Our vocabulary has really undergone many changes in the last 100 years. Below is an advertisement that appeared in a 1904 Ladies’ Home Journal.  At first glance, the phrase “Receipts for Frozen Dainties” conjures up an image of someone leaving the receipt for their Fruit of the Looms outside overnight in a chilly car.

In fact, “receipt” is an old word for recipe, and a “dainty” is not an undergarment but a small pastry - suitable for high tea, I’d imagine.

But laying all that to the side, the clown pictured below looks more like a psychotic axe murderer than a gracious host.

Other than promoting emotional eating, I'm not sure how this image is supposed to help sell the advertised products.

None that I can tell.

There’s a popular website where you can post pictures of your face and/or your body (in parts or as a whole) and then wait for others to rate your physical attractiveness and desirability.

Posting a head-shot at an internet dating site is just another version of “rate this face” but with much deeper ramifications. If you’re judged and found wanting at a public website, you’ll get a low score from the peanut gallery. If your face is judged unattractive at an internet dating site, the ramifications are far more grievous: You could be alone for the rest of your life.

The process of posting my pictures online for the entire world to judge was agonizingly painful and the steady stream of rejections that followed multiplied my pain tenfold. Despite all that pain, there was really only one thing that I hated even more than rejection:  Loneliness.

Many mornings and evenings, I’d plop down at my computer and log into my account, only to find those three dreaded words at the top of the web page: No new emails. Each time those words appeared, it felt like yet another “I don’t think you’re very attractive” vote from some anonymous man out there on the world-wide web.

Each day that my email inbox remained empty was a bold affirmation that yes, I really was as unattractive as I had feared. That was on my better days. On my not-so-good days, the empty inbox brought forth a torrent of tears and a growing dread that I was destined to spend the rest of my life alone, just because of my less-than-average physical appearance.

Read more here.

One year ago today, I adopted a new baby. She was the cutest little thing I’d ever seen. It was not my intention to get a dog at that moment, but I fell completely in love the second I saw the little furry form, sitting in the large yard and looking a little worried about life.

At first, my husband wasn’t too keen on the idea of getting a dog, but in time, he also fell in love with our “Teddy.” In fact, Teddy’s newest problem is a little bit of weight gain. Every time the hubby walks into the kitchen, he gives her a treat. She’s now four pounds too heavy and for a little dog that weighs 25 pounds, that’s a lot.

Unfortunately, with her extra fluff, she really does look like one of the family now.

The baby in Wayne's arms. She was about seven weeks old here.

Our little girl is getting all grown up. She's about one year old here.

Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Teddy especially loved the gravy.

When my husband read an early draft of my manuscript on internet dating, he suggested I make a change in the chapter I’d titled, “Rose’s Tidbits and Miscellany.”

“You’ve listed ‘persistence and perseverance’ as two important qualities for successful internet dating,” he said. “I’d put much more emphasis on that, because those are two of the most important qualities.”

He had a point. I’d talked to so many women who’d given up after a dozen dates, and had reconciled themselves to living alone for the rest of their lives. And I’d met also many women who’d found their one true love in less than a dozen dates.  But that wasn’t my experience. As the months rolled by and the dates kept coming (and going), I had only two choices: give up or push on. I decided to push on.

Perseverance is a common quality found amongst successful people. It was clear to me that perseverance had been the key to my success as both a freelance writer and self-published author. In 2002, I spent more than two years lobbying (perhaps even hounding) a woman at the Smithsonian to allow me to speak at that prestigious and well-known institution.

Eventually, she said yes and that event - that one-hour talk on Sears Homes - became one of the proudest moments of my career. For four years, I mounted a campaign to get the Wall Street Journal to write an article about my work and my book, The Houses That Sears Built. In Summer 2006, the Wall Street Journal called and asked for an interview. That article appeared on page one, above the fold! Reviewing my successes in those hard-to-succeed-in areas, I reasoned it’d be helpful in the dating world as well. And it was.

On October 29, 1941, Winston Churchill told a gathering of upper school students, “Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

The great statesman’s words apply across the whole spectrum of human effort. If you give up too soon, you’ll be depriving not only yourself of much potential happiness, but some well-deserving and decent man, as well.

My 70th first date (now my husband) tells me that he’s glad I persisted and persevered. So am I.

Want to read more? Buy Rose’s book here.

The real estate agent must have thought I was off my rocker when she saw me lean my hand against the plaster wall in the empty house, close my eyes and concentrate. After a moment of silence, I opened my eyes and said, “This house has known sadness and pain, but predominantly, it’s a house that’s filled with many happy memories and good times and joy.”

The real estate agent’s eyes grew big and her brow furrowed. After looking at me askance for a moment, she turned her attention toward the hallways and said, “And what a beautiful staircase it has.”

“The listing says it was built in 1920,” I said to the real estate agent. “That’s not right. I’d say 1924 or maybe early ‘25.”

“Those listings are based on tax records and they’re pretty accurate,” she replied. “If it says 1920, it was 1920.”

I poked my husband and whispered, “That’s not right. It’s clearly 1924 or ‘25.”

When we toured the basement, I admired the oversized beams and massive piers. I reached up and stroked the beautiful knot-less lumber.

“It was an individual owner who built this house,” I said as my fingertips caressed the beams. “Someone who knew their lumber built this house. In fact, I’d venture to guess it was someone who was involved in a lumber business or maybe construction.”

Within 30 days, my husband and I were the happy owners of the 2,300-square foot, center-hallway Colonial Revival home. And I went right to work tracking down the home’s prior owners. With the help of one of my neighbors, I found Laura and her brother, Ed. The two siblings - fraternal twins - had been born in the house in 1949 and now lived in a nearby city. I invited them to come out to the house on a Sunday afternoon. In a few days, Ed and Laura were back at the front door of the house - my house - where they’d spent their childhood.

