My husband loves his little truck. He purchased it brand new in 2001, and has enjoyed it ever  since. He takes good care of it, too.

Imagine our surprise when a well-known Ford dealership here in Hampton Roads told us that they refused to even give a bid on repairing the vehicle. Their reason - Hubby’s truck had more than 75,000 miles. The service writer explained that they don’t do major mechanical work on vehicles with more than 75,000 miles.

That tells me a LOT about what they think of their Ford products.

When a Ford product hits 75,000 miles, apparently that’s the end of its usable life, and we’re supposed to just park it on the street and call for the tow truck to haul it off to the junk yard.

My Toyota Camry sits in the garage as I’m writing this, with 165,900 miles. Last time I had it serviced, the mechanic explained, “I’d be surprised if you don’t get 225,000 miles out of this car. It’s in excellent condition.”

So there we have a tale of two cars, with similar care and similar attention, and yet one will last for years, and the other - according to a representative of Ford Motor Company (which is what a dealership is), it’s not worthy of major repairs after 75,000 miles.

And people wonder why the Japanese have cleaned our clock in the automotive industry?

Our Ford F150 sits in our driveway with a piece of cardboard to catch the dripping oil.

According to the Ford representative (the dealership), they won't perform any major mechanical repairs on these vehicles after 75,000 miles.

We live in a nice area, and we're really not pleased with the prospect of having to use cardboard to deal with our Ford's leaking issues. It's the rear seal that's gone bad, and needs to be replaced. Ultimately, we'll probably get a local mechanic to repair this problem, but I am very disappointed in Ford. How can they expect the consumer to believe in their products, if *THEY* don't believe in them?

Please leave a comment for Rose, or you can email her directly at thorntonrose@hotmail.com.

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Schadenfreude. Who’s ever heard of it?

It’s a German word that means delighting in the misfortune of others. I had never heard of this word until I was doing some research for my book The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned From 70 First Dates. Before this, I’d heard it described as “The Crab Theory.”

Put one crab in a five-gallon bucket and Mr. Crab will do everything in his power to scale its smooth wall and crawl out of that bucket. Put two or more crabs in a bucket and when one starts to climb up, the others will grab him and pull him back down into the bucket. Unfortunately, humans sometime exhibit the same tendencies as crabs.

In my own life, I’ve struggled mightily with envy, and I’m sorry to say that too many times, I had a decided leaning toward the crab/schadenfreude side.

And then one day, I read a story in the Christian Science Sentinel about a woman who’d spent a lifetime cultivating the habit of gratitude. She said that her mother had taught her to feel sincerely joyous and grateful for the good things that happened in other people’s lives, and to take it as a personal promise from God that, if it happened for them, it could happen for her, too.

The Buddhist have a word for this: Mudita. It’s the practice of finding joy in other people’s success and happiness.

The fact is, we’re all cracked pots and fallible and prone to foibles and missteps and mistakes and even lapses in good judgment. Who among us hasn’t lost our temper and said something we deeply regret? Who among us hasn’t surrendered to temptation when we could have done better? My point is, maybe the real need is to stop staring so hard at other people’s sins and take a better look at our own shortcomings and work on improving those.

Maybe we need to stop cultivating the habit of schadenfreude and work on mudita.

Last week, I spent countless hours bundling up the children and getting them ready for their new homes. Shipping books is a lot of work and time-intensive, and standing in line at the Milan Station (Norfolk Post Office on 38th Street) is a foretaste of hell, but…

It sure is fun to think about this book - Montgomery Ward’s Mail-Order Homes - leaving home to be enjoyed by others. Dale Patrick Wolicki and I spent five years researching and writing this book, and it’s new research on a new topic. As I’ve told my husband and my friend Dale many times, this book will still be in use as a reference work many years after we’re all gone from this earth.

If you’d like to learn more about Wardway Homes, click here.

If you’d like to give your friends and relatives the perfect Christmas present, click here.

And if you’d like to support your local library by donating a copy of Wardway Homes, click here.

Wardway books leaving home

Handsome hubby poses with the new book. Two cuties together in one photo!

Recently, I drove to Cape Charles to photograph some of the kit homes there. First off, let me say that I *LOVE* that community and if anyone would like to bequeath The Sears Lady (that’s me) a piece of property in Cape Charles, that’d be just dandy. It really is a beautiful place and I’m surprised it did not make Forbes’ “Best Places to Live” list.

