Are You Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans? Part 3 Of A 3 Part Series

By Miriam B. Medina

In part 1 and 2 of this 3 part series, we examined the 7 universal emotions that we all share, and the effect that boredom can have on our lives. Many of us learn as children, that we cannot find happiness on our own. We have to keep up with the Jones', get the newest, best phone or toy, or change careers once a year in pursuit of that ever elusive happiness. But the fact is, terminal boredom is a state of mind, one that we can break. We can find true internal happiness, if we work at it and change behaviors that are not healthy. We can develop a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) and break out of the boring rut we always find ourselves in. In this, the final piece of this 3 part series, we will find out what to look for so we can fix it, and how to defeat boredom once and for all.
Now let's move on to the next part of the problem, before you get bored with this article. In this section, I will express ways that we can beat boredom and sluggishness, but before we can do that, we need to take an honest look at our lifestyle to see what may be causing you to "Feel As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans".
Boredom is very similar to Mental Fatigue, which is a feeling of Weariness. When you're tired, your outlook on life is dismal. Everything you do requires effort, because you are moving in slow motion. It's like you're always mired in quicksand. Let's examine some of the reasons that lead to Fatigue.
FATIGUE
A) Insomnia:
If you are "Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans", it could be because you are not getting enough sleep. Insomnia has an effect on your physical, mental and emotional well-being. If you don't sleep enough, that causes fatigue. This could be caused by work stress, relationship problems, or even a bad bed. If you are stressed out or anxious, insomnia will make matters worse. People who suffer from insomnia are often irritable and make other people irritable. When you sleep better, you'll work better, feel sharper, and be more creative, this will improve your overall attitude and help you to be less bored. Depression and anxiety can also make you feel constantly tired, which will prevent you from getting a good night's sleep.
Preventive measure: Set a routine and follow it. Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. I thank my dogs for making me a slave to this excellent habit. They wake me up at the same time every morning. Stay away from caffeine and alcohol before bedtime, because they are stimulants, which will keep you from going to sleep. Try not to take naps during the day, it will make you less sleepy at night. Don't eat heavy meals late in the day, especially if you suffer from acid reflux. Make sure that the temperature in the room is comfortable. You can soak in a hot bath before you go to bed, which will relax you. You can also try reading till your eyes close, or listening to some relaxing music, whatever helps you get a good night's sleep.
B) Obesity:
When you are obese, you have too much body fat which your body has to drag around. So you lack the energy, which makes you crave some carbs or sweets to nibble on. You tire easily, which affects your mental attitude, which results in boredom and depression. Excessive weight puts pressure on your knees and feet. You just don't have that ability to move around quickly. Everything you do, you have to work harder at. I can just imagine someone saying: "Leave me alone, my get up and go just got up and went."
This sounds funny, but it's so true. Excessive weight will definitely make you a candidate for a heart attack or a stroke as well. For the Diabetic person, weight loss is very important in keeping your sugar at a safe level. I should know, because I am a Diabetic, and I have lived a normal life with this condition for years. It's a constant daily battle, filled with sugar testing, good eating habits and weight loss in an effort to stay healthy. Obesity is one of the first areas that is targeted by the doctor. We get fat because we consume too many calories and burn up too few. Another danger to being over-weight is "Sleep Apnea," which interrupts your breathing during sleep. In short, this stresses your body, which stresses your mind and also damages your self-esteem.
Preventive Measure: The first thing you need to do is control your impulses. Secondly, you can control your environment by removing those tempting treasures from your refrigerator and your pantry. You can't over-eat what you don't have! Make changes to your diet by eating more veggies and less carbs. Get yourself a smaller size plate to reduce your portions. Stay away from fast foods. Focus on foods that release energy slowly, which will help you get through the day. The kind of natural sugar our body needs is found in fresh fruits and vegetables, which give us energy as they are loaded with nutrients and fiber.
