House notes

Record Keeping

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The art of keeping a record of the home has a long history. Many have recorded in writings the happenings in their daily lives, births, deaths, marriages, hints, recipes, garden notes, along with items purchased and sold. Journals of the past were well worn collections of the highs and lows of making a house a home, and became mementos of the work efforts of past generations.

Record keeping is a helpful tool for all households. There are many ways to record information needed to upkeep the home. A good tip for starting record keeping is to have three books; one is a working note book. The working note book is used for information you find but haven’t used yet. The working note book is a book to scribble down anything you think is useful. The next book is a day book; this is for any daily happens, from daily expenditures, to weather, to garden stocktaking, family happenings and the like. The third book is a final book of sorts, this is where you put everything you have tried and know to be successful. It is also a place to record from your day book anything important you think is worth noting too.

When including hints and recipes include the name of the source, and check the validity of the information against other sources. The best way to check the validity of any helpful tip you find is to try it your self.  Included the original information then write in any notes you have, changes, or omitted information that needs to be included. Also note if it was successful or not.

Your information can be printed out and stored in protective plastic binder sleeves. Notes can also be handwritten, always use a good quality waterproof pen when writing in pen and never write in pencil as pencil fades. However, if you must write in pencil, a quick spray with hair spray will set the pencil and save it from fading and smudging.

A finished home keeping folder can be divided into useful sections devoted to a particular hint, recipes and other helpful tips. Information can be stored in a variety of ways, a binder is useful because it allows the option of changing the order of pages and taking out any pages that are unnecessary; these pages should be transferred to another folder and kept as the information might be useful at a later date. A bound book can be also used, but pages can become bulky and the spine can split. Once the pages are written in they can’t be changed. Another possibility is making the pages and leave them unbound until you have enough to create a book. The pages can be bound using book binder’s methods.

 

Record keeping is important for any home; it creates a library of useful information during times when access to digital/interent or city libraries is unavailable. Record keeping does not require anything fancy or expensive all that is required of record keeping is the simple act of doing. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.