These conveniences do definitely change the way we do things. I grew up in a household without a washer/dryer or a dishwasher. The dishwasher wasn't a big deal - we weren't a huge family, and except for special occasions my grandmother's favorite cooking too was a can opener. She'd spent most of her life running a retail business, first with my grandfather, and then by herself after he passed away in 1950. She grabbed something at the local diner a lot until she sold the business and retired.
The laundry thing was painful. It meant that we approached clothes with an older perspective - you looked at it and determined if it *needed* to be washed, instead of just tossing it in the hamper without a thought. To this day I generate about half the laundry that my spouse does because of those habits. Of course now that's good for water conservation too.
Lighting is another one. We had a freak snowstorm at the end of Oct. in the northeast, and for lots of us it involved multiple days without power. We're pretty well equipped for that, although heat was an issue, but doing things by oil lamp really limits what you want to try to do in the evenings.
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yati
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Date: 2011-11-18 01:10 pm (UTC)The laundry thing was painful. It meant that we approached clothes with an older perspective - you looked at it and determined if it *needed* to be washed, instead of just tossing it in the hamper without a thought. To this day I generate about half the laundry that my spouse does because of those habits. Of course now that's good for water conservation too.
Lighting is another one. We had a freak snowstorm at the end of Oct. in the northeast, and for lots of us it involved multiple days without power. We're pretty well equipped for that, although heat was an issue, but doing things by oil lamp really limits what you want to try to do in the evenings.