You can always contact a Nutritionist to help you in that area. Take your daily dose of high potency vitamins. This will not only make you feel better about yourself, but it will improve your energy. There are many resourceful articles and credible websites on the Internet that can guide you successfully along the path of weight loss. Instead of being a couch potato, you can try walking at least 15 to 30 minutes a day. If you don't have a dog, get one. Walking prolongs your health. I did a lot of that during Hurricane Sandy, when I was bored to death, having no electricity or gas in my car. I still walk every day. So that it doesn't become a boring routine, try different paths each day. You can speed your walk up or slow it down. It's amazing how you seem to bump into people who are walking their dogs as well. It's a great way to make friends and lose weight at the same time.
C) Burn-Out:
This is another reason for "Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans". I, by nature, am a multi-task person. This keeps me in a hyper-active state all the time, though I'm still pleasantly plump. In today's economic times, there are many households where both parents work. Often, the women have to do a lot of juggling to meet their responsibilities towards their job and family. It seems as though people are constantly on a moving treadmill, and there's never enough time to catch their breath. You hurry for everything. You hurry to eat breakfast, you hurry to drop the kids off at the bus stop or school. Then you hurry to work, and while you are at work, you hurry through breaks and lunch in order to hurry up and finish the job.
Then the work day is over and you hurry to get in your car to pick up the kids at after school care, drop them off at practice, take them to the doctor and wait until they are done. You hurry home to make supper before hubby comes home. Now you slow down a little to help the kids with their homework, while cooking supper at the same time. Then you hurry up and eat it so you can hurry up and get the kitchen clean, get the kids off to bed, and do the laundry. Finally, you throw yourself down on the sofa, grab the remote and have some Me time? Oops, you still have to take the dog out, or change the litter box, or return all of your girlfriend's calls. This is just an example of the way some people live their lives, juggling things around in order to cram in as much activity as they can. The stress and the daily grind of endless activities keep eating at them constantly, leaving most people drained of all important energy.
Preventive Measure: The most important thing, to avoid Burn-Out, is to simplify your schedule. Try to multi-task in an easier way. You don't have to be the hero of the day for everyone. Don't be afraid to say: No, especially to unnecessary commitments or to people or jobs that are presented to you that you don't have time for. Simply put, don't bite off more than you can chew. By changing your lifestyle, you will have less stress and less fatigue.
There are many ways to control and manage stress, which I have mentioned before in my previous articles. I will also mention it here briefly. Take long walks, you don't have to jog. Exercising is a good anti-depressant. Relax through Meditation. It's also okay to lie around and watch TV all day long or even go on Face book and visit your friends. Take time to socialize. Take your laptop, even to the doctor's office while you're waiting to be called. If you are dissatisfied with your job, and that is causing you to burn out, you can always change your career. Of course this involves making changes in your lifestyle, and sometimes, learning to live on less income. Some people have even taken the bold step of being an entrepreneur. You set your own hours, your income level and your working conditions, but you are responsible for generating your own income. Many have succeeded at this, others have not. But if you long to own your own business, at least trying to succeed beats "Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans".
The point is very simple. Find something that DRIVES you, so you can DRIVE yourself to get out and DO things, not wait for excitement to come and find you on the couch on cable TV or in a bag of cookies. There is no cookie cutter way to improve your life and to beat boredom, but the symptoms are the same, and so, beating boredom always has a similar pattern. Get good sleep, eat good food and get the proper energy you need, prioritize your time, and find things you enjoy doing, just for the sake of doing them. Once you accomplish these things, you'll get some color back in those faded jeans, and you won't have to keep buying new clothes that never seem to look right or never seem to fit, because the ones you have will fit just fine. You'll find they're comfortable too, and you'll never want to get rid of those old jeans.

