I’m always on the hunt for books on homemaking. Unfortunately, most of them are intensely practical. The old ones are the worst. They’re dry, how-to manuals that talk about running a home by modern scientific methods–the square footage needed for a bathroom, how to clean your rugs, the caloric needs of a school child, etc. Vintage homemaking books typically miss…

How many times have you heard a woman say that she has no job, that she’s just a homemaker? It’s not a phenomenon only in our modern times to judge value purely by economic return. If you’re a woman “with no job,” you can relate to this. Here’s a short story from a magazine published in 1912. It was a…

I started a handmade soap business way back in 2009, when I was a new homemaker. While I’ve transitioned to selling mostly online, for years I sold my products at farmers markets and craft shows. I’ve had hours and hours of customer interaction and for YEARS, I had to defend my use of beef tallow and pork lard in my soaps.…

Eggs, the shortage du jour. I feel like we’ve all learned to accept the plague of the month and whatever upheaval accompanies it. At the moment (at least in the USA), it’s the bird flu that’s left us with expensive eggs or sometimes, hard to find eggs. Supplies may occasionally run low and they may be ridiculously expensive in some…