Household hints
Media
Part of Woman's Home Journal
- Title
- Household hints
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1938
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- 30 WOMAN’S HOME JOURNAL Manila, January, 1938 Household Hints GOOD NEWS and SUGGESTIONS We have so many plans for this section that we simply don’t know where to begin in telling you about them. We want this department to be really useful to the average housewife — one who does not have money, to burn, ais the expression goes, but just the same wants her home to be modern, attractive and comfortable. So we have thought of a series of articles on curtain-making (curtains not for the mansion, which is usually decorated by a professional, but for the average home), on remodeling (such as putting in a new bathroom or doing over one bedroom into two), kitchen planning, furniture arrangement. We cannot promise illustrations, but we shall do our best. We hope that our readers will have enough curiosity to try out our suggestions. We wish all people were like ourselves; we can not read a suggestion on making a room more attractive or comfortable or reading a recipe without itching to try it and see how it will come out. Beauty hints affect us the way. And—please, if you do try these suggestions, we hope you will write to us and tell us how they will work in your own particular case, how you have adapted it to suit your needs. Now for some timely hints: Take An Inventory Of Your Household Goods As this article is being written, all stores in the city bear this notice : Closed for inventory. This is done at the end of each year. A good idea for the housewife to follow. Make a list of your china, silver, and glassware and paste this list somewhere in the china cabinet. Whenever a piece is broken, lost or added, note it down. Never lend out your things without making a list of the pieces borrowed, and check them up carefully when they are returned. Also make a list of your house linens. The offshoot of this taking-an-inventory busi n e s s will be order. You will gather together all pieces of the same kind and allot a place for them. In all probability you will find pieces of silver you have given up as lost. With your things in order— the silverware in its box, the china neatly stacked on the shelves of the china cabinet, the linens neatly folded in the wardrobe, you will discover that there seems to be more spaces in places that were crowded before. Before putting back things on them, we are sure that you will clean first the shelves in the china cabinet and wardrobe. A Place For Everything We found one rule very useful in keeping the house neat: Have a place for everything and keep everything in its oivn place. This rule will also save your temper. When a certain thing is always kept in a certain place, there is no need to look for it when it is needed. There are three things that are so difficult to find when they are most needed: the scissors or the needle, the pen or pencil, and the can -opener. These should have permanent places in the house and should be returned there after they have been used. The sewing materials should be kept in a box which should in turn be kept on a shelf or in a corner in a particular room; the writing materials should be kept on top of the writing table or in a drawer of the writing desk Children should be trained early in life to put away things, to return them to their proper places. Mother should assign to each child a place for her or his belongings—clothing, toys, books, and she should make the child put them back there before going to bed at night or when she or he is through using them. A Well-stocked Pantry Resolve to have a wellstocked pantry or food cabinet during this year. Do your marketing of household supplies every two weeks or monthly. If you do not know how much your family consumes in two weeks or one month, make a list of the things that are used daily— laundry soap, toilet soap, dentrifice, toilet paper, milk, coffee or chocolate, salt, vinegar, patis or toyo, sugar, rice, etc., etc., and opposite each item write down how much a certain quantity is consumed by the family after a period of time. Buying household supplies in quantities will enable you to save money and you or your servant many trips to the corner store or to the market. There is nothing more exasperating than to need a thing and find out that none is available in the house, then to have to wait for it while it is bought. If it is something to eat, the appetite for it disappears before it arrives. Plan Your Work Resolve to follow a schedule or plan of work daily. Many housewives work hard but accomplish little because they work without order. They tire themselves out unnecessarily. If you have a servant, teach her to do her work without waiting for instructions from you. She must do this at a certain time, and that at another time. The children should be told not to ask the servant to do something for them while she is doing something. They must either run their own errands or wait till the maid is free. Interruptions play havoc with a schedule. The Modern Housewife Are you one of those housewives who reserve their best china, silver and linen for visitors, who sometimes do not come even once in a year? Or clean and tidy their homes only when visitors are expected? Or keep their salas spick and span and leave their bathrooms and kitchen dirty? The modern housewife is never surprised by unexpected visits. A visitor may drop in at her house at any time of the day and she will show her around, even to the bathroom, without fear of embarrassment. Her house always looks as if visitors were coming every day, every hour. If it is disorderly, it is not the kind of disorderliness she is ashamed of; it indicates that the house is lived in and that orderliness is not a god blindly worshipped. There are b e d - spreads or coverlets on the bed, to protect the beddings from dust; there is a cloth on the dining table and a cover (place plate, knife, spoon and fork and glass) for each member of the family when the family sits down to meals; there are fresh flowers in the vases, if there is a garden. There are no company manners, china, silver or Jinen. What the family uses are of good quality; when visitors come, the extra ones are brought out. Or, there may be company china, silver and linen, but these are not so far removed from the quality that the family daily uses that the children hardly notice the difference.’ The point we want to bring out is this: what is the use of buying fine things when you and your family do not enjoy them? Are you afraid that the dishes may get broken, the silver tarnished, the linen worn out? You have only to be careful not to break them, use them properly and take care of them properly. Clear up Pimples with this proven treatment. Stillman’s Actone by laboratory teste kills most common pimpie germ. Writes one thankful young lady: "Actone has cleared my face of pimples after having them for four years. I tried everything with htUe results, but now my face is practically C1^sk your druggist today about this new relief, Stillman’s Actone. He has a free folder for you. Remove the Pimples. Dutrlbutorti Botica Bole, Manila