Miriam B. Medina is a successful website administrator and writer. She is a strong woman with a Positive Mental Attitude who has overcome her bitter past to lead a better, more peaceful life. She invites you to share her worthwhile thoughts at: http://mimispeaks.blogspot.com/2011/11/table-of-contents-4a-positive-thinking.html

Are You Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans? Part 2 Of A 3 Part Series

By Miriam B. Medina

n part 1 of this 3 part series, we examined the 7 basic emotions, and discussed how learning to control some of what we feel will help us defeat the feelings that make us feel lost, bored, and defeated. In parts 2 and 3 of this series, we'll examine why we feel this way, and discuss how we can defeat boredom, and put some color back into the faded jeans we call life, by breaking out of ruts and taking control of our lives for the better. After all, you only live this life once, so you might as well enjoy it as much as possible, right?
So without further ado, let's begin our conversation.

What is Boredom?
Some say 'It's an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity, or a time when individuals are uninterested in their surroundings." It is also "an experience that occurs when the mind is not interested or stimulated, and doesn't like what the present contains."

I would say it's a combination of poor mental stimulation and a poor attitude. A deadly, boring combination if there ever was one. When nothing fascinates you or seems to appeal to you, you lack the enthusiasm you need to push yourself out of your cycle, to break the rut that seems, in those times, to consume your life.
Take for instance, Cable TV, with its 300 or so channels. You turn it on; you sit there flicking through channel after channel, saying to yourself: "This is so boring, there's nothing good on cable tonight." But you just keep clicking night after night, hoping something good will come on or something different will happen to you. What's the Chinese definition of insanity, to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results?

Here's another one, better yet even, your wardrobe bulges with sufficient enough clothes in the latest styles to dress at least three different women, yet you still cry: "I have nothing to wear; nothing seems to fit or look right." The fact is, even if you owned every piece of clothing in every style known to man, you'd still feel the same way, because what you are feeling is inside. You aren't satisfied with yourself and finding something new to watch or new to wear isn't going to fix that problem. You have to fix that problem, with a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) and a willingness to change.

We all get excited whenever we get something new. It becomes an extraordinary moment of emotional joy, that is, until the novelty wears off. This can be applied to all areas of one's life, whether it is the purchase of a house, a job promotion, the latest features on the new mobile phone, or even being in a new romantic relationship. But when the thrill wears off, when we are no longer excited about what we are doing or what we have, we become depressed and up-tight.

The problem with boredom, or better yet, with under-stimulation, is that it is not only felt at home, but it also follows you into the work place, into relationships, and into any educational institution you'll ever attend. It will affect your performance, your ability to pay attention, and your ability to enjoy the simplest of things.
Every time, when Christmas season or a birthday comes around, kids ask their parents for things which they desperately want on a whim, simply because their friend has one or they see it on TV. Needless to say, after their wish is granted, the item is soon tossed aside and forgotten, buried somewhere in a pile on the floor or thrown out for another, more interesting toy, despite the humongous crunch the first round of toys and gadgets already put on their parents' wallet.

Once again, they are left with the same old response: "I'm bored, I've nothing to do," As a pile of desired objects waste away. It is a known fact that over-stimulation and under-stimulation have adverse effects on a person's mental and physical well-being. Job dissatisfaction may cause inattentiveness, which can be hazardous to the worker and to those around the worker, especially if he or she has to work around machinery. A student who is tired or bored has trouble concentrating. His or her inattentiveness in the classroom can result in low grades, poor morale and absenteeism.

Teachers have a great responsibility, they have to keep the student's attention focused at all times, and it's even much more difficult when the student has an attitude problem to start with. Some people go on eating binges to combat boredom. The list of examples, of problems we have that are caused by boredom, is endless. I think, by now you've gotten the picture.

Life is not boring, boredom begins in the mind. When we are bored, we are constantly seeking changes in our circumstances, looking for something better that will make our lives more exciting or interesting.
The thing is, if we're not stimulated on our own and engaged in our own lives, pursuits and goals, we'll ALWAYS feel bored, no matter WHAT we have in our lives. Did you ever notice that happy people are almost always happy, easily amused and engaged? They have great relationships. The smallest thing like a sporting event outcome or a phone call makes their day. That is because they are happy on the inside, and so everything outside of them offers them joy and amusement, something interesting to pursue.
To be truly happy, this is where we must start, inside of ourselves. In the last part of this 3 part series, we will examine boredom, its symptoms and causes, and we will explore what we can do to defeat boredom once and for all.

