"Lady, Better Lose Those Hips!"

I wish I could tell you that my workouts leave me energized and full of pep, but they don't. At two weeks, I was feeling a new spring in my step. At four weeks, I'm just feeling all broken down. My lower back aches. My left knee feels a little sore. And I had forgotten just how painful 100-degree weather can be. Going outdoors at noon these days feels like climbing inside an oven. (Those lunchtime walks are going to have to shift indoors next week!) I'm hanging in there because I'm seeing results, but the last week has not been easy. I keep wishing I'll get to this magical point when I look forward to my walks. When I can't wait to get out there and move! Nope, still torture.

There are a few things I've begun doing to try and make these walks a little easier on my body. I have been remembering to wear a baseball cap - even at 7:00 in the morning on the weekends - so at least I don't have to worry any longer about getting my scalp or forehead sunburned. I purchased some SPF 55 sunblock this weekend to protect my neck and arms, particularly on those mid-day walks. My knees and back would probably appreciate my bringing some socks and sneakers to work for the week so those lunchtime workouts can be a little easier on my joints. And I've been putting it off, but I really should be doing some stretching after my walks.

Yesterday, I did some looking about online for tips on stretching. What a surprise to learn that you're not supposed to stretch before a walk! Apparently, you can really injure yourself by stretching cold muscles like that. You're supposed to warm the muscles by walking at an easy pace for awhile before speeding up to a brisk pace. The ideal walk should end by doing another stretch at an easy pace, then some simple stretches for the legs, lower back, and shoulders. I'm no personal trainer, so I'll just refer you to one of many interesting websites on this subject. I tried the first three stretches myself after my walk this morning:

http://www.helium.com/items/455379-best-stretches-before-walking-for-exercise

Alas, I haven't been able to find much in the way of vintage advice on post-walk stretching. Lots of advice on stretching for better posture - and lots and lots of "limbering" exercises - but nothing specific to flexing and relaxing the muscles used in a good, brisk walk. 1940s beauty experts acknowledged that walking was an effective way to trim the figure, but they didn't treat it quite as scientifically as they did most things. Betty Clark had a few recommendations in a women's page article titled "Lady, Better Lose Those Hips!" (St. Petersburg Times, September 24, 1943):

Walking, which is the best hip-slimmer known, is pretty difficult to do by the mile when time is at a premium, especially today - unless you are fortunate enough to walk to and from your daily work. This doesn’t mean strolling. Walking, to be effective, should be at a brisk, steady pace.

It is wise to exercise in the morning upon arising. Otherwise, you may find yourself too tired for exertion in the evening.

In a 1940 column, Miss Clark advised wearing sensible shoes when walking for sport --- and, by all means, put some "knee action" into your walk "for the sake of grace"! Helen Follett, another beauty expert of the era, wrote in 1940:

The thigh bulge comes to women who sit at their desks, typewriters or sewing tables all day. They don't get enough exercise to keep the muscles strong. Fibers grow slack, adipose tissue builds up. Squatting exercises are helpful, so is high kicking. Walking at a brisk pace is recommended.

Something that's been troubling me lately is that so many of my shirts are ending up with grease stains. Just one stain per shirt (always in the chest area), but it's enough to make them unsuitable for anything but wearing at home. I'm not sure why I don't notice it when it happens, but by the time I do - usually at the ironing board - it's too late. The shirt has been through the wash, and the stain is set. And it's not that I've been doing that much cooking with hot oil. I'm not sure why I'm ending up with all the grease stains. I guess it's just that I'm cooking more in general. Even scrambling eggs or making an omelet means I'm working over spattering grease. Several shirts later, it's finally occurred to me that there's a reason women used to wear those full aprons with the placket covering the chest. They weren't just for looks! And the half aprons that I usually wear don't do the job. From now on, it's full aprons for me... I've got two of them, and I'm looking for a place in my kitchen where I can keep them within arms' reach. No excuses. I can't afford to keep buying new shirts!!!

