How To Find Contentment At Home

I think that the key to contentment at home is to always remember that what you are doing as a wife, mother and homemaker is important. Woman's work is just as important as that of a man. God created us as male and female for a reason, so that we would complete each other. Both man and woman have their own roles to play. Isn't it strange that so-called advocates for women have such unmerited contempt for all things traditionally female? It just doesn't make sense.

I'd like to say that it's OK to be a woman and to have womanly interests. Men and women are different, and to try to erase this difference is to rebel against God and Nature. This whole modern liberal crusade against the laws of biology and common sense is ridiculous, to say the least. I just keep wondering that normal people fell for this nonsense, no doubt under the influence of that magic word, choice.

For too long a time, women were supposed to live according to the traditional standards reserved for men. Woman's life got measured by her achievements in the working world, not in her family. She was lauded for having a good career, not a good marriage, well-bred children and peaceful home life. The traditional female hobbies and interests were (and are) denigrated. I'd say, enough is enough. Why should women be ashamed of themselves? Why should everybody be the same? Long live sexual dimorphism:)

It didn't start now, of course. If you ever watched I Love Lucy, you'll remember that Lucy was jealous of her husband's professional success, and did many stupid things which often put his career in jeopardy, to draw attention to herself. I could never understand the mindset of a woman jealous of her husband's career, but it was probably typical for many women of her generation who wouldn't work themselves but raised their daughters to be feminists.

Those who argue against feminism will often point out that the working world is not so glamorous as one thinks, and staying home is a much better option. They are right, but only to a degree. Many women fail to find satisfaction in the working world, not because of the lack of glamour, but simply because they are women and being such, value different things than men. It's not for nothing that when women entered the professions en masse they started lobbying for changes such as flexible working hours.

Feminists can shout from the rooftops about progress they have achieved in feminising various industries but if the working place becomes too feminised, men will simply leave it and move somewhere else. It's not because they are "afraid of strong independent women", but simply because they have different interests and ideas. It's time we as society admitted it, but it probably won't happen in the near future. Anyway, only the dead fish goes with the current. We can start changing the society now by simply admitting the fact of the difference of the sexes and acting accordingly.

It's OK to be a woman. It's not shameful to wear pretty dresses and like frilly things. It's not unnatural to choose motherhood over career. It's not wrong to have more interest in knitting patterns than in automatic rifles. Don't compare yourself to men. Don't think in terms of: "I could have made a better career than John." Think instead: "How could I make my home prettier than the neighbour's?"

I'd like to end with this quote from "Fascinating Womanhood" by Helen Andelin: "The feminine woman is naturally oriented to her womanhood. She is proud to be a woman and happy to fill her destiny as a wife and mother, anxious to make a happy home for her loved ones. Her career is a career in the home. Her occupation is to live her daily life. Her glory is the esteem of her husband and the happiness of her children." (p.247, Bantam Books, 1992).

Some Interesting Facts About Mozart

 Did you know that Mozart had been a Freemason?

I must say right away that I'm not a specialist on Mozart:) I base my information on a Wiki article about one of his operas, Die Zauberfleute (The Magic Flute), which premiered in September 1791 in Vienna, a couple of months before the composer's death and was a great success.

According to Wikipedia, the opera has prominent Masonic elements and was heavily influenced by the Enlightenment philosophy.  According to some researchers, the wicked Queen of the Night symbolises the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, who was anti-Masonic.

The Queen of the Night deceives a young handsome prince called Tamino telling him that the evil king Sarastro  abducted her daughter, instructs him to rescue her and gives him a magic flute. However, Sarastro is not at all evil, he is an enlightened sovereign who rules according to reason. Sarastro refuses to return the girl to her mother due to the latter's bad influence, but he informs Tamino that he can win the princess if he undergoes the trials which will make him enlightened, too.

In the end, the Queen of the Night and her servants are cast into the eternal night, the lovers come together, and after giving thanks to the heathen gods Isis an Osiris, everybody enters the new era of brotherhood (and presumably, equality and liberty:) And people nowadays complain about Harry Potter:)

Anyway, the music is amazingly beautiful. In the clip you can see the wicked queen inciting her daughter to murder Sarastro.



