"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Task Reflections

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:    

Task Reflections

The Brief:

• Write a list of each task you undertake for any given day.
• Include the fine details of the tasks  - taking milk out of the fridge to add to a drink - what was the milk in? a jug, quart container?
• Compare those tasks to an ancestor - someone born in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century and preferably someone that you knew or remember.
• Record and discuss the differences
• What of those discoveries has impacted on you?

At the moment I cannot really do the tasks as each day these tasks are different especially as I'm still trying to complete things from over the holiday time period and catch up with the posts here.

My daily routine
Normally, I'd get up, make breakfast and get dressed to start the day. I usually go on my walk (lately I haven't been doing this until the afternoon or late evening), and then I was sitting down to work on my certificate I finished up midyear. After I finished my certificate up, I used the time to write up
presentations and resources for my classes for the rest of the year and then I sat doing genealogy research. Then went for a walk with the dog, Buddy follows me around the house, and back home and made dinner.

My ancestor's routines
I can imagine people like my great grandmother Annie and greats back before her all got up and made the household breakfast before they went out to either work (baker, farmer, factory workers) and the women cleaned the house, did the dishes, did the laundry, looked after the gardens, looked

Woodhull's Dairy in 1870-1920?  - Taken from website http://www.hrvh.org/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=chs&CISOPTR=290&action=2&DMSCALE=90&DMWIDTH=512&DMHEIGHT=479&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMROTATE=0

after the vegetable patches and made everything from scratch. Then there were the children. All dogs were probably kept outside.

Comparing the two routines
I can see my ancestor's milking the cows (as some owned dairy farms) and the kids or wife bringing in the milk to use with the breakfast. I know when I was a child, we would go to a farm which gave away some milk to people so all we would have to do is bring in the glass and then plastic jugs and then take them home with us.

Me walking at Sam's Point in 2011.

I know on the weekends and when I'm home, like I have been, I make things from scratch. When I was working such long hours I was just too tired to do it. However, with me being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, I've went back to basics and have brought the Diabetes back under control. Today the foods are not pure - instead companies fill them with sugars, salts and any other thing that will make them taste good. This is one of the major problems with people today and why people are cannot get over the mother in the US that the authorities want to bring up on child neglect charges because they were walking back from the park. What has the world turned into? Its crazy...
gaining so much weight! The other is no exercise - or very little. I still

Equipment that is used compared

My husband's coffee machine and grinder

I know I use a computer and back in the 1800's they would have had books to read and paper and pen to use instead of the computer. As for the kitchen, we have a kettle that is electric but its not that much of a stretch to boil water in a pot. My husband and his 'machine' I can only imagine what the look would have been on my ancestor's faces if they wanted coffee and my husband used the machine for them. In fact, its probably the same type of face my sister gave him the time she visited and saw what he went through in order to get one cup of coffee - she told him point blank that was too hard.

Early 1800 Teapot from husband's Moyode Castle connection

I can only imagine what they would have thought of the TV and the way we can get movies over the internet. I know my paternal grandmother Jean, would have told us if we wanted that then we should have watched when it was on and not save it. She thought an answering machine was a waste of money and space because if they wanted you badly enough then they would call you back. Oh she was such a character!

The one thing I think they would have fought against would be how fast everything moves today and how its all got to be done NOW! Also, how religion has fallen down and not been practiced very much. Up until my mother's generation I can tell everyone thought highly and made time for religion. However, since that generation church seems like something the rest of us think about, but are usually too busy to go. I know that's one of my problems - the services are held at a time when I'm just too busy (working or doing things that need to get done) or on days when I can be doing other things that need to be done. Another reason could be that growing up, the way my mother said church it was like a bad word. Only when I really pushed and I had to go with one of my friends in order to go. It was like world war 3 to do it. Overall, it was just too hard and so I never really went consistently.

Where I am trying to attend services

I do know my husband and I talked about it and if we ever had kids then they would go, as it would be another type of support system and I would encourage it. However, that seems very unlikely it would happen to us, so I guess its a mute point.

  Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.