It's Sunday, which means it's time for another 1945 dinner. Here's my menu for tonight:

Parsley Potatoes

Baked Broccoli

Lettuce and Tomato Salad

Coconut Blanc Mange

Cherry Sauce

From everything I've heard about Blanc Mange, I'm a little creeped out. I think I'll make as small a batch of dessert tonight as possible!

Week's End

The deeper I dig into this way of life, the more often it occurs to me how dangerous it was to be a housewife during the '40s. Between hot oil in the frying pan, a searingly hot iron, and chemicals you have to be super careful using about the house and garden - it was a fearsome job. It still is! Not only can you damage property or waste food if you make a mistake, but you could end up with burnt arms or worse... I think many of us look on homemaking as a very simple, gentle, quiet job, but the housewife is actually working with some very dangerous substances and tools. Even in 2009. I'm a pretty clumsy person and tend to rush into things like new recipes, but clumsiness and haste aren't going to do me any favors on this job.

Since adding Wash Day and Ironing Day to my housekeeping routine, I've been spending a lot more time with my clothes than ever before - and am realizing just how intimately a woman in the 1940s knew her wardrobe. And not just where she bought it and how much she paid for it. My '40s counterpart would've known fabrics inside and out - known what temperature water to wash each fabric in, how exactly it should be dried, whether it should be ironed on the right side or the wrong side. If a garment was made from a blend of fibers, it had another protocol entirely. Add buttons and zippers and decorative trim to the mix, and laundry became an intricate balance of needs. And I'm not even counting the time a woman spent on the articles she made herself! There's a whole different relationship to fabrics that this kind of time and attentiveness brought about - particularly to clothing. You'd be so much more likely to guard against damaging your garments, to work earnestly at removing stains before they set. This is foreign territory for me still.

I find myself truly appreciative these days of the encyclopedia's worth of knowlege a '40s housewife carried about in her head. Rules for everything from which batters needed more stirring than others to which laundry required a cool wash. Everything I'm resorting to the manual to find out. Now, she'd probably been absorbing this stuff since she was a little girl, so it'd have come quite naturally. Maybe I'll start to pick up some of this knowledge, too --- at least some of the more general rules. 'Til then, thank goodness for America's Housekeeping Book!

Fashion Plate

In addition to an adjustable or built-in ironing board, the manual recommended that the 1940s housewife keep her board dressed to the nines in pads and covers that might the job a bit easier:

A well-dressed ironing board is not covered with old blankets and worn-out sheets. That's false economy. Ready-made pads and covers come packaged separately or together to fit ironing boards of all sizes, and the covers have either drawstring fastenings or elastic gathers. Keep an extra cover or two so you will always have a clean one while a soiled one is being laundered. Asbestos ironing board covers are available today, also. They give long service and protection from scorching and burning.

The cover on my own ironing board is so thin that the pattern of the metal board sometimes shows right up on the pieces I'm ironing. And a pad? There's a super thin layer of foam between the cloth and the board, but I don't think it could possibly qualify. (I've honestly never even considered removing the cover from an ironing board to wash it!) Judging from these words of caution from The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947), though, I'm not the first woman to try and make do without the state-of-the-art in terms of equipment. "Old blankets and worn-out sheets" may have been what the mothers and grandmothers of '40s housewives once used to pad the surfaces on which they did their ironing.

This morning's breakfast was super simple:

Stewed Dried Apricots
Corn-meal Mush

I wish I hadn't boasted about having become so good at dividing my recipes, because I promptly whipped together a batch of Corn-meal Mush this morning that yielded six servings. Six servings! Without even stopping to consult that last line in the recipe's instructions. Haste is my downfall when it comes to housekeeping. I end up having to throw away grease-stained clothing because I haven't taken the time to remove the stain before throwing it in the laundry and forget about the stain by the time Wash Day comes 'round. I make six times the breakfast needed because I don't take the time to read all the way through the recipe before getting started.

