In Flora Klickmann's 1915 book The Mistress of the Little House (I first posted about it here), there is a section called 'A Housekeeper's Diary' which gives month by month household tips and advice. This month...
January
It may be 100 years since it was published, but a good bit of the advice still applies today. Here are some titbits:
- Don't dry wet shoes in direct heat, as this can damage them. Let them dry slowly in the warm.
- For blocked drains, or just every now and then to keep them clear, Flora recommends 'hot soda water'. (I'm guessing this is basically the baking soda solution of putting a cup of baking soda down the drain, followed by hot water.) However prevention is better than cure, so be careful no bits of soap or foreign matter get put down plug holes.
- Good things to buy in the sales include stationery, china and household linens.
- More on sales: "It is never saving to buy soiled, flimsy finery, or outré dresses and millinery, however cheap." I.e. If you're really trying to save, avoid anything of poor quality and go for classics rather than anything super-trendy; don't be seduced into buying things just because they're in the sale.
Happy dry shoed, clear piped, sensible sales shopping January! ;-)
The soda is soda crystals you can still buy today and Bell (who lived next door to gran) used to clean all her drains every week with a hot crystal soda solution, it's better than bleach xx
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