“My grandfather started building this house in 1924 and finished it in March 1925,” Laura told me. “He owned a local lumber yard in downtown Norfolk. When we were kids, he told us that he’d hand selected every piece of lumber that went into this house. He loved this house.”

I poked the hubby again and whispered, “See, I told you.”

We also learned that their grandfather had built the house for his wife. She was ill during the construction and he told her, “Just hang on, and I’ll build you a beautiful house.” His wife passed on a few months after they moved into the house. Her wake was held in the living room, in front of the large fireplace.

The grandfather - the home’s builder - died in the house in the 1960s, leaving the house to his son. Laura and Ed’s parents moved out of the neighborhood in the early 1970s. The house had remained in the same family from 1925 to 1971. In the 1990s, the grand old house was converted to a boarding house, and still has the scars to prove it.

Laura, Ed and I walked upstairs and they reveled in the tour of their family’s home. Tears came to Laura’s eyes as she stood in the hallway by the walnut staircase railing.

“This was such a good house for us to grow up in,” she told me as she brushed a tear from her cheek. “So many happy memories here.”

I turned to my husband and mouthed the words, “I told you so.”

Laura and Ed replicate a pose from the early 1950s

The house as seen in 1949

In one of my favorite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes, there’s a scene where the young woman dies and her attendant immediately arises and covers a large mirror and then stops a nearby clock. I’d always been fascinated by this old tradition/ritual and wondered about its meaning. I assumed that these practices must have a reason , but I had no idea what that reason might be.

And then I happened to talk to an old friend who explained the reasons for these “odd” traditions.

Let me tell you about my old friend. Her name is Joyce and she’s in her late 70s now, but was raised in the backwoods Georgia of the 1930s. Translated: It was a land and a time more reminiscent of Victorian America. When Joyce was growing up, she had a little sister named Louise that died at the age of three from whooping cough. Joyce remembers “Granny” rocking the child through the night and praying for her, hoping against hope that the little girl would pull through. It wasn’t to be.

Sometime in the wee hours, the little girl looked up at Granny, smiled broadly and passed on quietly. Later that morning, someone in the family went outside and rang the large bell in the front yard.

“It was almost like morse code,” Joyce said. “The bell was tolled a certain number of times for different things. When Louise died, they rang the bell a certain number of times and everyone knew what it meant. Almost immediately, people started coming to the house to help.”

Joyce said they sent the little girl’s body to the mortician who embalmed it and returned the body to the family, for the wake at home. In preparation for the wake, the mortician brought heavy, deep red draperies into the front room of the old house and hung them over the windows, blocking out all sunlight.

“I’m not sure why they put up those drapes,” she said. “Maybe it was to give a solemnity to the wake.”

During the two days of the wake, the little girl’s beloved dog sat dutifully beside the coffin and emitted a mournful wail. The mourners commented on that lamentable howling, and it left them all with a chill. After the wake, the coffin was moved to the church where a service was held. The child’s body was buried in the church cemetery.

The dog followed the family to the cemetery. Some time later, the dog’s body was found along the road. It appeared that the little girl’s pet had literally laid down and died.

My friend Joyce knows a lot about the old ways and about these old rituals.

When one of her elderly aunts lay dying, a family member sat quietly by the bedside. When the old woman breathed her last, the family member arose and draped a heavy cloth over the mirror and opened the clock’s glass face and stopped the clock.

“I saw someone do that in a movie,” I told Joyce. “What’s that about?”

“The cloth over the mirror is for the protection of the departed,” she said. “It’s believed that the spirits of our loved ones may glance into a mirror and become frightened when they see no one looking back.”

That had a resonance of truth, as I’d heard stories about people with near-death experiences saying they couldn’t see any reflection when they looked in a mirror. Wonder how they knew about that back in the 1930s?

“And the clock was stopped for a much more practical reason,” she said. “The clock was stopped so that the mortician would know the time of death.”

There was also a requirement - never to be breached - that a loved one sit with the body until burial. I’d imagine this was a throwback to olden days before medical equipment when the dead occasionally came back to life (much to the surprise of the watcher).

It was all fascinating.

As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof, “because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many years.”

Traditions should be remembered and honored, because oftimes, they were created for very practical reasons.

Note at the bottom of this old tombstone, the macabre reminder, "Reader, you must die." Photo is courtesy of Crystal Thornton, copyright 2009, Crystal Thornton.

In the early years of the 20^th Century, cement was all the rage. And the idea of making your own cinder blocks (for fun and profit) apparently also became quite popular. The back pages of the 1905 issues of American Carpenter and Builder (a building magazine from that era) were filled with advertisements for block-making machines and cement-stirring machines.

Sears offered the Wizard Block Making machine which retailed for $57.50 (a bargain at twice the price!). And Sears suggested that a man could save a lot of money on building a new home if he made his own blocks. Now if a man devoted himself to making nothing but blocks and if a man had someone else preparing the cement for pouring, he could make about one every two minutes. To do this, the poured cement was loaded into a form, pressed down in this contraption and then removed. The form was not removed until the concrete had hardened a bit. That meant if you were serious about making blocks, you had to have several forms on hand.

The ad below suggests that the block could be removed immediately from the form. I’d love to know if that was accurate. Having never made a block in the Sears Roebuck Wizard Block Making Machine, I can’t say for sure.

Sears estimated that 1,300 blocks were needed for the basement of The Chelsea (one of their kit homes). The Chelsea was a modest foursquare on a short cellar. It’d be safe to assume that a Chelsea made of nothing but block would require more than 4,000 blocks. If you devoted yourself to the creation of those blocks and really hustled, you’d need about 17 eight-hour days to do nothing but work like a dog making blocks and setting forms in the sun and breaking open the forms and placing the forms back into the machine. And that’s if he had someone else preparing the cement. That’s a lot of work.