If you want to know more about the topic, click on the link above.

Breakfast Ideas

Breakfasts in our household are rather simple. Mostly it's Scandinavian crisp bread/toast with butter and jam and a cup of milk, or some cereal; sometimes it can be croissants with hot chocolate, and, of course, fruit. Today I decided to bake waffles.

If you don't have a waffle iron, may be you should consider investing in one, as waffles always make for a good breakfast!:) Well, at least they do in my house...

I have tried many recipes, but decided to go for a basic one today. It's easy to adjust for any number of people. For 1c of flour you will need to add 1tsp of baking powder, salt to taste, 2tbsp of sugar, about 30g butter, 1 egg and about 4/5c of milk (adjust the amount of milk to achieve a liquid batter which is not too thin). Butter needs to be melted before adding. This will be enough for 4 big waffles (such as those shown in the picture).

You can serve them with butter and powder sugar like I did or with anything you like. They are best served warm when they are still crispy, if they cool off they become too soft, but you can warm them up in the toaster. If you have any favourite breakfast ideas or recipes, feel free to share!

Meanwhile On The Home Front...

No, I have not disappeared! I just ran out of ideas (temporarily:), plus there were some other things I had to attend to. Life can be hectic sometimes, can't it? We have rather strange weather over here, one day it's warm and looks and feels like summer, and then the wind changes and we have winter again. This has been so far the coldest spring since 1962...

When it's warm and sunny I have more energy and try to do more around the house, but also spend some time sitting outside and just reading a book or knitting. I had a total lack of motivation to work on a sleeveless summery tunic when the temperatures outside were close to the freezing point (OK, it was only +9*C which is still very cold for May around here), but yesterday I picked up my knitting again and made some progress. In fact, the back of the tunic is nearly finished, I just need a couple more hours. Here it is:

It may look rather boring to you, but on the front side the tunic will have some colourful squares. In fact, it's supposed to look like this:

I bought a dress to wear with it at the market (not so short as in the picture:), though considering our weather I should have probably better started working on a thick winter sweater:) What weather are you all having?

PS. Please pray for my neighbour. He is very sick and has a dependent wife and three children.

What Can Traditional Women Do To Change Things For The Better?

Someone asked me a question: "But what can we do? How do we improve the situation around us? How do we return to the traditional way of life?" This made me thinking. Indeed, what is to be done? Many alternative blogs seem to promote doom and gloom, and even in the church the attitude seems to be, "why polishing the brass on a sinking ship?"

I don't believe the situation is so hopeless as they present it. The darkest hour is the one comes just before the dawn, the old proverb says. You can bend society only so far, before the pendulum swings the other way. What passes for modern liberalism is built on lies, and the lies can only bring you so far. In the end, truth always triumphs.

So what can a simple housewife do to change things for the better? While I believe that open political action is more suited for men (though there are exceptions, of course), a woman has a soft, feminine power which is just as much important.

The housewife's power lies in her home and her children. The handle that rocks the cradle, and all that. Americans are very lucky in this respect as they have the possibility to homeschool their children. However, even if your child goes to shool, he still will spend the considerable amount of time with his parents, and if his mother stays home, with her. Never underestimate the power of indoctrination:)

Unfortunately, with a TV set in every household (and nowadays it's often more than one), the good influence of parents can get totally counteracted. I believe the other side would never have made such progress without the influence of the TV. Even if the program is good, it will be completely ruined by some stupid advertisement. Kill the darn thing. TV is for those who can't read:) Constant watching of the TV makes your IQ one standard deviation lower.

Another strategy is to substitute modern liberal entertainment with old-fashioned traditional one. That's why I keep posting links to the old films available on YouTube. While those movies are not all of them works of art, they were not made according to the standards of political correctness and promote the traditional values. Especially concerning the male-female interaction. There are also still some nice new films made which are worth watching. In short, a DVD-player and YouTube are good substitutes for the TV.

