It is 11:40 PM and I really do have things I should be doing more than blogging. That being said, I skipped yesterday so I could play with my 11 year old cousin who is displaced from the High Park Fire here in Colorado and I will most likely not have time to blog tomorrow, so today is a must. I am getting ready to go to the lake for 4 days of summer fun. I recently learned of a company called Azure who sells bulk organic foods and I got the million page catalog in the mail today, really I have had college text books smaller than this! Despite its intimidating size I am very excited to look at the offerings so I am taking it with me in place of my normal book. I also have some ideas for this starter blog that I need to mull over while I am away.
Anyone who knows me knows that If you give me the chance I will talk your ear off. I started this blog with the intent of doing just that, of sharing my daily life with anyone who would stop long enough to read about it. Truth be told, even I know that the play by play of my life would bore most people to tears. Combine that knowledge with my deep rooted desire to teach and I have a mission. My mission is to share my life with the world in a way that entertains, inspires, and benefits the readers (and me).
There is very little I love more than seeing that someone read my blog posts, but I would like to see your thoughts and comments too. As I redesign my blogging intentions it would be especially helpful to learn a little bit about my audience and what you would like to see here. I am considering broaching the topics of recipes, DIY projects, homemaking, and perhaps a book of the month topic. Please comment on what topics, questions, or any general tips of what you would like to see me address.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Today's work in pictures
Okay so I managed to keep up everything I did Thursday, Friday, and yesterday. Before lunch I also managed to clean half of my bedroom and finally hang a picture I drew 5 years ago! After lunch my 11 year old cousin came over so we played the rest of the day. We decided to make aprons, which took the entire rest of the day (worthy activity if I do say so myself).
Duck Pond, pastel 2007
Elizabeth's hostess apron
Green side of my reversible apron
Chicken side of my apron
Monday, June 25, 2012
50s housewife, first and last day
I did a lot of thinking over the weekend and devised a modified 50s housewife routine for myself, and I still didn't get everything accomplished! That being said, I feel GRRRRREAT about this. Today I managed to re-clean everything I had previously cleaned, go to the bank (where I actually went inside and waited in line), have an anti-50s lunch out with my sister, deep clean both bathrooms AND clean out under the couch cushions...all while wearing a dress and apron. Just as I was about to jump head first into my daily deep cleaning chore of cleaning the currently horrific master bedroom the 105 degree heat and my frozen air conditioner got the best of me and I bailed over to my parents house where someone else (my mom) makes me dinner in her deliciously air-conditioned house. Now tomorrow I will have to do two deep cleaning chores, re-clean everything from today, and cross my fingers and toes that the AC works all day!
In addition to shouting my daily routine to the world, I blog to reflect on my mission of becoming a better me. Today I decided to change my blog from "One Step Shy of Awesome" to "21 days to a better me". The reason behind this change is that being one step shy of awesome, sends the message that I am chasing my dreams but never really catching them. Instead today (while I was doing the dishes) it hit me, I am already awesome, I just want to reach for something a little bit brighter and better. It is for this same reason that I am abandoning the 50s housewife theme. I embrace my femininity, and will likely return to the 50s housewife event at a later day. However, at this time my being a 50s housewife is more like playing house than it is moving me towards my goals. I have yet to have a day that I actually met my goal of making the 50s housewife cut, yet I am ecstatic with my progress. I think the problem isn't my lack of success, but rather the unrealistic goal. They say that it takes 21 consecutive days to form a habit. I am going to tackle one habit at a time (without excluding others) for 21 days, hence the new name.
At my tender age of 25 (Yes, I may be 26 in a matter of weeks, but I am holding on to 25 with all my might), I can sit here and try and remember a day when I wanted something with my life that didn't include my family and my home. It may seem outdated to many, but I believe in gender roles. Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe that my husband has a right to treat my poorly, or that as a woman I am too delicate or ignorant to do anything more than be a teacher, nurse, wife, or mother. I believe that a woman can do anything a man can do, I just don't understand why we would want to. My husband and I are a team, each with different roles that embrace and benefit one another. I have a degree in Elementary Education and I LOVE to teach, yet in four years of marriage I have never held a full time job outside the home. Occasionally I do take a part time job because I want to contribute more, or because I am bored, but I believe my priority should be my family and home. To oversimplify it, My my husband works to allow me to stay home, and I stay home to make it easier for him to work outside the home.