When I give talks on Sears Homes, I get a surprising number of questions about the Wizard Block Making Machine. Apparently this labor-intensive, cinder-block maker was quite a popular item for Sears.

Close-up of The Wizard

The Wizard Block Making Machine from an early 1900s Sears specialty catalogue

In what looks like a backwards evolution graphic, a man demonstrates how to use the "easy-to-use" Wizard block-making machine.

A gorgeous 25-year-old woman named America Ferrera plays “Betty Suarez” on the popular ABC sitcom “Ugly Betty.”  The Hollywood-inflicted “uglying” of this Hispanic beauty is a paper-thin veneer, and really does little to hide Miss Ferrera’s natural good looks. It’s not hard to look beyond the extra-bushy eyebrows, gray-metal braces, uncoiffed hair and unattractive glass frames, and see that Ms. Ferrera is quite beautiful.

In addition to her lovely facial features, Ms. Ferrara has a well toned, shapely, feminine form. Slap on some braces and stir up the extra-bushy eyebrows and voila, you’ve got instant ugly? If that’s the case, there’s little hope for the rest of us.

If “Ugly Betty” is the measure of an ugly woman, we’re all in trouble deep. We “average women” are in trouble. Mainstream media is constantly force-feeding us the crazy notion that we have to be beautiful to be worthy, or even worse, to be loved.

In the powerful book, Flesh Wounds author Virginia L. Blum talks about an interview she had with a famous plastic surgeon. He told her,

The way you look has a lot to do with whether you’re going to attract somebody else. Let’s be pragmatic about the fact that if a woman cease to be attractive physically, it affects the physical, intimate relationship. I’ve seen women who have not had particularly good relationships or haven’t had a relationship with men for a long time and I make them look younger and prettier and they go on to get married and have wonderful, stable relationships. There’s absolutely no question that the face-lift helped them. We live in a real physical world (p. 127).

Ms. Blum responds to this with her own insights:

[The plastic surgeon] spoke with such authority. Yoked to his honesty is a kind of fiction about the transformative possibilities of plastic surgery. You can change her life. You can make her someone whom someone else would be willing to love. More to the point, if she isn’t succeeding on the dating/marriage market, it must be because she’s not attractive enough. That’s the most unsettling part of his account, isn’t it?

The self-evident undesirability of the woman who isn’t young and pretty. Young and pretty. You can’t have pretty without the young. As a feminist, I am indignant. Outraged (Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, Virginia L. Blum, p. 127).

Like Ms. Blum, I also feel indignant and outraged. And Ugly Betty may be an award-winning sitcom, but the problem with it is, it perpetuates the tiresome message that’s been drilled into women’s heads for decades now. Ugly is a problem. Fix ugly with money. Spend money. Get pretty and then you’ll get love, because then you’ll be worthy of love.

In other words, money buys love.

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes that women’s magazines make their money by selling women on the idea that they’re suffering from a disease of “terminal ugliness,” and that this opens the to sell billions of dollars of “cures.”

And that seems to be the subtle message of Ugly Betty. We “less-than-beautiful” women need to spend a little more money on better glasses and better haircuts and invisible braces and electrolysis and then - only then - will the burdensome mantle of “ugly” be lifted off our shoulders and our true beauty will be revealed. And then, maybe then, we’ll find true love.

We just need to spend a little more money to be cured of that horrible disease of “terminal ugliness.”

I live for that happy day when I turn on the evening news and find that the male news anchors are young, svelte, well-coiffed and gorgeous, and the women news anchors are pudgy, untanned, hairless and unkempt. That’ll be my proof that the age of enlightenment has begun.

On May 20, 2006, I met my 70th first date at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, Virginia. Less than 90 days later, we were officially engaged to be married. Our wedding date was set for January 1st. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. Being mired in romantic love was every bit as delicious as I’d imagined it would be.

The best part was knowing that my dating days were behind me and also knowing that I’d survived my last lonely Christmas. In years prior, I’d gone to desperate measures to avoid the emotional pain of being utterly alone on Christmas Day. One especially memorable Christmas, I asked my ex in-laws if I could come to their house and watch my children unwrap their many presents. It was awkward and odd, but it was the best I could do that particular year and frankly, it was far better than being alone. (In another post, I wrote about the culture of loneliness.)

And then came Christmas 2006, my first post-divorce, pair-bonded Christmas event. A few days before Christmas, my soon-to-be husband and I walked through Macarthur Mall on our way to the movies. Our youngest daughters (his and mine) walked side-by-side in front of us. He and I held hands as we walked and I leaned over to him and said, “Isn’t it nice to be here with our little girls and be a family again?”

With his voice cracking with emotion he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
This man, my 70th first date, my fiance, had been single for 10 years after his divorce. I’m sure he knew about lonely holidays, too.

A few days before Christmas he sent me a text message that said, “It is a sheer joy to have this holiday season with you.”

Ditto.

Christmas 2008 at our home in Virginia

If I’d known how much fun it was to have my own website, I would have done this years ago. As “Administrator” of my own site, I can look at the day’s stats and figure out what search terms people are using to find me. Studying the daily statistics is wholly fascinating and ever-so-slightly addicting.

More than a few people are landing here after doing a key word search with terms such as “Dating Sears Homes.” That always makes me smile. This website was created to promote my newest book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned from 70 First Dates.”

However, I’m also the author of several books on Sears kit homes so when some lucky duck googles “Dating Sears Homes” it is this website that pops up first.  I surmise these folks are not trying to figure out how to get a Sears Home to go out for dinner and drinks, but rather, they’re trying to figure out how to determine the age of a kit home.

