Sharon Bowers - The Useful Book: 201 Life Skills They Used to Teach in Home Ec and Shop

Learning how to feed yourself starts here

Simple tasks like sewing a button are impressive when done the right way

From laundry labels to shrunken sweater care

The life-changing magic of keeping a clean home

A few grace notes for the finishing touches of pleasant living

Your home tool kit and how to use it

The fine art of measuring, cutting, soldering, and making with your hands

Learn to unplug, seal up, and troubleshoot to make all your pipe dreams come true.

Wires, circuits, fixtures, and switches

Keep those wheels and gears turning

R emember when computers were going to make offices paperless? Around that same time, the powers that be decided America would henceforth specialize in producing information workers. Nobody would need to dirty their hands with machinery and grease when technology was the name of the game. Whats more, fast food was cheaper than ever, so presumably wed all just order takeout while sitting in our cubicles working diligently at our computers. Throughout the 1990s, school systems, faced with budget cuts and with an eye on this promised future, dismissed their home ec teachers and dismantled wood and metal shops. (Shouldnt someone have checked first to see how paperless our offices became? Mine sure isnt!)

Of course, life (even in the twenty-first century) is not a sci-fi movie. Even in space, someones got to fix a busted rover and feed hungry astronauts! That careless eradication of classes that taught essential how-tos and shared practical knowledge has had serious consequences: a whole generation of people who never learned to cook, do basic mending, or change the oil in their cars. They cant fix a broken hinge on their own front doors or stop a toilet from leaking. They dont know how to bake cookies or iron their shirts or figure out why their brakes are squeaking. If a lamp breaks, theyre more inclined to throw it in the trash than to rewire it. Encouraged by cheap imports and our utter lack of know-how, weve accelerated our disposable culture into something thats plainly unsustainable.

Becoming more self-sufficient is not only easier than many people imagine, its also extremely satisfying. Work that you do with your own hands is work held to a single standard: Did I fix it? And if the answer is yes, youre finished. Its a feeling of accomplishment that a day spent poring over spreadsheets cant approach. By the same token, a delicious homemade mealmade with attention and care and not ordered from a drive-through or reheated from a boxis well within the reach of anyone who takes a few minutes to learn the kitchen basics.

Whether you aspire to brew the perfect cup of coffee, make fluffy scrambled eggs, hem your own pants, or change the oil in your car, those skills are now literally within your grasp. Read on, then get busy!

A re you going to spend the rest of your life calling for takeout when youre hungry? The fascinating little secret about being able to cook is being able to make what you want, and make it taste the way you want it to, at any time you like. The other interesting thing to know is that its not that hard. Learn some basics and pretty soon you can improvise like a pro.