Really and truly.

I’ll be expanding this post as the days go by (these picture-heavy posts take time), but here’s a few very interesting homes I found on the main drag into Cape Charles.

To read more about Sears Homes, click here:

The Aladdin Sheffield was a very popular house for Aladdin.

Here's an Aladdin Sheffield in Cape Charles, Virginia (on the Eastern Shore)

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This was one of Sears' biggest and nicest homes.

Right down the street from the Sheffield (see above) is the Sears Glenn Falls. Although it's partly obscured by the trees, you can see the familiar lines of the Glenn Falls.

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The Pheonix is one of Sears' most unusual kit homes. Interesting design and lots of fun details.

Sears Pheonix - in the flesh - in Cape Charles, Virginia

Side view of the Pheonix

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Sears Somerset

The porch has been altered, but I'd be willing to be money that this is indeed a Sears Somerset.

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Sears Walton

This "Walton" is one of two, side by side, in Cape Charles, Virginia

Yes, Sears sold barns as well as houses. These barns came in “kits” filled with pre-cut lumber, nails, roofing, doors and everything that you needed. Here’s a barn in central Illinois. The photo was taken in 2010, but it could have been shot in the 1930s. This is one of my favorite pictures.

Just out of frame is a Sears Gladstone, a fine little Sears house!

For more information on Sears Barns, look for Rebecca Hunter’s Book of Barns. Click here to buy.

Nice barn on beautiful farm

In 1975, I could be found tooling around Portsmouth in my 1959 red Cadillac Sedan de Ville. It was a great car with a four-barrel carb, dual exhausts and a powerful V-8 engine and more than 300 horsies under the hood. Or so I told people. When I shared that statistic, people would cock their head a little and look at me funny. (That has happened to me a lot in this life…)

And then I’d tell them that it was a 390-cubic inch engine which produced about 330 horsepower.

Mechanically speaking, one horsepower equals the amount of effort needed to move 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, or (in simpler terms) the ability to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute’s time. When used as a measure for electric motors, one horsepower equals about 746 watts. The term “horsepower” was coined by James Watt. He was an 18th Century genius who is credited with significant innovations to the steam engine, making it useful, affordable and practical. The historians say that Watt’s inventions and innovations transformed America from an agricultural society to an industrial society.

There’s a reason our old expressions developed the way they did. Back in the day, stage coaches often had six horsepower, with the six sinewy animals straining at the reins to pull the carriage down the dirt roads. Or, as in the case of the 1905 advertisement shown below, the most modern concrete mixers of the day had ONE horsepower.

BTW, there’s a significant problem with this advertisement. There’s no legal disclaimer at the bottom that says, “Horsie not included.”

one-horse powered cement mixer

Closer look at the one-horsepower concrete mixer

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).

Okay, so it’s from a February 1911 Ladies Home Journal, but still, it sounds so intriguing.

At first glance, I assumed that this fireproof house was 90% asbestos content, but upon reading the full article, I saw that I was wrong. It’s made of poured concrete and has lots of hollow tile, plaster (applied over metal lath), ceramic tile and block. Even the floors are poured concrete. Ater all that concrete is dried, the wooden forms are removed.

Very interesting idea for a house, and it’s nice-looking, too but good luck hanging up any pictures on the walls. Small price to pay for a fireproof house - I suppose.

A picture of the Fireproof House (from 1911 LHJ)

Teddy (Theodora Duncan Donuts) was sleeping on the leather couch, with her head on the pillow when her father (Pop) decided that she looked a little chilly. So he draped a little blanket on her.

Teddy is a Sheltie (Shetland Sheep Dog) but with an unusual amount of white on her face. Plus, her ears have never flopped over at the tips. However, her long fur coat is become thicker and longer and more luxuriant with every passing month.
Teddy is a happy girl.

I’ve told her frequently that many dogs sleep outside and live in primitive structures called Dog Houses but she just laughs out loud and trots away and chews on her squeaky lamby toy. Every now and then when we’re out for a walk, I point out dogs that are behind fences and tell her that some dogs never go out for walks. That makes her laugh, too.

One of the things I admire about Teddy is that she lives in the moment. She shows no remorse or regret for the time that she gnawed on my cell phone (and the charger), or the time she ate the stuffing out of her one of her chew toys, or the time she walked through a blackened mud puddle and then came into the house.

Dogs know how to live in the moment.

Teddy rests blissfully and dreams of the day's fun