I am one of those people who actually enjoys cooking, cleaning, any type of craft project, and taking care of others. Yet I must confess, in the past, I have been a terrible homemaker. When my husband and I were engaged and starting our lives together, I was a good homemaker. My only obligation outside our home was to go to my classes at the local community college. I used to walk the 1 mile to the grocery store EVERY DAY, not because I had to, but because I liked to. We didn't have cable and played board/card games every day. I walked the dog. I babysat all my little cousins. I even remember once when Nick came home from work and asked me not to have his dinner ready, something about how he wanted 15 minutes to take a shower. At the same time that Nick and I started seeing each other, his parents were getting divorced after 25 years of marriage. Although it is more complicated than this, one of the reasons behind the split was that his mom felt under-appreciated. Having seen this so recently, my husband actually encouraged me to stop making dinner, we got TV and Guitar Hero. It was at this point that my A's turned into B's and our relationship deteriorated.
I love my husband very much and I appreciate everything he does for me. Our relationship isn't bad, I just miss the closeness of those early days when we spent our time interacting with each other rather than being alone, together. When we decided to get married we made an actual verbal agreement that Nick would bring home the bacon, and I would cook it. Yet we go out to eat 80% of the time and he does just as much of the housecleaning as I do (which isn't very much). I vow to break this trend and get back to the way things are supposed to be.
Rather than apply for teaching jobs for the fall, I have chosen to substitute teach for one year. Being a substitute will greatly free up my time, allowing me to be both a working partner and housewife. We don't have children, and Nick works out of state for two weeks of every month, so I don't believe that once it's a habit homemaking should be the full time job that it currently is. The 21 days to a better me is about building that habit. I have so many visions of the woman I want to be that if I tackled them all at once I would surely fail. Instead, I am going to begin my amazing transformation with the one piece I believe will make the biggest difference. I am going to become the best modern housewife I can be. For the next 21 days I will clean my home every day, cook dinner every night (working towards cooking all 3 meals), work in my yard, and spend as much QUALITY time with my husband that I can.
I will update the world on my progress regularly and in 21 days we can lay it all out in black and white and decide on the success of the 21 day plan. If the plan is successful (as I believe it will be), I will launch a new 21 day plan (most likely revolving around physical activity). I hope that you stick with me for this first 21 days. I picked homemaking first because it is one of the most important goals for me, but I have a hunch that my next goal will be applicable for a larger audience.
In addition to shouting my daily routine to the world, I blog to reflect on my mission of becoming a better me. Today I decided to change my blog from "One Step Shy of Awesome" to "21 days to a better me". The reason behind this change is that being one step shy of awesome, sends the message that I am chasing my dreams but never really catching them. Instead today (while I was doing the dishes) it hit me, I am already awesome, I just want to reach for something a little bit brighter and better. It is for this same reason that I am abandoning the 50s housewife theme. I embrace my femininity, and will likely return to the 50s housewife event at a later day. However, at this time my being a 50s housewife is more like playing house than it is moving me towards my goals. I have yet to have a day that I actually met my goal of making the 50s housewife cut, yet I am ecstatic with my progress. I think the problem isn't my lack of success, but rather the unrealistic goal. They say that it takes 21 consecutive days to form a habit. I am going to tackle one habit at a time (without excluding others) for 21 days, hence the new name.
At my tender age of 25 (Yes, I may be 26 in a matter of weeks, but I am holding on to 25 with all my might), I can sit here and try and remember a day when I wanted something with my life that didn't include my family and my home. It may seem outdated to many, but I believe in gender roles. Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe that my husband has a right to treat my poorly, or that as a woman I am too delicate or ignorant to do anything more than be a teacher, nurse, wife, or mother. I believe that a woman can do anything a man can do, I just don't understand why we would want to. My husband and I are a team, each with different roles that embrace and benefit one another. I have a degree in Elementary Education and I LOVE to teach, yet in four years of marriage I have never held a full time job outside the home. Occasionally I do take a part time job because I want to contribute more, or because I am bored, but I believe my priority should be my family and home. To oversimplify it, My my husband works to allow me to stay home, and I stay home to make it easier for him to work outside the home.
