No kidding, my mother-in-law has home and garden magazines from 1984. The woman is a veritable human archive of Woman’s Day and Better Homes and Garden magazines. Now, I won’t lie to you. I was old the moment I came out of the womb and can give any old biddy a run for her money. And so it is that I have always loved these same kinds of Suzy-Homemaker magazines, but I always thought that I was the one in control. Oh how I would laugh at my mother-in-laws stacks of magazines that she couldn’t part with, priding myself on only tearing out the articles and how-tos that suited my 21-year old yearnings. Leafing through these motherly time-capsules was always one of my favorite ways to pass the time while visiting NJ. I could spend hours sitting around and giggling at these 20 year old headlines: Color Yourself Beautiful! Absolute Knockout Afgans & Quilts You Can Make! Look Rich Even if You’re Not!And the pièce de résistance: Healthy Food Booklet Inside! (while the cover shows a 4-tier chocolate cake).
It has come to pass, I’m guessing somewhere in that first year of homeownership, that I have begun to take on my own personal magazine archive project. Just now, as I sat in the anti-sunroom to relax getting my mind off of work and onto more important things (nickle plated lighting pendants or brushednickle?) I noticed that not only have I begun began to notice that I amassed a respectable magazine collection, I’ve begun to hide my little glossy treasures in various places… three or four piles under the coffee table, a handful in my bathroom, a stack in Sean’s, 10 or so in seagrass baskets, shuffled in with the cookbooks in the basement, two or three on the guest room nightstand, and an undisclosed number under my own night-table.
Where it’s one thing to admit that you’ve changed, it’s quite another to admit you changed into something you used to point and laugh at.But, because I am no stranger to irony, here are some headlines from no less than 13 of the magazines I found milling around my coffee table:
A first taste of spring
Fireup the grill for dinner
POWER SALADS: 6 ways to fuel your day
Make it pretty… and keep it practical
Feather your nest
Knobs, pulls, and handles for every budget
Fight the demon crabgrass and win!
Dreamy rooms
Easy outdoor decorating
Martha’s mom’s recipes
Wake up to oranges!
Get the most from your food
Spring clean your life!
Filed under: I knows hows to cooks, I live with the Griswolds, No one cares what you had for lunch, Pop culture
I suppose it says something about the way I live that “Wake up to oranges!” conjured images of being pummeled by them-in a joyous, ebullient, way, of course.
Ahaha! Oh that was the best laugh I had all day!