Remember The Old Days?

I was up early today in the hopes of catching some cool and spreading it throughout my house.  I've been running in the 80's inside, so hitting my fan button and capturing some cool has been a morning habit.  THIS morning however, it's already 75 degrees.  With a projected 104 for the next three days, I'm in conservative mode.

Remember the old days when all you had was a swamp cooler?  It worked pretty good at the ranch, even better if you remembered to turn the water on.  Talk about a breeding ground for mosquitos!!  The only thing that saved us was the eucalyptus trees covering the house and barn areas.  Mosquitos don't like the smell of eucalyptus.  That of course was before they began spraying for mosquitos almost on a daily basis during irrigation season.

We kept an old gunny sack ... another thing that has disappeared over the years ... hanging over the top.  It was my job to run outside and wet it down with the garden hose.

Remember when you had to go to a book store to buy a book?  Now I just pick up my phone and either download to my Kindle App or order it on-line and have it delivered to the house.  That has made most book stores go out of business, so there's no walking around looking for something interesting to read.  Preston and Child are my favorite who-done-it authors.  I think I've read just about every book they have ever written.  

The problem with book reading is I get too fascinated by the story and can't put it down.  I read the entire book in one day.  At least with quilting, I get tired of sewing and can leave it alone for awhile, thus keeping my wallet more intact.  

Same goes for quilting in the old days.  We used to hitch up the horse and wagon ... ok, not really.  We hiked three miles through snow ten feet deep .... ok, that's not true either, but we did go to the Woolworths store to find fabric.  

Nowadays you can just go online with your phone or computer and have it delivered right to your door.  You don't even have to leave your house.  Pretty amazing really.

Remember the old days when you turned the lights out so your PGE bill wouldn't be so high?  My lights barely reflect on the bill since they are all LEDs that last forever.  Pretty soon I won't remember how to change a light bulb.

Remember the old days when you just got the bill and paid it?  No one ever compared you to anyone else, in an attempt to make you feel bad or change out your light bulbs for something that cost ten times more.  Now however, I am compared to everyone else ... 1000 houses to be exact, which I'm sure is half this county.

I've always been GREAT, using 5% less than everyone else.  Look NOW!!  I used 59% MORE than efficient homes.  How could that possibly be?  This is May 15 to June 15 when it wasn't even that hot.  It was also interesting to see that I got a note saying I've used 6% LESS than I did this month last year.  Something tells me there's a rat in the woodpile.  I long for the old days when you were not compared to anyone.

Just as I finished up that last book .... and ordered another .... I decided to tap into my recipe manager, where else but on my phone.  Remember the old days when you purchased recipe books?  I have two 6' wide bookshelves completely stuffed with recipe books, in the hopes they would make me a better cook.  Obviously that didn't work out so well, so I downloaded Paprika to my phone.

It's simple.  Just talk to your phone (I don't remember talking to the telephone in the old days) and voila!  Instant recipes pop up.  Not that it helped my cooking, but I had dozens of my all time favorites right there on my phone, saved by this app called Paprika.  I could pull up a cookie recipe no matter where I was.

Wasn't I shocked yesterday when it told me this app no longer worked with my phone.  WHAT?  Wait ... where are all my favorite recipes?  It wouldn't even open.  I tried downloading the newest version, to no avail.  All of my old recipes are off in la-la land, never to be seen again.  The pitfalls of the new age.

In the old days, they would have still been in the book, even if it took me 30 minutes to find it.  Big sigh!!

In the old days, who would have ever imagined we wouldn't need recipe books, or any paper book for that matter, that we would just be grabbing recipes from the air?  It's sad that some day no one will read my recipe notes or my grandmother's notes on her favorite recipes.  

Do you ever wonder what crazy inventions your grandchildren will see?  Hopefully they will remember the OLD DAYS when we walked five miles to school in the snow and rain or if we were lucky, got to ride our horses.  Phones will probably be tiny devices they stick in their ears while sitting in the car that drives itself.  No longer will they experience the euphoria of finding that perfect recipe or that perfect new purse because they will just think about it and it will appear at their door.

I'm glad I can still remember the old days!!