I suppose I should answer that question. Sears homes were offered from 1908-1940, but their main years were the 1920s and early 1930s. Sears Homes were rare before WW1 (aka The War To End All Wars), and sales plummeted about four years into the Great Depression (1933).  In other words, probably 80% of sales occurred between 1919 and 1933.

If you want to learn more about the topic “dating Sears Homes” post something in the comment section (below) and I’ll do what I can to answer your question(s).

Sears Modern Homes were most popular in the 1920s

So reads a large advertisement in the 1912 issue of American Carpenter and Builder. I own a number of these architectural magazines from the early 1900s and the majority of advertisers offered products with a connection to the new and modern building miracle:  Concrete.

In 1867, Parisian gardener Joseph Monier was awarded a patent for reinforced concrete, which is concrete with embedded metal.

By the early 1900s, concrete became a hot item in the building trade. The rear pages of American Carpenter and Builder were filled with concrete products and concrete dry mixes and concrete mixers and concrete block makers. Concrete was big money. One of its biggest selling points was the fact that concrete was fireproof. In a time when fire was one of the great threats facing city residents and farm owners alike, creating a fireproof building was a big selling point.

As someone who loves to read old architectural magazines, I thought I’d seen it all - until I found this ad for concrete pine boxes. The ad promises, “Wooden boxes are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”

Uh, it’s been almost 100 years since that statement was made and it hasn’t proven true.  “Wooden boxes” still abound.

I’d love to know how many contractors made money selling concrete caskets during the slow seasons of their building business.

Concrete pine boxes offer big profits (from 1912 American Carpenter and Builder Magazine)

Conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. - Mary Baker Eddy

In the 1995 remake of the movie A Little Princess, there’s a scene where Miss Minchin, the black-hearted school marm, is confronted by Sara (the little princess). With an astonishing measure of boldness, Sara tells Miss Minchin that she is a princess and that all girls are princesses regardless of their station in life, their physical appearance, their intelligence or even their age. With innocent eyes, Sara stares into Miss Minchin’s hardscrabble face and asks her, “Didn’t your father ever tell you that? Didn’t he?”

Judging by the look in Miss Minchin’s eyes, she never heard those words or even that sentiment expressed by dear old Dad. And judging by the current epidemic of low self-esteem among women, I’d venture to guess that most of today’s fathers follow the parenting model of Miss Minchin’s dad, rather than Sara’s.

I have four basic theories regarding beauty and self-esteem, and the first is The Little Princess Theory of Beauty.

You are miles ahead of most of us if you were raised on a steady diet of compliments and kind words. Bonus points for hearing these compliments and kind words from a man with an important position in your life.  If your father (or a suitable alternate) told you that you were beautiful, you’re going to act, feel and behave like someone who is beautiful.

The self-confidence that has its roots in childhood is like the tap-root of an old, established tree, which in time, has grown down to the water table. Such a tree will not be adversely affected by the summer’s heat or prolonged drought or the other storms of life. Self-confidence that’s nurtured and developed in the early years is a powerful, enduring quality that lives on, completely independent of the mean-spirited opinion of others.

If I were queen of the world (and it shouldn’t be long now), I’d tell all the fathers of the world this one thing: “You possess the ability to make your daughter - your little girl - feel good and confident about herself and you wield a powerful influence over her ability to attract a desirable partner. Further, the man that she selects as her life partner - good, bad or horrific - will be determined largely by your words and actions. You’re teaching her what kind of man she should select, accept, or settle for. You have the potential to make her adult life perfectly lovely or unspeakably hellish. Open your eyes and your heart before you open your mouth and think about the far-reaching implications of your word choices.”

Read the rest of Rose’s book here.

We’ve broken a record in Norfolk. A bad record. We’re not far from breaking the 1889 record of 70 inches of rain in one year. And hey - we got three weeks to go!

We had more torrential downpours last night. And then more rain in the wee hours.

This morning, I arose at 4:30 to get some writing work done. I went out to my sunporch and heard the plop, plop, plop of a leaky roof splashing raindrops onto my beige carpet. So then I had the husband run around and fetch plastic buckets and containers for the SEVEN places that were dripping water.

I ran upstairs and out to the sunporch ROOF (which is flat) and wearing my jammies, I went out on the roof (barefoot), got down on my hands and knees and bent over the edge of the sunporch roof in the POURING rain and cleaned out the gutters. When the gutters get too full, the water rises up behind the flat-roof’s flashing (bent over into the gutters) and then - thanks to that little miracle we call “gravity - flows merrily into the sunporch ceiling. The low spot on the sunporch ceiling is in the center, so that’s where it drips.

While I was up above - traipsing to and fro on this black rubber roof - my bare feet hit a slick patch of black rubber roofing (at 4:30 am keep in mind) and that sent me slip-sliding across the roof. In that split second, as the roof’s edge came closer and closer, I thought, “Great. This is how it all ends. The architectural historian slides off the flat sunroof of her own 1924-built Colonial Revival at 4:30 in the morning, with green-handled salad tongs in one hand and a blue Mag-light in the other.”

However, I survived that event.

Then hubby came out in the darkness and held the flashlight for me while I cleaned partially decomposed leaf matter and acorns and twigs and squiggly pink worms out of 35 linear feet of gutters in the pouring rain while wearing my jammies.

About 20 minutes later, I came back inside, drenched to the bone, and put on clean jammies and dry socks.

At 10:30 am, another torrential downpour clogged up the gutters again. This time, I went out with my drill motor and my hammer. I was going to fix those *&#^ gutters once and for all. I drilled about 129 half-inch holes in the gutters and then using the hammer, I *beat* the downspout off the gutter. I could *see* the problem - the downspouts were clogged with all manner of debris, but everytime I jammed my hand down into the downspout’s elbow, I only made matters worse, because when I pulled my hand *out* of the downspout, the razor-sharp sheet metal screws removed a little more downspout-clogging organic matter from my right hand.

