Hello, and Happy Wednesday! We have had a decidedly odd winter. Little snow, lots of rain, freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing....All of our roads, laneways and walks are covered with ice, making walking extremely hazardous. I really notice it here in this subdivision as most of the residents are retirees. Many of them go south for the winter so half the houses are empty. It is quite eerie to look out and not see a soul, and on really sunny days, like today, everything is blindingly shiny. I enjoyed reading over the old thread that appeared today. I think that was "before my time", although I see many familiar names there, some that I don't see here now as many now prefer FB. Waiting for my seeds to arrive in the mail. I usually manage to hold myself in check until March break, as otherwise my plants are too big by the time our frost is gone, usually by mid-May. I am wondering if this year we might have a longer season, as the winter has been so weird. Pretty quiet here, athough we have been very occupied as TCS is having assessments done and DS has had an accident at work. DS is not terribly injured but is very uncomfortable right now, and of course, is unable to work. No work = no $, so he is stressed. We will assist if necessary. I am still very occupied with painting the frou-frou trim in DD's house. It will take many many days to finish it, but it will look great when done. Due to her work schedule and her location over an hour away, I will be spending about three days each month until spring getting this done. She absolutely cannot paint the picky stuff - too impatient, too , well, sloppy kind of...Anyway, a project that I am enjoying. Just touching base, off to address my to-do list for today. I am so jealous of thos early flowers I see here!! Cheers, Julie

Hello, I found this old thread (almost a pun in this case) quite interesting. I have more clothing than I need, but that is mainly because I keep almost all of my old clothes in perpetuity. I have 'nice clothes' I almost never wear, from when I had a corporate job, but every now and then I wear them. Yesterday I wore something nice to attend a friend's baby's baptism. If clothes don't fit now, well, I am optimistic that they will fit again sometime. For a long time I kept some old pants I had loved (purple jeans and blue jeans, each colorful, stretchy and not denim) that I decided I would really get rid of since they hadn't fit me in years. Then I lived in Ecuador for a year (out of 2 suitcases of clothes) and lost weight and they fit me again (briefly.) So now I think I am justified in keeping them a few more years just in case. :-) Freecycle helps me, as when I see a person near my size really needs clothes I try to find them a bag of mine that I don't need. But I also get free clothing on freecycle a lot. I have gotten clothing from one sister a lot, I give her some sometimes (as we reverse who is gaining or losing weight) but she complains because what she gives me is almost always nicer than what I give her. Then there is a third sister that we both give clothes to, she never gives any away. Once her washer broke and she said she could go 3 months without having to wash any clothes except underwear! I think the reason that homesteaders and organic gardeners and home canners and bakers mostly don't make clothing is just that the clothing most of us could make ourselves wouldn't be very good/comfy. Whereas the organic vegies and the homemade bread and jam way exceed the quality of ordinary grocery store items. Clothing from stores is just way better than what I could make myself, I can hardly patch my jeans. One thing Marie said I must take exception to: "The idea was that someone was trying to draw attention to themselves by wearing really worn out garments. It was a way to control family members, too, in some cases. The threadbare person would try to get sympathy for him or herself." I and my hubby both tend to wear really worn out things, where the material is thin or has holes, whatever. We get fond of certain things and wear them over and over until they are totally shot. I don't stop wearing favorite shirts until they are so worn out they rip down the back and are unrepairable. It is always cotton comfy shirts in a color or pattern I liked a lot, and I just won't stop wearing them until I absolutely have to. I used to date a guy who had holes in his clothes, really ratty underwear, and so on. He also had a weird short haircut. I initially mistook him for a punk (back in the mid-80s.) Turned out he was just excessively thrifty and paid no attention to his appearance. So although I imagine some people could wear worn out clothing to make some sort of statement, some of us are really just that thrifty or lazy or attached to a particular garment. As for shoes, I have short wide feet with high arches. I always had to wear shoes longer than my feet to get them to fit comfortably in the toe area. In college I wore a friend's shoes and was amazed how nice it was to have shoes already busted out a little. I soon got used shoes from a lot of people, in particular a friend who was a serious runner. She ran about 10 miles a day, so after a few months would need good new running shoes. But they were great for walking around for YEARS more. And fit better and were more comfy since already broken in. So I am lucky that old shoes are better for me than new. My other solution these days is to buy boys shoes, somehow boys get to have wider feet than women. I get almost all garments free and used, so that is about as sustainable as one can get. Marcia

I'm one of those people who can't be ready in 10 minutes, no way and I'm not even high maintenance. It's my hair that is time consuming. Takes me more than 10 minutes just to dry my hair. My hair is only shoulder length but it is very thick and coarse. I cannot let it air dry b/c of its texture...it just gets really frizzy if I do that. I have to dry it completely, which takes more than 10 minutes, then depending on how straight I'm able to dry it, sometimes I also use a flat iron on it. I don't wear a lot of makeup so that part doesn't take long. I honestly can't imagine being able to shower, dress, do hair and make up in 10 minutes. Showering alone (shaving, washing hair/face/body) takes more than 5 minutes. As far as being a busy mother with no time to shower, yes, I do mean that. However, if I know I'm going somewhere out in public where I'm going to see people, I will drop something in order to shower/be presentable. But there have been times when I've gone to the gym, run an errand on the way home, then come home and spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, prepping dinner for that night, etc and along the way purposely decided NOT to shower (why, if I know I'm cleaning bathrooms,etc all day) yet still run into school to pick my 8 y/o from an after school activity. While I generally *dont* like to run into school looking like that, still in my gym clothes, I'm not going to waste that time showering simply b/c I'm going to see people when I run into school for five minutes. Knowing I can use that 30 minutes to finish another load of laundry, which, with four kids is never-ending, is more important to me than my friends/acquaintances seeing me looking not 100% put together. However, I don't make a habit of doing that. I prefer to look more presentable but sometimes it doesn't necessarily make sense. I run regularly with several women in the mornings after we drop our kids at school. One of the women is one I didn't know before being introduced to her by a friend in common when she showed up to run with us. Our kids were at the same school, but I'd never met her. I only ever saw her for months in the morning for our runs, in running clothes and hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Much later in the year, at an evening school event, I heard someone yell my name and when I looked over, this beautiful woman was waving at me. It took me a moment to recognize her...she looked so completely different with her hair down and styled, make up and nice clothes on. I couldn't believe it was the same woman! She never looked bad w/o makeup, etc, but the difference when she actually put herself together was amazing. Alas, I'm not one of those women who can completely change her appearance with a bit of makeup!

I agree that late 20's into 30's is more common in a lot of areas outside of the South and Midwest, which tend to skew younger. 21 seems VERY young to me to get married. I was a completely different person at 21 than I was at 31, when I did get married. Though plenty of people have married young and made it last, I think it's less common these days. My grandparents married at 18 and they are still together, but I think back then divorce was a much less viable option, especially for women with children, so there weren't many options if there were regrets or if one or both spouses had negative changes as they aged. I'm watching a lovely little Netflix series set in the 50's and the married woman had a husband who cheated on her and abandoned her with 2 small children for his mistress, and still divorce was such a stigma for a woman in those days that all of her family and friends are encouraging her to do everything to win him back home where he belongs. That wouldn't fly these days with most people. I only know a couple of people who were married before 30 (counting marriages in the last 10 years).