Taking the day off

to sew aprons!

In the meantime I thought you ladies might enjoy these images from my favorite time period: the 1940's...

This appears to be a plate from a catalog... these were described as "simple day dresses."

Here is another plate- from a magazine this time, and ever so much more fashionable.

My personal favorite: the housedress, or some preferred to call them "homedresses."

Sometimes all you can say is... ooooh my....

Little girls' dresses with the ever-so-appropriately named "sweetheart neckline."

And just to show that some things never change; a "fashion revue" of homemade dresses. Personally, I feel a certain affinity with the girl in the center in the blue skirt... just her luck to get positioned next to the girl in pink with the perfect shoes.

A bit about Grace

Grace Livingston Hill wrote more books than I can keep track of. Mostly just light reading; stories of young girls finding their way and that sort of thing. Usually there are one or two wicked characters the reader finds great glee in despising, which is always very satisfying. Usually someone finds a bit of romance and love; always someone finds God.

Now, I'm not in the practice of doing a lot of light reading, and I generally don't care for anything resembling "romance novels," but I do love me some Grace Livingston Hill. She was the daughter of a pastor and came to her strong faith early in life. Widowed as a young mother, she was later deserted by her second husband... a dear son died at the age of one. Although her writings are never dark as her life sometimes was, the reader can sense that these stories were created by someone deeply grounded. Underneath the romance, the humor, the tales of domestic glories, Grace's character shines through. As you go merrily reading along, you occasionally stumble across a nugget, a paragraph or two of timeless wisdom disguised as early twentieth century dialog.

After sobbing for some minutes she at last got quiet enough to bring her heart to a little pitiful prayer, remembering her father's words during those last days when he knew he was going to leave her:

"Don't ever forget," he had said, "that nothing is too small to bring to God in prayer. No trouble is too small for Him to notice, and to give you comfort when you are distressed. Just get in the habit of bringing everything to Him. Say, 'Lord, here's something I can't do anything about. I'm afraid of what it is going to be, so won't You please take it, manage it, and bring it out the way You want it to be'!"

She had remembered that many times in lesser situations than this and it had comforted her to pray. It seemed to take out of her that burning desire to rush at those who had caused her trouble and demolish them, tear them limb from limb. It seemed to bring calm in the midst of the tempest in her heart.

So, after a little she was able to lay the whole matter before her Lord and ask for guidance.*




*excerpted from Astra by Grace Livingston Hill

Three's company

So, the other day I came downstairs to find Louisa snoozin' on the couch...

It looks mighty cozy in there.

Consider the ant

Last week the food pick-up yielded a vast array of mushrooms: shitake, maitake, cremini, oyster, enoki. Most of them we had never heard of before and we weren't quite sure what to do with our bounty. Although I enjoy mushrooms, the children aren't quite so fond of them... which (as all you mamas know) means they pick any mushroom pieces larger than a pea out from their food.


We do eat lots of casseroles though, many of which call for the ubiquitous canned condensed cream of mushroom soup. I prefer to do without such processed foods for both health and economic reasons, but often the dish just isn't quite right without that creamy mushroomy addition. In her search for some means to use up our mushrooms, Louisa came across this recipe. We made an immense batch substituting heavy cream for the evaporated milk just out of personal preference, and it appears to be a real winner. The texture is right. The flavor is delightful and even using the finest and freshest ingredients it's a money saver over Campbell's.... especially when you get the mushrooms free of charge. Yeah, big advantage that. According to the recipe, it freezes well- so I packaged it up in can-sized portions for easy use with my recipes and into the freezer it went. And in a few weeks' time we'll find out if the deep freeze affects the flavor or texture. At any rate my tuna-noodle casserole will never be quite the same again.

Ants are creatures of little strength,

yet they store up their food in the summer
Proverbs 30:25

Now don't laugh, girls

But I had an idea....


Now, several years ago, Jennie Chancey at Ladies Against Feminism began something called "Through the Week in Feminine Dress." Here's an excerpt from her blog post where she describes how this came about:
Ladies ask me all the time if I "dress up" every day of the week. Finally, one young women issued a challenge: "Have a family member follow you around for one week, taking pictures as you go about your normal routine. We want to see what you wear!" Well, I felt a little funny, but I took up the challenge. I just want to encourage women in dressing femininely. Why should we wait for "special" occasions to dress beautifully? Every single day we are alive and draw breath is special! Our families deserve our "dressing up" more than anyone else, since they see us day-in and day-out, don't they? So here are some highlights from a week in my life. There's no way to show you every little thing done during each day, so I've just picked the "big" chores or projects for each day and shared photographs of what I'm wearing (particularly all my different aprons, since those are indispensable!). I hope this page is an encouragement; that's the main reason it is here. Our foremothers settled this land, built houses, planted gardens and tended animals in long skirts and beautiful dresses. Even their aprons were wonderful to behold! Surely in our day of microwaves, washing machines and vacuum cleaners, we can do our chores with as much feminine flair as they. Personally, I feel it is uplifting to the spirit to go through each day in womanly attire. Let's dignify our work by dressing appropriately and beautifully for it!