I saw someone driving by on the street slow down to watch this amazing show. I am quite sure I looked like a mad woman. That’s because I *felt* like a mad woman.

At this point, if I’d had access to 13 sticks of dynamite I would have used all of them to blow those sunporch gutters to aluminum-gutter hell, where they surely belonged.

Again, when I re-entered the bedroom (where you access the sunporch roof) I was soaked through and through. As I walked toward the bathroom to peel off soaked clothes, I muttered, “Those gutters won’t hurt anyone now.”

I washed my hands in the bathroom and they burned from the death of a thousand cuts. Forcing my large hands into the downspouts’ mouth again and again and again left me with a right hand that resembled an uncooked rump roast. I focused on something other than pain and wondered if it’s possible to go into shock from having 83 small slices on one hand.

So I went back to my work and then I realized I need some boxes to ship books to people overseas. I went downstairs to my basement (where we store boxes) and as I descended the steps, I saw one of my boxes gently floating by at the foot of the stairs, like a cardboard gondola (sans gondolier).

My basement has five inches of standing water and a POS sump pump with a lot of ’splaining to do. Remembering the MANY extension cords we’d draped throughout the basement floor (to run fans and humidifiers after the last GREAT FLOOD - two weeks ago), I decide to not step into the potentially electrically charged water.

Instead, I pause and don my husband’s insulated rubber-sole boots and then courageously step off the basement steps and into Lake Colonial Revival. Nothing sparks or zaps and if I have just died instantly from an electric shock, it happened so fast that I have no conscious memory of it, so it’s all good. Perhaps with this one great step, I’ve walked right into eternity and never even knew it. I wonder if this is the case. However, I don’t see Mother anywhere nearby so I figure I’m still among the living and walk over to the sump pump.

Once at the sump pump, I give it a good swift kick in the float and it roars to life. Forty minutes later, we’re down to 1/2″ of water. Using my water-puddle-rapid-movement-device (something I used to call a broom), I sweep a little more recalcitrant water into the sump and then I notice that the formerly dry spots in the basement are wet again. The basement is refilling itself with an endless supply of flood water.

At this point, I call my husband and tell him, “I’m leaving. Don’t know when or if I’m coming back, but I’m leaving. I’m off to find dry ground and a dry house with beige carpet that doesn’t squish when I walk across it and gutters that don’t channel rain water into my office space where I store boxes and boxes of early 20th Century irreplaceable documents. If I come back with an olive branch, you’ll know I was successful. If not, it’s been nice knowing you.”

Long day. And I just got back home. He reported that the basement refilled after I left.

It’s nuts I tell you - just nuts. Our basement hasn’t flooded since 1924. An old man built our house in 1924 and he built it on its own tall hill. And yet - we flooded. Second time in 87 years. And the first time was two weeks ago.

Anyone got a rubber room I can borrow for a few weeks? I might need it…

As most single women know, there are a lot of rules for dating, and those “rules” are probably one of the reasons that I had 70 first dates. For instance, a girl should never call a fellow. In fact, when the fellow calls, the girl should ignore him for a time until he becomes more desperate. That’s just the way men are wired. They need to chase. They like to win. It’s a testosterone thing.

Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.

It was these so-called rules that about drove me to drink.  And trying to follow those rules - trying to play a part that wasn’t true to my nature was emotional torture, with extra heapings of misery and angst. It wasn’t until I was ready to abandon those rules that my life became sweeter, simply and above all, authentic.

When I stopped playing games, when I stopped following all the so-called advice, my life turned a corner. And when I found a man that I admired and respected, I chased him like a dog running after a bus.

Women do not need another “how to find a good man” book with more advice on how they should “act.” If you invest your best energies in being real and authentic, there’ll be no need to devote any energy to acting. My friend Pamela was right when she told me, “Exude confidence and peace and joy and men will sense it. Inner beauty really does magnetize.”

In Gloria Steinem’s book,  Revolution From Within, she wrote, “As many women can testify [getting a man to fall in love with you] is alarmingly easy, provided you’re willing to play down who you are and play up who he wants you to be” (p. 264).

She goes on to explain why her marriage, which had been based on playing a part that wasn’t true to herself, ultimately failed.

“Having got this man to fall in love with an inauthentic me, I had to keep on not being myself.”

Current dating wisdom is very focused on getting a man to fall in love with you, even if it means that you have to bind and gag your very soul. Such a relationship is not only unsustainable, but is usually misery for all parties involved, and always miserable for the woman who’s putting on the show. And these mental games take up an enormous amount of space on our emotional hard-drive. Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt, wet with tears.

If you want to glow with a warm, sincere luminosity that has the potential to be irresistible to all men with two brain lobes to rub together, visit that land (or that time) when you were real.

Remember the children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit? The wizened old Skin Horse was the real hero in that story and he also had the secret to success in internet dating.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be.

Or as the poet Robert Browning said, “No need to make yourself over. Just make the best of what God has made.”

Be real. Be authentic. And ignore those rules.

Worked for me.

Next:  Good Christian Man Wants Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call!

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When I finally abandoned all the "rules" for women and dating, in short, when I became authentic and real, I found true love.

When reading men’s profiles, you need to learn to read between the lines. It’s a lot like looking at the real estate ads in the Sunday paper. The advertisement might read, “Cozy cottage in the woods that needs a little TLC,” but you understand immediately that it’s actually a hunter’s shack with a dirt floor and a privy out back.

