Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to rediscover some old fashioned forms of fun.
Speaker 1: Many of these were deliberately about filling time, or some
Speaker 1: might say killing time. Modern sorts off and feel we
Speaker 1: don't have time for such things. But over the past
Speaker 1: few weeks, well we've learned otherwise. The circumstances aren't ideal.
Speaker 1: But the good news is that on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world's lockdown to slow the spread of the
Speaker 1: coronavirus will have expanded our repertoire of fun. If you've
Speaker 1: read much literature written before the advent of radio and television,
Speaker 1: you've probably noticed something. Authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen,
Speaker 1: or Herman Melville wrote stories in a slightly less economical
Speaker 1: fashion than modern authors. The plots longer, the sentences are
Speaker 1: more involved, but honestly, why not. They weren't competing with cable.
Speaker 1: People didn't have other things to do to fill the
Speaker 1: hours after dinner and before bed, so length wasn't a
Speaker 1: downside in the way that modern publishers sometimes consider it
Speaker 1: to be. Length was often an upside anyone listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast presumably still has access to the internet, but
Speaker 1: with school and activities canceled, many people have more hours
Speaker 1: to fill than in the past. Screens fill some of it,
Speaker 1: but even the best shows get boring after a while.
Speaker 1: So it's time to recall how people used to kill
Speaker 1: time and realize that in many cases, killing time isn't
Speaker 1: a bad thing at all. One of my favorite hour
Speaker 1: filling activities is big puzzles. Well, a two piece puzzle
Speaker 1: might fit in a busy day. Long days call for
Speaker 1: big ones, a thousand pieces pieces. Why not gather the
Speaker 1: family around a big table and chat as you each
Speaker 1: work on your sections. I'm also a fan of giant
Speaker 1: lego sets. Over the past few months, my ten year
Speaker 1: old and I have been working on a replica of
Speaker 1: the Empire State Building. We flexed our lego building muscles
Speaker 1: on a Christmas gingerbread house set, and now we're feeling
Speaker 1: more capable of bigger things sets that take more time,
Speaker 1: because taking time is kind of the point. Baking can
Speaker 1: feel lots of time. My husband's been baking bread. I
Speaker 1: collect magazines from the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, and
Speaker 1: some of the recipes and old issues of good housekeeping
Speaker 1: literally require all day. But if everyone's around the house
Speaker 1: all day, this might be less of a downside then
Speaker 1: it seems at first glance, of course, you can really
Speaker 1: get into the little house on the Prairie lifestyle and
Speaker 1: take up sewing or other needle crafts. Every time I
Speaker 1: read the Laura Ingles Wilder books, I picture the family
Speaker 1: sitting in front of the fire, with Pa reading or
Speaker 1: playing the fiddle and Ma stitching something. Sewing clothes for
Speaker 1: a family of six certainly takes a lot of time.
Speaker 1: We don't have to make our clothes from scratch these days,
Speaker 1: but cross stitching and elaborate pattern can fill many a
Speaker 1: happy hour, especially now that no one is supposed to
Speaker 1: be going out of the house for happy hours. There
Speaker 1: are really all kinds of old fashioned time killing options crosswords,
Speaker 1: card games, long board games like Monopoly, or risk scrap booking, quilting.
Speaker 1: When we're running around from place to place, it's easy
Speaker 1: to assume we have no time, and so we feel
Speaker 1: the time we do have with the easiest thing available.
Speaker 1: Hence the two hours daily that even people with full
Speaker 1: time jobs and kids clock watching TV. If you're trying
Speaker 1: to work from home while home schooling, your kids are
Speaker 1: chasing toddlers all day. You may not have energy for
Speaker 1: anything else. I get it. But if you're not in
Speaker 1: that situation, these long hours present an opportunity to try
Speaker 1: something else, and maybe, just maybe, when life gets back
Speaker 1: to normal, we'll remember that a great many other projects
Speaker 1: are possible. What sorts of old fashioned time killing fund
Speaker 1: do you enjoy? You can let me know at Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.
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