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!

Yesterday, my husband and I did a field trip to Richmond to look for Sears Homes. I knew there were several in Colonial Heights and only three in Petersburg, but I’d never really scouted out Richmond - until July 5th 2010.

People often ask me how I find these houses. The answer: Lots of practice. Years ago, I specifically worked on memorizing hundreds of housing designs offered by Sears, Aladdin (another kit home company), Montgomery Ward, Gordon Van Tine and more. Now I can drive the streets and find the houses that match these early 20th Century designs. It’s a whole lot of fun.

Here were my best finds from our search in Richmond.  All these houses were found within the city limits of Richmond, Virginia. If you know of any kit homes in Richmond, please send me the address.

BTW, if you like what you see, please email this link to a friend.

Read about The Sears Homes in Hampton Roads here.

Sears Strathmore, from the 1936 Sears Modern Homes catalog

Here's a Strathmore - in perfect condition - in Richmond

Catalog Image of Sears Modern Home #190

Sears Modern Home #190.

This is not a Sears Home, but a house sold by another kit home company, Harris Brothers.

Close-up of the Harris Brothers kit home J-181

And here it is, in living color. Nice match, too.

Sears Avalon

Sears Avalon in Richmond, in beautifully original condition

Sears Westly

Sears Westly on Fauquier Avenue in Richmond

One of my favorite Sears kit homes is the Sears Dover. This little neo-Tudor is adorable, thoughtfully designed, well-laid out, relatively spacious and just as cute as a button. On the back of the house is a large shed dormer, creating plenty of room on the second floor for an additional two bedrooms and a full bath, giving the house a total of four bedrooms, two baths, large living room, dining room and kitchen.

For the late 1920s/early 30s, that was a good-size house.

Here’s a cutie-pie in Champaign, Illinois. This particular catalog page does not show price, but generally the Dover sold for under $3000. Pretty good deal.

This photo (and the one below) was taken in late February 2010, when I visited my daughter and her family.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

The Sears Dover as shown in the 1936 catalog

The Sears Dover in Champaign, IL

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Pictured below is another beautiful Sears Home, The Americus. This house is in Urbana, Illinois. So I guess we’d call it, a fine little Sears House on an Urbana budget?

Sears Modern Home, The Americus

The Sears Americus in Urbana.

To see more pictures of Sears Homes, click here.

After years of hard work, Dale Patrick Wolicki and I are finishing up our book on Wardway Homes. Yes, Montgomery Ward sold kit homes through mail order, and heretofore, there’s been a dearth of information on this topic.

The story of Wardway Homes is quite intriguing but digging up the documents and the details on this topic has been challenging. For many years, Dale has been collecting catalogs, clippings, magazine articles and ephemera on Wardway Homes and without him, this book never would have been written.

Look for “The Mail-order Homes of Montgomery Ward” to appear sometime in late June or early July 2010. It’ll be a dandy book, heavy laden with awesome photographs and vintage images from their early 20th Century catalogs.

Sounds so good I can hardly wait to read it myself!

Pretty little Wardway Home in Brighton, Illinois

A fine looking Wardway Newport in Alton, IL

A Wardway Home in northern Illinois

Part of the dating process is learning a lot about someone in a short span of time. And one of the best ways to do that is to ask for directions to your first date site.

The landmarks people use will usually tell you something about where their true interests lie.

I first noticed this years ago when I asked a chubby elder gent for directions to a church.

“As you’re headed down Main Street,” he told me, “you’ll pass a large donut shop with a big pink sign. Keep going. When you get to Brown Street, there’s a little pastry shop on the corner. Turn right. Go a little further and you’ll see Benny’s Bakery and the church is right beyond that.”

I’ve tried this many times and it’s always a winner. Some men use taverns as landmarks, a few use churches and my favorite was the fellow who mentioned a topless bar and a triple-x bookstore as his two points of reference.

It’s a fun way to learn quickly what landmarks people are paying attention to!

Back in the day, Ladies Home Journal magazine really was about women and housing. Today, it’s more about high-fat cake recipes and low-fat diets, but that’s another story…

In the first decade of the new century, Ladies’ Home Journal consistently featured a majority of articles centered on homeownership. The February 1911 issue was devoted to the new housing style:  Bungalows. One headline said,  “The Bungalow, because of its easy housekeeping possibilities is becoming more popular every year and bungalows show what can be done with a little money wisely spent.” The same issue featured these articles:

When you build a little house (common mistakes to avoid)

How I built this house for $700

The Bungalow - from $250 - $2500

What I did with an old farmhouse

Two houses built for less than $1500

What can be done with old houses

A fireproof house for less than $4000

If a woman must earn her living at home (A house planned by a woman to meet this need.)

It seems as though that the ladies were ahead of the men on this bungalow thing. Whilst Ladies Home Journal was promoting bungalows, American Carpenter and Builder described them as “tiresome.”

Craftsman houses and odd bungalows will have their day. People may like them now, but it is an extreme type and will become tiresome in course of time. The uncompromising squareness in the craftsman style, with its small wall space does not permit of much artistic decoration (June 1913).

Within the pages of the 1920s LHJ, I was delighted to discover this advertisement for a catalog of mail-order kit homes. The next picture below features a real, live GVT #633 in Roanoke, Virginia.

Advertisement in LHJ for Gordon Van Tine/Wardway Homes

Wardway Home in Roanoke, VA