Salesmen often engage in a little puffery when promoting their product and nowhere is that more evident than when we’re selling ourselves to a romantic partner.

In that spirit, here are some of the phrases you’ll often find in men’s profiles. Following each phrase is its honest interpretation.

I prefer slender women. I don’t care if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy and drool out both corners of your mouth, as long as my drinking buddies get jealous when they see us together.

Hey, I’m a guy. Looks matter. You’ll be replaced as soon as the new sleek models hit the street.

I prefer women with a little meat on their bones. I weigh 1200 pounds and haven’t left my bedroom in seven years.

I’ve lived alone for a time but now I’m ready to share my life with someone special. I don’t know how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.

I’m financially secure. I just made the final payment on the Yugo.

My home is spacious and beautiful but so very empty. If you’ll come live with me, I’ll give you money.

I’m recently widowed. I haven’t found the pots and pans yet.

Intelligent, powerful women are a real turn-on. At least one of us should have a real job.

I don’t have a subscription on this site, so please include your email address when you write to me. For our first date, I was hoping you’d meet me at the Quickie Mart, pump number seven.

I feel strongly that women should be treated as equals.  Be sure to bring your wallet on our first date because you’re paying for your dinner.

Looking for a woman who is down to earth and practical. And willing to live off the grid in an isolated mountaintop cabin in the pacific northwest.

Looking for someone who wants to spoil her man. I wouldn’t be at this site if I could teach the dog how to open the fridge and fetch me a cold one.

I have been to college but I didn’t get my degree. One time, I made out with a girl in the parking lot at the local community college.

I’ve had an interesting and varied life experience. They let me out for good behavior after serving only six years and four months.

Looking for a real woman. My inflatable doll sprang a leak.

I’d like to have a partner so that we can work toward common goals. Behind every successful man is an exhausted woman and I’d like you to be my exhausted woman.

My children are my first priority. You’ll fall somewhere between the dog and my favorite remote control.

I’m new to this country. And desperately in need of a green card.

I’m currently separated. And looking around to see if I can find someone better before I give this one up.

My home needs a woman’s touch. The maggot eggs in the kitchen will be hatching soon if someone doesn’t get in there and do some cleaning.

I’m just a regular guy who needs some loving. And I’m sick and tired of paying for it.

Next: Read Rose’s “Little Princess Theory of Beauty” here.

Want to read Rose’s book? Click here!

When I hear the word “Grandmother,” I think of two people:  Grandma Walton and Grandma Joyce . The first is from the popular TV show, The Waltons and the second example is from my own life: My ex-husband’s mother.

The Waltons premiered in September 1972 when I was 13 years old. I adored television shows about family and like millions of others, The Waltons fast became one of my all-time favorites. And Grandpa and Grandma Walton were my two favorite characters.

Did those kids know how lucky they were to have a grandma and grandpa that loved them unconditionally and that was a constant presence in their lives? Maybe they did. With my powerful imagination, I sandwiched myself into the Walton clan, somewhere between Mary Ellen and Jason, and wondered what it’d be like to be ensconced by the love of extended family.

Before I was born, my father moved his wife and their two sons 3000 miles due east from their native California. He left behind his parents and her parents and countless aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins. Before I was born, my maternal grandparents died. When I was in my mid-30s, my paternal grandparents died. I’d seen them three times in my life, and the sum total of those visits could be measured in hours.

When my first child was born, I was a little surprised to see my mother-in-law showing up at the house several times a week, and more often than not, she was bearing presents such as clothing, food and toys. When the second baby came 16 months later, Grandma Joyce was still appearing regularly and at this point, I’d grown to love her and appreciate her in a whole new way. Seven years later, a surprise baby came and Grandma Joyce acted like it was the first baby she’d ever seen and the gifts and clothing and food and toys came with a renewed vigor.

One Christmas, as Grandma Joyce and her husband (Grandfather) sat in awe watching “our” three perfect daughters dig into the Christmas loot. I looked away from the kids for a moment and saw Grandma Joyce and Grandfather staring at the girls and grinning from ear to ear.

“This is what it’s like,” I thought to myself, “to have a grandmother who adores you.” And just basking in the glow of the love she felt for this kids was a delightful, powerful and heavenly experience.

“My mother would have adored you,” my own mother frequently told me. “She loved little girls and she was such a lot like you, a gentle, sensitive soul. She would have fallen in love with you the first moment she laid eyes on you. I wish she could have met you.”

So do I.

Click here to read more from Rose.

Grandma Joyce gets Annie ready for Sunday School (1983)

Grandma Joyce and Annie heading out to Sunday School

My mother standing beside her mother (Flossie) about 1938

Yahoo news is reporting this morning that a man has been arrested for accosting his wife’s face with a cheeseburger. During a heated argument, the man lost his temper and began smearing a greasy cheeseburger over her face. Apparently, it erupted into a full-fledged food fight.

Read the short article here.

As a writer, I tend to pay way too much attention to non-verbal communication. And many sensitive souls - like me - are guilty of this, too. In fact, the experts say that 70% of all communication is non-verbal. I’ve noticed that when I see wedding videos and/or attend the weddings in person, that there are two kinds of men: The kinds of men who gently feed their wives their first bite of wedding cake, and the men who think that a woman’s wedding day is a swell time to act stupid and cram that cake into her face, embarrassing her, embarrassing himself, and proving to his friends and family that his new wife just married a real horse’s ass.

When did we lose our manners? When did we stop behaving well in public? And when did men get license to start treating their brand-new wives so unattractively at such an important moment?

I have observed that there’s an interesting semi-scientific insight that comes with the “feeding of the wedding cake.” Those men who do the cram often end up divorced. Those men who do the gentle feed, remain married.

Coincidence?

Nope.

Click here to learn more about Rose.