I am one of those people who actually enjoys cooking, cleaning, any type of craft project, and taking care of others. Yet I must confess, in the past, I have been a terrible homemaker. When my husband and I were engaged and starting our lives together, I was a good homemaker. My only obligation outside our home was to go to my classes at the local community college. I used to walk the 1 mile to the grocery store EVERY DAY, not because I had to, but because I liked to. We didn't have cable and played board/card games every day. I walked the dog. I babysat all my little cousins. I even remember once when Nick came home from work and asked me not to have his dinner ready, something about how he wanted 15 minutes to take a shower. At the same time that Nick and I started seeing each other, his parents were getting divorced after 25 years of marriage. Although it is more complicated than this, one of the reasons behind the split was that his mom felt under-appreciated. Having seen this so recently, my husband actually encouraged me to stop making dinner, we got TV and Guitar Hero. It was at this point that my A's turned into B's and our relationship deteriorated.
I love my husband very much and I appreciate everything he does for me. Our relationship isn't bad, I just miss the closeness of those early days when we spent our time interacting with each other rather than being alone, together. When we decided to get married we made an actual verbal agreement that Nick would bring home the bacon, and I would cook it. Yet we go out to eat 80% of the time and he does just as much of the housecleaning as I do (which isn't very much). I vow to break this trend and get back to the way things are supposed to be.
Rather than apply for teaching jobs for the fall, I have chosen to substitute teach for one year. Being a substitute will greatly free up my time, allowing me to be both a working partner and housewife. We don't have children, and Nick works out of state for two weeks of every month, so I don't believe that once it's a habit homemaking should be the full time job that it currently is. The 21 days to a better me is about building that habit. I have so many visions of the woman I want to be that if I tackled them all at once I would surely fail. Instead, I am going to begin my amazing transformation with the one piece I believe will make the biggest difference. I am going to become the best modern housewife I can be. For the next 21 days I will clean my home every day, cook dinner every night (working towards cooking all 3 meals), work in my yard, and spend as much QUALITY time with my husband that I can.
I will update the world on my progress regularly and in 21 days we can lay it all out in black and white and decide on the success of the 21 day plan. If the plan is successful (as I believe it will be), I will launch a new 21 day plan (most likely revolving around physical activity). I hope that you stick with me for this first 21 days. I picked homemaking first because it is one of the most important goals for me, but I have a hunch that my next goal will be applicable for a larger audience.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Pearls & Pumps Anyone?
I love summer, especially this summer! I set out in the end of May to improve myself. I even dubbed this "The Summer of Me" and yet here it is the end of June and I have done about nothing on my list. I haven't improved my eating habits, I haven't upped my physical activity enough to make a difference, and my budget hasn't budged. To make things worse, I still haven't completed the paperwork to get my teaching licence (you know actually use that 8 years of college I just finished) AND my beloved flowerbeds have sprung 'gasp' weeds.
It seems I need to get my butt in gear so I'm not sitting here, unemployed, looking at my dirty living room all day come September. I found a blog that talked about a 2 week 50s housewife experiment and couldn't help but think I could do that. Yesterday, I set out to follow the 50s housewife schedule which lasted about 15 minutes. For one thing my husband works in North Dakota and is gone for two weeks each month so getting up and cooking breakfast consisted of cereal, and making the bed consisted of moving the pillow and blanket from the couch to the bed, because hey I'm going to wash the sheets today. Right? Wrong! I managed to iron 3 dresses and a shirt before giving up and rewashing 3 loads of laundry (teach me to heap my clothes on an armchair), Wash one previously dirty load of towels, clean my kitchen and living room (minus the floors of course). My one feat for the day, I cleaned the oven and dusted everything including the ceiling fans.
Fast forward to the end of the day, I finally fell asleep at midnight feeling exhausted and defeated all at the same time. This morning I got up thinking what is the use? I was most certainly not 50s housewife material. Really, I have nothing better to do with my time than clean my house and yet it took me an entire day to mostly clean the kitchen and living room? Luckily, I inherited stubbornness from my dad, so I drug myself out of bed and jumped straight into the deep end. It is now 10:30 in the morning, I am sitting in a clean living room, happily typing away while my bread dough rises. I'm not quite Mrs. Cleaver yet (I forgot to use an apron while I baked) and the bathrooms still need cleaned, but I feel great! I am confident that I AM 50s housewife material. I think that by Monday I will be caught up enough to actually begin the experiment. If it works, I may just keep it up forever.
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