Since then many of us ladies have enjoyed journalling our clothing choices in this special way from time to time. Occasionally a theme is chosen such as WiFD for summer, winter, fall or spring. I have also seen gals do WiFD highlighting ways to incorporate outerwear into a feminine dress style or others showing off beautiful historical and vintage dresses. I've enjoyed participating in many of these, and have even posted a WiFD here on my blog.

Anyway, on to my idea! I was thinking it would be fun to have a WiFD here at Tomato Soup Cake, with a special focus on aprons. Every day I'll post a picture of myself in feminine dress with the addition of an (inherently feminine) apron... and you gals can join me if you want. In fact I hope you will! I was thinking some week in the early fall. Now, the aim here isn't showing off your huge and gorgeous apron collection (as fun as that might be to some of us who shall remain nameless.) Instead, let's focus on incorporating our aprons into daily wear and actually using them. Let's encourage each other to become more comfortable wearing these practical and lovely garments. Sound interesting?

Kids and kittens

Next Thursday the kittens will be eight weeks old.

Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

Soon they'll be joining their new families. Hopefully. You see, we don't have any firm takers on them as yet. Lots of nibbles, lots of inquiries, oodles of "Ooooh, I wish I could take one!" It seems everyone already has enough pets or too many pets or not enough room.

Hey you!

You right there behind the computer screen.. yes, you!

You look like a nice person. Would you like a kitten?
I'll deliver... oh yes, I will. (except to Australia.)

In the meantime the kids are getting in all the kitten cuddles they can. At any available opportunity. Yep it's all snuggles, all day around here.

I don't know... maybe it's just me,

but do these expressions seem to say say "all cuddled out" to you?

Pictures of pitchers

None of them were purchased new, some of them have cracks or scratches. Most of them have scuffed and grubby spots that just won't come clean... but sure I do like 'em. And I use each and every one of them on a regular basis.


The plaid thermos isn't officially a pitcher I suppose, but it has it's original glass liner perfectly intact. I use it for my coffee when we go to the park on cool fall days. The stripes on the clear glass pitcher are just the right shades to use with my old melamine dishes. The little yellow crockery jug was one of my first thrift store purchases ever. And I got the big blue glass pitcher at the Goodwill. Two ladies followed me all around the store until I finally checked out... one of them even asked me if I was sure I wanted it. Yup, I was sure.



I use this gold rooster pitcher for our morning orange juice. It was in a box by the side of the road waiting for the trash pick-up along with this dear little custard cup. The two souvenir pitchers I occasionally use for different kinds of flavored creamers. When I purchased it, the Vermont one was filled with maple syrup with the original cork still stuck tight in the opening. I couldn't bear the thought of spoiled decades-old maple syrup decaying away in one of my pitchers so I dug and pulled and scratched away until I had that cork free. I was then able to clean the pitcher out thoroughly, but in the process I shattered its fragile neck. I wish I hadn'ta done that.



When I was in college I worked summers at an exclusive little eatery-gift shop establishment. Cream was served in various assorted old restaurantware miniatures. I fell in love with these particular ones, so the proprietress gifted them to me on my last day of work. She said no one else would appreciate them as much as I... and I do think she was right.


The little peachy pitcher is a lone remnant from one of Louisa's toy dish sets. The green pitcher is the perfect size to serve milk to a couple of children, or even for various types of sauces. I love it for its oval shape and its green-ness. That squat little brown crackled pitcher is very old. It's handpainted and perfectly free of any type of flaw. It was keeping company with the rooster pitcher and the custard cup in that trash box by the side of the road. Amazing what people will throw out, isn't it?

Seen today

Whoso trusteth in the Lord,

happy is she.

Proverbs 16:20

Rescue mission

The other morning while I was enjoying a quiet cup of coffee, a little moth fluttered in through the open French doors. She explored her way around the den, and the kitchen. Then, having had quite enough of the adventuring life, she made her way for the familiarity of the sunlight. Unfortunately, there was something coming between her and freedom. She wandered round and round on the glass...


then flitted over to the screen where she could sense the cool breeze. She lay herself across the netting; her feet feeling tentatively for some way through to the other side.

The girls took pity on poor Miss Moth and gently placed her in a paper covered bowl,

which they swiftly brought outside.

But the ever curious little miss wasn't quite ready to give up her exploring ways.

She tasted the friendly fingertips with her long curly tongue.

She couldn't resist showing off her summer finery.

Though she was free to go, she lingered...

and lingered. She stayed close by all through the morning hours, fluttering around the deck and landing on the windows. Finally, around noontime we noticed that she was gone.

Noah insists that he saw her later that day in the woods.. apparently he recognized her flutter.

Joyful jaywalking

It's such a pleasure walking on the roads around my parents' house. And quite a change from the narrow busy streets and racing cars of our town. In our town, safe walking rules are a must, but out here... not so much. Out here we were passed by two (we counted) cars during the entire outing. Slow moving cars which gave us a very wide and careful berth, I might add. We didn't need to worry about safety rules. We could just relax. Amelia had a hard time getting used to that.

"You guys are on the wrong side of the road, you do know that, right?"

"OK, fine, but you guys are probably gonna get killed... by a car... or something."

(Note, click on this picture to get the full benefit of my dear daughter's scathing facial expression. Go ahead, it's worth it. I promise.)

Amelia walked on the correct side of the road. Oh yes she did. For a while. But there is something irresistible about walking smack dab down the middle of the road...

just cuz you can.