I can't really do any power walking in. What surprises me is that I find myself a little antsy on my days off. That uninterrupted hour seems to go on forever! What a turn-around.

Dance Fever

Oh, I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate;
She shimmies like a jelly on a plate.
My mama wanted to know last night,
What makes the boys think Kate's so nice.
(Fats Waller, 1931)

As I try to incorporate a nightly brushing and flossing into my post-bath grooming routine, I've been reading up on vintage dental advice. Only to find that the pre-fluoride world was a frightening place... Did you know that in 1940 the average 25-year-old had already lost four teeth? The average 30-year-old was missing seven teeth, and by 40 - ten. At 36, then, I'd probably have several gaps in my smile. If I was lucky, maybe some artificial teeth to fill the most noticeable gaps. That's one of the uglier realities about life in the '40s.

Commercially-prepared dentifrices had been around for awhile. Tooth powders, toothpastes, liquid tooth preparations. Many folks probably still used good ol' baking soda. Lots of options. Beauty experts everywhere seemed to agree, though, that the right technique for brushing mattered more than the type of dentifrice found in your medicine cabinet. In a December 3, 1940 column, the Milwaukee Sentinel's Ida Jean Kain urged adults to quit the "rotary method" they'd learned as children.

Place the brush on the gums at an angle of about 45 degrees and brush with a “shimmy motion,” down from the upper teeth, and up from the lowers. Repeat the strokes two or three times until you feel that you have had a thorough brushing on the outside, then transfer your activities to the inside of your teeth and repeat...

It will really pay you to take the time to learn and practice the correct brushing technique, for we are given to understand that the old rotary brushing not only fails to clean the crevices between the teeth, but that it may actually cause the gums to recede from the teeth.

The Evening Independent's Howard Blakeslee tried in 1941 to appeal to his readers' interest in dance by describing the proper brushing technique as a rhumba:

The toothbrush rhumba is a side-to-side sway of the bristles while the point of the bristle stands still.

The sway is produced by holding the brush handle firmly in the fist, not in the fingers, to give downward pressure against the teeth. The fist moves from side to side, as in the motion which scrapes enamel, but not so far.

While the bristles are doing the rhumba, the brush is moved quite slowly up and down the surface of the teeth. The up movement stops at the first slight contact with the gums, for that is the place where the enamel erosion is dangerous.

Twice up and twice down is enough with this rhumba, say dental authorities.

Dental floss, a stiff-bristled toothbrush ("the stiffest you can find"), mouthwash --- these were just a few of the oft-mentioned accessories that would serve a woman well if she aspired to "personal daintiness." Brushing after every meal was ideal, but - if done properly - twice a day would suffice. Some experts also recommended massaging the gums with your fingers and cleaning the tongue:

It is surprising how many men and women who take meticulous care of their teeth will neglect their tongues… A coated tongue is a dirty tongue…

So brush your teeth, say your prayers, brush your hair, stick your tongue out at yourself in the mirror and scour it as far back as you can. You can use a piece of cotton or a brush which you keep especially for this purpose.

Which move do you and your toothbrush do when you hit the dance floor each night: the shimmy or the rhumba?