Another way to influence others is by the way we dress. Nowadays we have grown women dressing and behaving like teenagers. I'm sorry, but a t-shirt with a slogan, "I'm cute", written in glittery letters on a 50-year-old looks ridiculous. While I'm not that big on the whole "sexy" concept, at least in young girls it's understandable. They are trying to find a man. Why would a married woman and a mother want to look like this?

The other extremity is wearing boring unisex clothes and styles. I believe we as women are the queens of our castles and should dress and behave accordingly.

Masculinity is under attack as well, so it's very important to treat your husband with outward respect and defer to him as the head of the family, especially in the company of others. Poor guys nowadays are confused as to what women really want, seeing that MSM tells them one thing, while the common sense says something totally different. The wife is meant to be her husband's helpmeet and assist him in his daily struggles, not to hinder him. Others will notice how you treat your husband. Our world is success-oriented. There is no better way to promote traditional family, than to have a harmonious household, instead of a dysfunctional one.

I also believe that we should try and support other ladies who are homemakers and encourage those who want to be one. It's not a secret that it's often other women who will give you a hard time over the decision to quit working. Many housewives experience mild forms of harrassment, often from their own families, they feel isolated and undervalued. If you know someone like this, invite her to tea and give her encouragement.

That leads me to my next point. I think it's a good idea to create traditionalist networks, that is, to try and connect the like-minded families in the area. They can offer support to each other in more than one way, including financially, for instance, by providing employment.

More on the financial aspect, I believe we should put our money where our mouth is. People complain about outsourcing of jobs but will buy the cheap Chinese stuff. Of course, sometimes you have no choice, or may be no money, but if you do, why not trying to buy locally produced stuff? For instance, last year I was searching for a new washing machine. I could buy one produced in Korea, which was also a hundred euros cheaper but went for Bosch produced in Germany because I believe in supporting our own. I want European men to have jobs so that they can feed their families.

Another problem of modern times is consumerism, which often leads to debt, and debt is little better than slavery. It must be quite surprising to my American readers, but among our circle of acquaintances, we are the only ones in possession of a credit card, which we use but seldom. Why not paying cash and reducing your consumption? We all tend to buy too much stuff which we don't need.

Well, it's getting rather long, so I'd better stop. If you have any more ideas, feel free to share.

The Day Of The Triffids

Today I watched a 1962 British film "The Day Of The Triffids" based on a 1961 novel with the same name, by John Wyndham. "The Day Of The Triffids" happens to be one of my father's favourite books, and is well worth reading.

 The story goes as follows: one day nearly all the population of planet Earth goes blind after having watched a spectacular meteor shower the day before. The resulting crash of the civilisation is made worse by the confrontation with three meter tall man-eating plants called triffids which can walk and think. The main character William Masen who kept his eyesight by a lucky chance and some others are trying to survive and rebuild the lost civilisation.

The 1962 film bears but a slight resemblance to the original book as it changes all the significant details about the characters and the relationship between them, and the story line itself. For instance, in the film the main character is a sea captain who at first knows little about triffids. Triffids are seen as innocent plants which were brought to Earth by a meteorite. In the book, triffids' origin is obscure, but they are supposed to be experimental plants created in the laboratory. Men use them for industrial purposes but are well aware that the plants can be dangerous. William Masen has worked with triffids and knows all about them etc.

My father tells me there was a much more detailed BBC series from 1982 and recently they made a new adaptation which was on TV over here. I stopped watching right after I saw a woman who was large, in charge and barking orders to men.

Though the 1962 version is very different from the book, I still liked it exactly because you don't see such sort of things in the old film. In 1962 adaptation, women who encounter the walking monster plants scream and panic, while men fight valiantly and slay the dragon that is, the triffid. In the end, it's a man who discovers how to destroy them.

The film tells two parallel stories, one about the sea captain who travels through Europe with a little girl he saved in England trying to find some vestiges of civilisation, the other about  an alcoholic scientist living on a small isolated island with his wife who is forced to grow up and assume the responsibility when the couple's survival is at stake.

