Habits or The Case For The Traveling Pillowcases

I have noticed that I have a few habits that I picked up from my mom and dad. My dad always wrote down the mileage, gallons and what it cost every time we filled up with gas in the car. I remember doing it for him when I was sitting in the passenger seat. So when I got married and my husband had the same habit, it was no big deal to keep it up. When we lived in Singapore I mentioned to a friend of mine that it was strange to not do that when we filled up our car. (Or "topped it up" ) We didn't own the car and the company gave us some allowance money for the gas, so we didn't have the same reasons to record it.

Okay, so that may not sound so odd to of lot of you. I'm sure there are plenty who do the same thing.

But there is another habit that I recently wondered where it started and asked my mom.

When I was a kid we would camp every summer. On these trips we would all bring our own pillows. My mom had us put different pillowcases on than the ones we used at home. They were usually made out of old feedsack fabric. (Oh how I wish I had some of that fabric to make quilts out of!)

Flash forward to my adult life... I still do that. I still think I have to put a different pillowcase on my pillows when I go on a trip.

Recently, I was pondering this phenomenon. I asked my mom why she did that and she said it was because we had mostly white sheets back then and she didn't like how our pillows seemed to get dirty when we were camping. So the feedsack pillow cases were her solution to hiding the dirt.

The bigger question is why do I still do that? My kids haven' t done it for a long time, but I still have my husband and I do it. Maybe now it's because I made these adorable pillowcases for us. Well, mine is adorable. Pete's is..... manly. Can you guess which one is mine?


I took this picture on a bed in a hotel. My main reason now for traveling pillowcases is so they stand out from the white sheets on the hotel beds and we don't forget to bring them back home with us. (Yes, we have left our pillows in a hotel room. Or I should say I have left my pillow in a hotel room.)