Miriam B. Medina is a successful website administrator and writer. She is a strong woman with a Positive Mental Attitude who has overcome her bitter past to lead a better, more peaceful life. She invites you to share her worthwhile thoughts at: http://mimispeaks.blogspot.com/2011/11/table-of-contents-4a-positive-thinking.html

Are You Feeling As Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans? Part 1 Of A 3 Part Series

By Miriam B. Medina

Life is an emotional roller coaster. It is a continuing cycle of ups and downs, once the ride starts, one can't stop. We react to almost everything that life hurls our way. This dictates our moods, our actions and our feelings in either a positive or negative way. Body language and facial expressions can reveal many things about an individual. Body language can also give clues as to the state of mind that a person might be in, or, to put it a better way, their "Attitude".
Body language can tell you if someone is happy, sad, or looking for a fight. Just looking at a person's slouched shoulders or the turned down corners of their mouth can tell you if that person is feeling sad or bored. If they have an attitude problem, both their body and their facial expression will give warning signs that a confrontation is inevitable.
If a person is stressed out, you can sense the negative energy generating from them, even if you are not in the same room with them. You can hear them slamming things around, muttering to themselves or sighing and moaning.
Many of us have become resigned to these basic emotions, the ones that seem to be programmed into our normal existence. I don't think we can even imagine ourselves without these emotions. There are 7 basic emotions that affect us all.
What are those Seven Basic Emotions, you ask?
There are seven emotions that we all feel and share. Facial expressions help us identify these universal emotions. Facial expressions have been universally recognized as part of the human's evolved nature, regardless of culture. These emotions are:
Sadness
Disgust
Fear
Anger
Contempt
Surprise
Joy
These varied emotional expressions are ingrained in us; we accept them as part of human nature. We don't give any thought as to why we are prone to react as we do. I guess it boils down to us being creatures of habit. Life is habitual. But there are some behavioral patterns that need to be controlled and managed in order for us to live a normal life. We have the power of changing these habits if we allow ourselves to be liberated.
In my previously published article, I talked about "Keeping your cool in a Pressure Cooker World". In that article, I used my own personal financial crisis as an example to learn from.
In this piece, I reflected on stress and how it became a major catastrophe at a particular time in my life. I learned eventually how to cope with specific emotional challenges in a more positive way. That's how I survived. This experience and what I learned has opened my eyes to a better world, one beyond my personal experience. Today's article is certainly no exception to the emotional roller coaster ride which has different behavioral effects on us all. Mood swings are a big part of daily life. You can go from over-stimulation to under stimulation in a heartbeat. Simply put, you can have a hyperactive day, climbing the walls, only to feel overwhelmed by nothingness and sucked into a state of listlessness or boredom later that evening. There just isn't anything going on interesting enough to hold your attention. Your brain can't get energized or stimulated, and eventually, you feel as "Faded As Your Washed Out Jeans".
I chose this catchy title because I thought it was a great and simple way to introduce my own concept on the subject of boredom. First and foremost, I'm not claiming to be an expert in this matter, but rather someone who likes to observe people, someone who tries to understand varied emotional states in order to talk about them in a productive way.
In part 2 and part 3 of this 3 part series, that's exactly what we'll do, examine boredom or listlessness so we can learn from these lethargic states, so we can learn how to escape and free ourselves from these often depressing, static states of mind. In this way, we can lead a better, more fulfilling, more exciting life, and can get more from the time we have on this wonderful planet. So relax, read the next 2 parts of this 3 part series, and learn how you can beat boredom, so you can put some color and pizzazz back into those faded jeans.