In the spirit of 1940s thrift, I came up with a possible solution. One of the breakfast menus in the back of the cookbook mentioned turning one day's leftover Corn-meal Mush into a dish to serve at lunch the next day - Sauteed Corn-meal Mush with Cheese Sauce. Apparently, you can ladle the leftovers into a shallow pan, cover and refrigerate, then cut it into pieces, and fry them up. (Sounds a little bit like polenta.) Instead of serving mine for lunch, I'm going to make it for breakfast and serve it with Sirup - which is also suggested in the recipe.

Competing Visions

Since I still had a Grapefruit Half left over from yesterday, today's breakfast was more of the same. Once again, I ended up with citrus juice on my tablecloth. I've decided that I'm either going to have to loosen each of the segments at the kitchen countertop before bringing my grapefruit to the table or take the tablecloth off the table when grapefruits or oranges are on the menu! Maybe I'll have pick up some non-vintage table linens for just these kinds of mornings...

I came across an article in a July 1944 issue of The American Home with one woman's routine in keeping house. "I Run My Career Like a Star" was written by Celia Mattox, a mother of three. Here's the bit on her morning schedule:

Whatever day it is, it begins at 6:30. To wash, I slip into a becoming dressing gown - watch the shade, for a strong color gives a pasty look to a face without any make-up. Then I change into my blue denim outfit to prepare breakfast. [She explains earlier that while at home during the day she likes to wear a "becoming cotton blouse" with a blue denim skirt and "gay apron."] That over, the dishes are stacked, the house is aired, and I snatch a few minutes to do my exercises.

There's one woman who opted for a "dressing gown" while she spent some time in the bathroom washing up, but she was fully dressed before hitting the kitchen. I notice that she mentions stacking the dishes (maybe she doesn't wash her breakfast dishes right away either) and airing her house (fresh air is given lots of emphasis in the 1945 housekeeping manual). It sounds like Mrs. Mattox wouldn't have much to argue about with the authors of the manual - at least when it comes to her early morning routine. Heck, maybe she even owned a copy herself!



The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947), edited by Helen W. Kendall, also contains a schedule for housework, though it's not quite as detailed as the one in the 1945 manual. Each member of the household is instructed to "hang up night clothes and put away slippers" before finishing up in their bedrooms in the morning. As soon as breakfast is over, "the dishes should be washed and the kitchen straightened up before you go about other household work."

• Remove dishes from the table, scrape, and rinse under the faucet if they need it. Stack them neatly at one side of the sink.
  
• Put away foods that belong in the refrigerator.
  
• Clear away waste food. Get rid of grounds from coffee or tea pot and empty cooking utensils which have been soaking during the meal.
  
• Clean sink so that it will be ready for dishwashing.
  
• Prepare dishwater and wash, dry, and put away dishes.

Kendall suggests that the living room be tidied up just before going to bed at night. "To start each day with the room neat, take a few minutes before going to bed to pick up newspapers and magazines, empty the ash trays, and take glasses into the kitchen." While the 1945 manual advises every member of the family to do their part in straightening up the living room at bedtime, they seem to have built this step into the post-breakfast routine just in case others hadn't done their part after Mother retired for the evening. Those crazy teenagers and their record players! As a one-woman household, I have more control over this situation, so tidying up the living room at bedtime rather than in the morning is certainly an option.

Kendall recommends that pots and pans be soaked during the meal so they're ready for dishwashing as soon as you are. A great concept, but what if your family's interested in a second serving? This would probably work out fine for me unless I had any leftovers that needed to be dispatched with beforehand. The biggest way in which Kendall's routine differs from my 1945 housekeeping manual is dishwashing. She is adamant that the breakfast dishes must be washed before doing anything else. This is not a bad idea, but the fact that I have a dishwasher which only gets filled up a couple times a week makes it kind of a moot point. I might give some thought to getting the pots and pans washed up and put away right after breakfast. If I straightened up the living room at bedtime, that'd free up some time for dishwashing in the a.m.

What do you think? Have you come across any vintage housekeeping schedules that offer advice for these early morning chores?