Useful Facts and Figures

Inside the front cover of the Good Housekeeping Guide to Successful Homemaking (1961 ed) there are a bunch of facts and diagrams under the title "Useful Facts and Figures Needed in Every Home."  I went to Rex's school and used their copy machine to make a copy of the page so I can hang it on our refrigerator. After all, it is NEEDED in every home.  How has your home survived without it?  Some of the things were pretty useful, such as equivalent measures (3 tsp = 1 tbs, 2 cups = 1 pint, etc) or how to measure wet vs. dry items used in cooking.  Some of the other things listed were very strange, however.  I will share some of them with you here:

1. 24 sheets of paper = 1 quire.  A quire?  Have you ever heard this term? When would I have to use this term?  "I would like to buy a quire of pink paper."  Next time I'm in a craft store I'm going to ask for this and see what kind of response I get.

2. There is a section of the page that says, "50 Years of Dates on Which Easter Sunday Falls."  It gives the date of Easter Sunday for the next fifty years...which ended in 2001.  Why would you need to predict when Easter Sunday is going to be fifty years from now?  I'm sorry, but no one plans that far ahead.

3. There is a whole list of wedding anniversaries and what their symbols are.  I feel like most of us have heard that twenty-five years is the "silver" anniversary and fifty is the "golden" anniversary, but did you know that the sixth is the iron anniversary? The twelfth is silk? Fourteenth is agate? (What the heck is agate?).  Our next wedding anniversary is in May.  It will be our third, which is represented by "leather, or any leather-like article."  I will have to find some sort of leather-like article to give to Rex.  Thanks Good Housekeeping.  I might have gotten him some totally normal, but now I know better.  Good thing I have eleven more years to figure out what agate is!

4. The astronomical solar year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds long.  You're all saying "Happy New Year" at the entirely wrong time.  I'll have to fix that next year.

So anyway, lucky for me I now have this entire list of necessary facts and figures hanging in my apartment.  If you feel like something in your life is missing, this paper is probably what it is.  Let me know you want one and I can send you a copy.