My 70th first date and I agreed to meet on a Saturday morning at a coffee shop in downtown Portsmouth. His profile had caught my attention because his photo showed him in a green flannel shirt. I have a thing for men in flannel shirts. And he had a beard. I’ve always had a thing for men with beards.

I arrived at the coffee shop about 30 minutes early. While I was sitting there waiting for Mr. Green Flannel, an email arrived from an old friend. He offered to fly to Virginia and spend a week with me. He missed me and I missed him. We had been very dear friends for a time but our friendship had never sailed into the great beyond of romantic bliss. I was in the midst of a lonely spell and in response to his generous email, I wrote, “Please come soon and fast. I’m so lonely. I need you.”

But I hesitated.

What if Mr. Green Flannel was The One, the last first date? Shouldn’t I give this the old college try before giving up hope? I saved the email in my computer’s drafts folder. As I was sitting there thinking about all this, my last first date walked through the door.

He was shorter than I thought. Or maybe the doorway to the old building was unusually high. He was wearing a green plaid flannel shirt, clean blue jeans and a belt with a West Virginia buckle. West Virginia’s upper-most hinterlands were hidden underneath his muffin top. He was grinning. And he was cute as a button.

“You must be Rose,” he said with that enchanting West Virginian drawl.

“I am. And you must be Wayne.”

I managed to rise to my feet without falling over. A good start.

“Nice to meet you,” he replied through perfectly aligned teeth.

He was way too relaxed. He appeared to be someone who actually enjoyed dating. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Did that indicate good self-esteem (a plus) or a smarmy familiarity with the ladies (a big negative)? His body language suggested he was comfortable and planning to have a splendid time. He looked both relaxed and alert. He seemed happy and eager to get to know this newest offering from the internet dating world.

We sat down together and engaged in the idle chatter that is the on-ramp to meaningful dialogue on a first date.

Less than 15 minutes into the date, my well-honed listening skills failed me. I gazed into his kind eyes and looked at his pretty red lips and wondered if he knew how to kiss a woman. His beard was also very distracting. He had a beautiful silver beard with a few remnants of the original red and brown. It was a really, really good beard. It was a very manly beard. And there were a gray chest hairs sprouting from his open shirt. A manly man with a manly beard and manly chest hair.

Read the rest of the story here.

Mr. Green Flannel (aka my 70th first date) and his pipe

continued from part I.

Like most women, I’m “average” looking (hence, the term). And in the process of these 70 first dates, I became disgusted with the fact that these men were only interested in women who had “the look.”

Out of pure curiosity, I conducted a little experiment. With my daughter’s permission, I posted an ad at an internet dating site, using her beautiful headshots. Her “ad” (profile) was carefully written, and made it clear that she was high maintenance and had serious gold-digger leanings.

Within 24 hours, she had more than 20 emails. By the end of the first week, she had 75 emails from 75 men, pleading for a response. Within 30 days, she had received more than 250 letters from men (ages 25 to 62) who were begging to meet her.

Many men’s emails explained they had “plenty of money, a fine house” and blah, blah, blah. Their message was like saying, “You have plenty of beauty; I have plenty of money. We’re a perfect match.”

That made me angry.

Internet dating is only a little different from posting your picture at “Rate My Face dot com” and asking strangers to rate you on a score of 1-10. If you’re a ten, you get a few emails. If you’re a five (like me) you get six emails in 90 days.

I found the whole process to be hard and harsh and it did a number of my self-esteem. I did have a happy ending, but mainly from what I learned about myself and men. I learned that the opinions of others really do not matter.

And I found myself a nice guy, too. He’s good and decent and kind and patient. And he has a job and he doesn’t sniff gasoline and he doesn’t have any addictions and he loves me with his whole heart. And he tells me that I’m his “eight-cow wife.”

Learn more here.

Somewhere around the 29th first date, I’d figured out that meeting for drinks was a far better plan than meeting for lunches and dinners. Get stuck with a ne’er-do-well on a dinner date and you’re committed to chow down 2,000 calories of fat-laden Shrimp Scampi just so you can make a fast get-away. Too many calories, too much money and way too much time invested in some pitiful man who’s got 101 equally boring stories, all of which begin or end with, “My ex-wife is such a crazy witch…”

But then I discovered that meeting for “drinks” presented its own problems because people usually meet at bars when they’re meeting for drinks. I’m highly allergic to cigarette smoke and it’s hard to be your best charming self when you’re busy trying to surreptitiously sniffle and/or wipe a drippy nose on the cuff of your pretty shirt. Further, I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t like bars. Being around drunken sots is a lot more fun if you’re one of the sots. Or so I’ve surmised.

So then I started meeting a few guys at public places. I met a couple fellows at parks and I met two guys at a local library. Meeting at the city park was nice and gave both me and Mr. Potential Suitor a chance to walk and talk and admire nature’s beauty. Meeting at the library wasn’t such a good idea. It’s hard to be clever and cute when you’re forced to keep your voice to a whisper.

In the end, I discovered the best meet and greet places were little cafes and coffee shops and outdoor restaurants. For  these quixotic quests, such places were quiet and quaint, just right for a quirky girl, like me.

And in fact, that’s where I met my 70th first date. And while I was impressed with so many of #70’s fine qualities, perhaps the one that impressed me most of all:  He never said anything ugly about his ex-wife or ex-girlfriends.

Once a year, we go back to that coffee shop and sit in the same spot and drink the same drinks and hold hands and gaze into one another’s eyes. It’s wholly delightful.

In 2006,  I moved into Mr. E’s home. He’d been a favorite teacher in high school and we’d stayed in touch through the years. In 2004, his beloved wife died. By 2006, I was divorced and short on funds and wanted to relocate to the East Coast. Mr. E. was gracious enough to invite me to live in his home until I got settled and found a new home in Virginia.