Miriam B. Medina is a successful website administrator and writer. She is a strong woman with a Positive Mental Attitude who has overcome her bitter past to lead a better, more peaceful life. She invites you to share her worthwhile thoughts at: http://mimispeaks.blogspot.com/2011/11/table-of-contents-4a-positive-thinking.html

One Way to Clean Your House via Computer

HOW TO CLEAN THE HOUSE USING YOUR COMPUTER

1. Open a new file in your  PC
2. Name it "Housework."
3. Send it to the RECYCLE BIN.
4. Empty the RECYCLE BIN.
5. Your PC will ask you, "Are you sure you want to delete housework permanently?"
6. Answer calmly, "Yes," and press the mouse button firmly….
7. All done. Feel better?
8. Oh yes, works for me 
9.  
10. PLEASE VISIT NEXT:  Tips On How to Hide Your Mess In A Hurry When Unexpected Company is Coming to Visit you.

Tips On How to Hide Your Mess In A Hurry When Unexpected Company Is Coming To Visit You.

HURRY UP, COMPANY'S COMING!!!!

1. Other than putting the dirty dishes in a dish washer,  you can hide them in the cold Oven or microwave which is quite roomy.

2.You can pick up the clothes off the floor and toss them into the washing Machine and Dryer or shove them in garbage bags and hide in a closet ..

3.You can hide stuff under the bed, providing you have a dust ruffle

4. You can always throw everything into a room and lock it.

5. Use disposable dishes and plastic cups.

6. Do a fast vacuuming around the furniture, don't even bother going under it, just to make it presentable.

7. Spray the house with an air freshner or open your windows..

8. When you wipe the stove and the counters, don't worry about the crumbs, just toss them on the floor. The vacuum will take care of it.

9. In the bathroom, don't worry about the tub, just pull open the shower curtain. For the toilet bowl, just throw in some hand soap and swish around with the brush. Make sure  you wipe the seat, and sink. Remove the dirty towels and have a roll of paper towels handy. Move the clutter from the counter into a shoe box and store underneath the sink.

10. If the bathroom smells, light a candle, open the window or drown it in air-freshner.

11. If you have piles of magazines on the floor, toss them in a laundry basket, and drape in a decorative way an afghan over it.

12. You can use your large suit cases to hide some of the mess, and say you are going to Disney World the following week with the family if it's summertime..

13. If the beds are unmade don't bother smoothing out the sheets, just spread the comforter so they think it's  a water bed.

14.And most important dim the lights, which hides a multitude of sins. Whew! Now wasn't that easy?

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The Dramatic Easing of Housework Drudgery by New Household Appliances (3)

Vintage 1940s Eureka Tank Vacuum

Electricity revolutionized appliances in another way, powering small motors that could perform work formerly done by muscles. The first such household device, appearing in 1891, was a rotary fan made by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company; its blades were driven by a motor developed chiefly by Nikola Tesla, a Serbian genius who pioneered the use of alternating current. The second was a vacuum cleaner, patented by a British civil engineer named H. Cecil Booth in 1901. He hit on his idea after observing railroad seats being cleaned by a device that blew compressed air at the fabric to force out dust. Sucking at the fabric would be better, he decided, and he designed a motor-driven reciprocating pump to do the job. Soon the power of the electric motor was applied to washing machines, sewing machines, refrigerators, dishwashers, can openers, coffee grinders, egg beaters, hair dryers, knife sharpeners, and many other devices. At the turn of the century, only about one American family in 15 employed servants, but having such a source of muscle power was devoutly craved by many and was seen as a key indicator of status. As housework was eased by electric motors and the number of servants dropped, such views changed, but some advertising copywriters insisted on describing appliances in social terms: "Electric servants can be depended on—to do the muscle part of the washing, ironing, cleaning and sewing," said a General Electric advertisement in 1917; "Don't go to the Employment Bureau. Go to your Lighting Company or leading Electric Shop to solve your servant problem." The electric servant brigade was rapidly improved. In 1907 an American inventor named James Murray Spangler created a vacuum cleaner that basically consisted of an old-fashioned carpet sweeper to raise dust and a vertical shaft electric motor to power a fan and blow the dust into an external bag. Manufactured by the Hoover Company, which bought the patent in 1908, it was hugely successful, especially after Hoover in 1926 extended the fan motor's power to a rotating brush that "beats as it sweeps as it cleans." Meanwhile, the Electrolux company in Sweden grabbed a sizable share of the market with a very different design for a vacuum cleaner—a small rolling cylinder that had a long hose and a variety of nozzles to clean furniture and curtains as well as carpets.

