Blog Archives

Happy Hallowe'en!

10/31/2015

Happy Hallowe'en! Here are a few items for your enjoyment on the spookiest day of the year. Have fun with them!

"All Hallow's Eve"
Halloween games and superstitions, from 1894

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Great Grandma's Halloween:
A poem

Victorian Mourning customs:
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/mourning-and-mourners-1888.html

The Children of Arachne: A scientific article on spiders that appeared in "The Cosmopolitan" in 1889:
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/the-children-of-arachne.html

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A Supernatural Swindle: Short fiction from 1896 about a ghost with a toothache!
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/a-supernatural-swindle-fictionmdash1896.html

In a candy store in Oregon

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A modern article about a candy archivist:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-sweet-halloween-archives-of-a-candy-historian

In a candy store in Oregon

Focus on a friend: Estar Hyo Gyung Choi

10/23/2015

3 Comments

All the best photos on our website were taken by our wonderful friend, Estar Hyo Gyung Choi and her husband Matt Choi. (Hyo Gyung is Estar's given name; she goes by Estar when dealing with English speakers because people are generally so bad with pronunciation of foreign names.)

Estar used to live just a few miles from us; we met her when she was asking around for someone who could help her with her English. I have quite a bit of experience teaching ESL / ELL: I taught English in Japan for a year, then I taught ESL at an American community college, then I tutored the children of various Korean families in Seattle. I volunteered to give Estar free English lessons, and in the process we became friends.

Estar is a professional photographer, and she loved the way that natural light came through the windows in our home at certain times of day.

After she'd been coming here for a while for English lessons, she asked if she could start bringing her camera with her. She would take pictures of whatever I would happen to be doing after our lessons.

Later she asked if she could come when Gabriel was here too, and take pictures of both of us. We would always ask if she wanted us to pose or do something special, and she always said she just wanted natural pictures of us.

Peek-a-boo!
Estar caught herself on her own time-set camera at the edges of these two photos in our parlor.

When Gabriel and I celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary, Estar and her husband Matt took photos of us around Port Townsend as their very sweet anniversary gift to us.

Estar and Matt have been wonderful friends to us, and we are very lucky to have copies of their beautiful pictures. These photos have been published by media all over the world, including on Hello Giggles; as the backdrop for my story on The View; on Modes de Vie (French); and others. More than their pictures though, we really appreciate their friendship.

A cooking lesson at Estar's house.
I showed her how to make bread and she showed me how to make kimchi!

Handing the bread dough to Estar's little daughter, who had been playing with rubber stamps that morning.

Us talking to Matt.

Hiking Hurricane Ridge with Estar and another of her friends.

Last year Estar and Matt moved back to South Korea. We were terribly sad to see them go, but we knew Estar wanted to see her parents more while her children are still small, so as their friends we were happy for them.

This August Estar and Matt came back to America for a visit, and it was wonderful to see them again! While they were here, they made dinner for us and a few of their other friends at our house.

They also had us to a traditional Korean barbecue with Matt's parents, who still live here in Port Townsend. In Seoul, Matt teaches a university class, and his whole class of students had come to America with him as a class trip. Naturally, they were at the barbecue too!

After the barbecue Gabriel gave the class a short riding demonstration, and the students toured our home. It was a wonderful experience and we'll never forget it!

We've been so lucky to have Estar and Matt as friends!

For more beautiful photos by Estar, check out her

Pinterest account:
https://www.pinterest.com/Estarhyogyung/mary-studios/

and her

Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/estar.h.lee

Estar runs a food blog in Korean, which focuses on how eating the right foods can improve people's health and especially how it can help people with skin conditions: http://blog.naver.com/leeyo711/220515942254

3 Comments

Trolls no! Daisies yes!

10/4/2015

6 Comments

Years ago when I was stewing over something that I couldn't fix but couldn't let go of either, Gabriel said something that really stayed with me: "You have better things to spend your time on. You have better things to WASTE your time on!"

We all have better things to spend our time on than focusing on negativity: we even have better things to waste our time on.

I'd rather read good books (or pick daisies, for that matter) than engage with trolls. There are far better ways to fill our precious time on this Earth.

"A banished trouble soon starves. By directing attention to uneasy feelings slight pain is nursed into a hard ache... Some there are to turn over and over a grief or misfortune as a ruminant chews its cud. They find a real enjoyment in complaints just as some are fond of attending funerals... and so keep up a morbid, miserable iteration that fixes an image in the mind which ought to be forever banished. "If you cannot talk about pleasant themes, manage to leave. Refuse to dwell among shadows whne there is so much sunshine in the world"
—Poole, Hester M. Good Housekeeping, July 21, 1888. p. 121.

6 Comments

An Article I wrote for Refinery29

10/1/2015

1 Comment

Here's an article I wrote for Refinery29:
http://www.refinery29.com/victorian-living-millennial-women

And here are the sources cited. Bibliographies generally get cut from internet articles but they're important to me:

"A Man In the Kitchen: The Difference Between "A Betty" And The Other Kind." Good Housekeeping, February 16, 1889. p. 178.

Bisland, Elizabeth. "The Art of Travel." The Woman’s Book Volume 1. Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, 1894.

Hill, Thomas E. Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms. Chicago: Hill’s Standard Book Company, 1891.
(This book was re-published many, many times in the Victorian era. I happen to own the 1891 edition; there were earlier editions and later ones, but the text around etiquette remained fundamentally unchanged.)

Hubert, Jr., P.G. "Woman's Exchanges as Training Schools and Markets for Work." The Woman's Book Volume I, Charles Scriber's Sons: New York. 1894. pp. 29-36.

Poole, Hester M. "The Philosophy of Living." Good Housekeeping, July 21, 1888. p. 121.

1 Comment

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Happy Hallowe'en!

The Children of Arachne: A scientific article on spiders that appeared in "The Cosmopolitan" in 1889:
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/the-children-of-arachne.html

***
A Supernatural Swindle: Short fiction from 1896 about a ghost with a toothache!
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/a-supernatural-swindle-fictionmdash1896.html

***
A modern article about a candy archivist:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-sweet-halloween-archives-of-a-candy-historian

Focus on a friend: Estar Hyo Gyung Choi

Trolls no! Daisies yes!

An Article I wrote for Refinery29

Here's an article I wrote for Refinery29:
http://www.refinery29.com/victorian-living-millennial-women

Archives

Author: Sarah A. Chrisman

Categories

Happy Hallowe'en!

The Children of Arachne: A scientific article on spiders that appeared in "The Cosmopolitan" in 1889:http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/the-children-of-arachne.html

​***A Supernatural Swindle: Short fiction from 1896 about a ghost with a toothache!http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/a-supernatural-swindle-fictionmdash1896.html

***A modern article about a candy archivist:http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-sweet-halloween-archives-of-a-candy-historian

Focus on a friend: Estar Hyo Gyung Choi

Trolls no! Daisies yes!

An Article I wrote for Refinery29

Here's an article I wrote for Refinery29:http://www.refinery29.com/victorian-living-millennial-women

Archives

Author: Sarah A. Chrisman

Categories

The Children of Arachne: A scientific article on spiders that appeared in "The Cosmopolitan" in 1889:
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/the-children-of-arachne.html

***
A Supernatural Swindle: Short fiction from 1896 about a ghost with a toothache!
http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/a-supernatural-swindle-fictionmdash1896.html

***
A modern article about a candy archivist:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-sweet-halloween-archives-of-a-candy-historian

Here's an article I wrote for Refinery29:
http://www.refinery29.com/victorian-living-millennial-women