Unlike similar modern movies, it doesn't concentrate on blood and gore but more on the relationships between the characters and in a quite politically incorrect manner, shows that in the absense of civilisation women need men to survive. Another message of the film is that you must never surrender, but always fight to the last because there is always hope. In the end, the survivors go to church to offer thanks for their nearly miraculous rescue. To sum it up, though not a masterpiece, it's a nice film!

Watch it on YouTube: The Day Of The Triffids 1962

Summer 2013 Decoration Trends

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that some magazines seem to specialise in publishing articles which denigrate housewives. Luckily, this trend started reversing and nowadays there are also some ladies'magazines which promote domesticity, especially the German ones. That's why every time I go there on vacation I can't help buying a whole lot of them, like this:

So today I\d like to tell you about the new interior decoration trends for 2013 according to Lisa Wohnen. For instance, all those who have cats will probably like this original idea for the cat toilet:

It's a DIY project which you build yourself and just place above the normal litter box. Isn't it cute?

The colour of the year is emerald green:

Another trend is flowers:

The magazine had a remodelling project for the bedroom after seeing which I decided to change a couple of things in our master bedroom, too. Since wicker furniture is also one of the trends, I substituted this boring plastic chair

with the one from the attic and I also bought new trendy cushions for it, like this:

Don't you all agree it looks much better? I also bought a couple of ornaments to hang above the bed, so that the wall 'doesn't look so bare any more:

Now I'm planning to paint the two closets we have in our bedroom a different shade of gray and to buy a high side table instead of a very low one, and the new look will be complete:) When I'm finished I'll post the pictures, so stay tuned!

That's Why I Like Them, Too.

The readers of this blog have probably noticed that I often post links to retro movies on You Tube. I will freely admit that I prefer old movies to those recently made, though, of course, now and then I watch new films as well, mostly if I hear from someone that they are worth seeing. It appears that I'm not the only one.

Thinking Housewife recently had posted a letter   from one of her commenters about classic movies. He does a great job explaining what exactly is so special about them. Here is an excerpt:

"In such motion pictures, you will see no adolescent-witted people, feminoids, or boy-men.  You will see no women in pants. You will see no one in blue jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps.  You will see grown-ups acting and speaking as grown men and women ought to act and speak – and once did, in life as well as in motion pictures. They do not crash automobiles, blow up buildings, launch revolutions, or perpetrate mass murder. Instead, they talk. But they do not talk the way cool people talk. Their speech is disciplined and measured. They do not stoop to profanity or the kind of smarmy, smart-aleck wisecracking without which Modernists would cease to exist. They speak beautifully and effectively, in complete sentences, with precision and restraint. There are segments of extended dialogue."

I'd add to this that old films also were based on traditional morality and evil was never allowed to triumph in the end.  Men and women were shown as complimentary to each other and the traditional feminine role was respected, not denigrated. Men were tough and in charge, and positive characters of both sexes were expected to behave honourably. Not all vintage movies were masterpieces but they all shared some standard of decency which can't be said about the entertainment of today.

Somewhat off topic, I really wanted to write about it yesterday, but the events in England  left me totally speechless. The worst thing about this whole gruesome attack was, imo, the fact that no one tried to stop the attackers. Not one person interfered except, as I heard, one lady who saw the lifeless body and tried to help. It's mind-blowing.

Well, I don't want to make this blog too negative, so I'll leave the discussion of what's going on in France for another time. I wish you well, dear readers:)

I'm Back!

We just came back from our short vacation. We have been to Germany for the Pentecost weekend and despite the weather we still had a great time! Actually, it wasn't that bad, and on Saturday and the first half of Sunday it was even quite warm (at least, +16*C feels really warm after +8*C the day before:). However, all the good things come to an end, and so did this long weekend.

Here are some pictures my husband took:

Some old houses:

A castle on the hill:

Yours truly (for the newcomers, I'm the one with long hair with a white sweater on my shoulders in the left corner:)

 Flowers on a rock:

The view from the mountain:

A rustic corner:

I thought this song would go nicely with the pictures:




I hope you all had a nice weekend!