Not two weeks after moving in with Mr. E., I had my 70th first date. I’m happy to report that it was also my *last* first date, and less than 90 days after that first date, we were engaged to be married. I invited Mr. E. to sit on the front row at our wedding, alongside our family members. He was happy to have a ringside seat.

But I worried a lot about Mr. E. He was alone in that great big house of his and he didn’t like being alone. I visited him from time to time but it was different. However, he never complained. About a year after I was married, Mr. E (now in his 80s) met Mrs. E. She’d been widowed for several years and they attended the same church and had a lot in common. After a few months, these two folks fell in love and decided it was time to tie the knot. And the good news was, Mrs. E. wouldn’t even have to change the monogram on her towels and dinner napkins. She was good to go.

This Thanksgiving, Mr. and Mrs. E. (now married 10 months), joined us for a Thanksgiving feast. It was nice to see Mr. E. so happy. And it was nice to know that sometimes people still meet and fall in love - without any help whatsoever from the internet.

Thanksgiving Dinner at our home

In the 1930s, The “Monitor-top Refrigerator” quickly became one of General Electric’s most popular appliances. Its design was based on a sound principle and a highly efficient plan: The compressor sat atop the fridge, and heat extracted from the appliance cabinet naturally moved up and away from the refrigerator.

According to all reports, these were also unusually well-built appliances, with a life expectancy of 25 years - or more. Today, appliance aficionados are always on the look-out for these vintage refrigerators, because with a little work and a few new parts, they can be restored to their original condition and live on - indefinitely.

Heretofore, no one has created a reproduction Monitor Top refrigerator which is a surprise, especially consider how hot these used appliances have become. A thoroughly restored three-door Monitor Top fridge (fully restored) can fetch $10,000 or more.  For more information and detail on these appliances, click here.

When I was researching The Houses That Sears Built, I read 32 years of American Carpenter and Builder, a popular building magazine of the early 1900s. Whilst studying its pages, I found an ad for a Monitor Cupola and a few bells rang in my tired brain. Was this where the “Monitor Top” fridge got its name? The resemblance between this Monitor Cupola and the GE’s compressor was sound. I’ve googled all the terms I can think to google and yet to no avail. I love to know - is this the source of the moniker Monitor-top?

Update: A friend found a link explaining that monitor-top GE refrigerators got their name from the iron-clad Monitor Ship from The Civil War. Maybe that’s where Monitor Cupolas got their name?

Want to read more about Rose? Click here.

Ad from 1915 building magazine showing Monitor vent

An image from a 1930 magazine, showing the GE Monitor Top

Full ad from a 1930 magazine

There’s a wonderful book titled, “The Good Old Days, They Were Awful!” It’s an interesting book with many stories of how life “back in the day” was not all peaches and cream. I agree with that - to an extent - but there were some bonuses to life back then. However, as far as issues of sanitation, we’re miles ahead of our ancestors who lived in the early 1900s.

Here’s an ad from the American Carpenter and Builder Magazine, from 1912. (Story continues below photos.)

1912 American Carpenter and Builder ad

Close up of the modern toilet

Take a better look at this contraption. In short, the (ahem) “human waste products” were dropped into a steel box directly under your house (aka basement or foundation). After a time, you’d stir the (ahem) contents in this box and add chemicals a couple times a week.  See the handle beside the toilet (on the floor)?  That’s your stirrer. And see the large pipe behind the toilet? In a perfect world, that’s a vent pipe that directs odors out of the living space. In a perfect world.

I suppose for those who were accustomed to donning warm shoes and making the long trek to the outhouse in the backyard, this “chemical toilet” was better. I suppose.  But in the real world, that thing must have stunk to high heaven. And what poor soul was charged with crawling under the house and cleaning out the box twice a year?

I love studying the good old days and I love writing about the good old days. However, when I finally learn how to travel back in time, I think I’ll take my modern plumbing with me.

And you thought your kitchen was small? The ad below came from a 1925 architectural magazine and the ad was promoting the fine, smooth drain board (on the right). After The Great War (also known as The War to End All Wars, as President Wilson assured us), there was a fantastic housing shortage. Housing analysts estimated that 1-2 million housing units were needed immediately to ameliorate the housing shortage caused by World War I. And there was something else going on after World War I.

Hyperinflation.

For a few months immediately following the Armistice (11-11-1919), hyperinflation hit America hard. The price of building materials increased 100% in some places. Because of this and because of the housing shortage, many people converted their spacious single family homes into boarding houses and installed a few of these tiny kitchen units to accommodate their new paying tenants.

Notice, that’s a refrigerator on the right side and a gas stove on the left, and that’s a Veribrite Drain Board (for kitchens of all sizes) on the right top.

This is one wee tiny kitchen (From 1925 American Carpenter Magazine).

Take a look at this “modern” tub. The picture below is from a 1925 American Builder, a very popular trade magazine of that era. Now I suppose on the face of it, this “combo unit” is a swell idea but c’mon, really?

The best part of a hot shower is relaxing and letting your mind drift away to a happy place. In this shower (see photo below), you’d darn well better keep your mind on the task at hand. It’s hard to imagine that any builder ever thought that this was a swell idea. And more to the point, if such a thing were offered today, it’d come with enough bright-red legally-worded warning labels to wallpaper the most spacious bathroom.

Speaking as someone who loves old houses, I’d love to know - anyone ever see one of these in real life in residential construction? Apparently, there were 60 of these put into the Mira Mar Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on Woodlawn. A quickie search on Google shows that the hotel was still in business in 1951, but I couldn’t find any more information.

Ad from a 1925 architectural magazine

A closer look at the tub/shower

Accompanying text