The source of this article is http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3775

Copyright © 2013 by National Academy of Engineering. All rights reserved.

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The Dramatic Easing of Housework Drudgery by New Household Appliances (2)

THE WASHING MACHINE

No aspect of housework stood in greater need of motor power than washing clothes, a job so slow and grueling when performed manually that laundresses were by far the most sought-after domestic help. In the preelectric era, Mondays were traditionally devoted to doing the laundry. First, the clothes were rubbed against a washboard in soapy water to remove most of the dirt; next they were wrung out, perhaps by running them through a pair of hand-cranked rollers; they were then boiled briefly in a vat on top of the stove; then, after removal with a stick, they were soaped, rinsed, and wrung out again; finally they were hung on a line to dry—unless it was raining. The arrival of electricity prompted many efforts to mechanize parts of this ordeal. Some early electric washing machines worked by rocking a tub back and forth; others pounded the clothes in a tub with a plunger; still others rubbed them against a washboard. A big improvement came in 1922 when Howard Snyder of the Maytag Company designed a tub with an underwater agitator whose blade forced water through the clothes to get the dirt out. The following decade saw the introduction of completely automatic washing machines that filled and emptied themselves. Then wringers were rendered unnecessary by perforated tubs that spun rapidly to drive the water out by centrifugal force. An automatic dryer arrived in 1949, and it was soon followed by models that were equipped with sensors that allowed various temperature settings for different fabrics, that measured the moisture in the clothes, and that signaled when the drying job was done. Like the vacuum cleaner and washing machine, most modern appliances have a long lineage. One, however, seemed to appear out of the blue, serendipitously spawned by the development of radar during World War II. Much of that work focused on a top-secret British innovation called a cavity magnetron, an electronic device that could produce powerful, high-frequency radio waves—microwaves. In 1945 a radar scientist at Raytheon Corporation, Percy Spencer, felt his hand becoming warm as he stood in front of a magnetron, and he also noted that a candy bar in his pocket had softened. He put popcorn kernels close to the device and watched with satisfaction as they popped vigorously. Microwaves, it turned out, are absorbed by water, fats, and sugars, producing heat and rapidly cooking food from the inside. From Spencer's discovery came the microwave oven, first manufactured for commercial use in 1947 and ultimately a fixture in millions of kitchens, although the household versions were not produced until the mid-1960s.  Source: http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3777  Copyright © 2013 by National Academy of Engineering. All rights reserved FOR OTHER ARTICLES PLEASE VISIT: TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Dramatic Easing of Drudgery by new Household Appliances.(1)

THE STOVE

Consider cooking. In practically all American households by the turn of the 20th century, the work was done on cast iron stoves that burned wood or coal. A few people mourned the passing of fireplace cooking—"The open fire was the true center of home-life," wrote one wistful observer of the changeover in the middle decades of the 19th century—but the advantages of a stove were overwhelming. It used substantially less fuel than a blaze in an open hearth, didn't require constant tending, didn't blacken the walls with soot, didn't spit out dangerous sparks and embers, and, if centrally positioned, would warm a kitchen in winter much more effectively than a fireplace. It was also versatile. Heat from the perforated fire chamber was distributed to cooking holes on the top surface and to several ovens; some of it might also be directed to a compartment that kept food warm or to an apparatus that heated water. But the stove could be exasperating and exhausting, too. The fire had to be started anew each morning and fed regular helpings of fuel—an average of 50 pounds of it over the course of a day. Controlling the heat with dampers and flues was a tricky business. Touching any part of the stove's surface might produce a burn. Ashes were usually emptied twice a day. And a waxy black polish had to be applied from time to time to prevent rusting. In all, an hour or more a day was spent simply tending the stove.

As a heat source for cooking, gas began to challenge coal and wood in the closing years of the 19th century. At that time piped gas made from coke or coal was widely available in cities for illumination, but incandescent lights were clearly the coming thing. To create an alternative demand for their product, many gas companies started to make and market gas stoves, along with water heaters and furnaces. A gas stove had some powerful selling points. It could be smaller than a coal- or wood-burning stove; most of its surface remained cool; and all the labor of toting fuel, starting and tending the fire, and removing the ashes was eliminated. The development of an oven thermostat in 1915 added to its appeal, as did the increasing use of natural gas, which was cheaper and less toxic than the earlier type. By 1930 gas ranges outnumbered coal or wood burners by almost two to one.

Electric stoves were still uncommon. Although they had originated around the turn of the century, fewer than one U.S. residence in 10 was wired for electricity at the time; moreover, such power was expensive, and the first electric stoves used it gluttonously. Another deficiency was the short life of their heating elements, but in 1905 an engineer named Albert Marsh solved that problem with a patented nickel-chrome alloy that could take the heat. In the next decade electric stoves acquired an oven thermostat, matching an important feature of their gas rivals. Meanwhile America was steadily being wired. By the mid-1920s, 60 percent of residences had electricity, and it was fast falling in price. As electric stoves became more competitive, they, like gas stoves, were given a squared-off shape and a white porcelain enamel surface that was easy to clean. They continued to gain ground, receiving a major boost with the introduction in 1963 of the self-cleaning oven, which uses very high temperatures—about 900°F—to burn food residue from oven walls. Today, many households split the difference in stove types, choosing gas for the range and electricity for the oven.

 http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3771
Copyright © 2013 by National Academy of Engineering. All rights reserved.

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The Wash Day Blues

        

Before the Washing  machine was invented, women would take their laundry down to the river and wash them. They would beat the laundry against the rocks in a stream, or beat them with the use of a laundry bat, stone or board which was the ancient way of getting the dirt out of the clothes. Another possibility of washing clothes was to put them in a wooden wash tub and trample on them with bare feet. The wet clothes would then be  draped over lines, or hung over bushes and rocks to dry in the hot sunshine. During the Victorian era, the attics were used for hanging laundry. However, most clothes had to be wrung out by hand.  Then along came the wringing machines in the mid-80’s which consisted of two rollers, with a hand crank which an item would be slipped in between the rollers and pressed with the hand crank to remove the excess water. There was no such thing as permanent press, so all clothing had to be ironed when they dried. This is where the flat-iron came in. It would be placed on the kitchen range to be heated. Of course one had to have several of them going at the same time, since they cooled quickly.

The Ironing  board was supported by two chairs or one part on the table and the other on a chair. This was commonly used in the 19^th century. An ironing blanket would be wrapped around the board then topped with a cotton sheet which had to be changed and washed when soiled. Alva Fischer a native of Chicago during the late 1800s after finishing High School wanted to invent something. His mother suggested that he should create something that would help her around the house. So he decided to invent a better washing machine. Using his mother’s existing wash tub, he attached electric pumps to bring the water in and to pump it out, He then attached an agitator to the motor and finally the wringer was also attached to the motor, so there was no hand cranking effort. His first model was unveiled in 1905. Wringers remained a part of washing machines until after World War II. After certain drawbacks,The machine worked well enough for Fisher to sell the design to Westinghouse Corporation.In 1924 the Savage Arms Corporation redesigned its washing machine in order to take full advantage of electricity. As a  result of New Technology, the finished product became  the first washing machine that resembled modern washers. Since the 1924 design, the basic washer design and function have not changed.               

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