The Joyful Housewife

Well, here it is! My very own Joyful Jessie avatar.

Notice that my golden (dirty) blonde hair is swept back in a clip because I have dishes to do and it gets in my way. Normally I’d be wearing an apron because the water from my kitchen faucet always drenches the front of  me. I demonstrate my style by wearing stripes and the only tall boots I have ever owned, that are getting old - and I’m not quite sure if they are even in style anymore. I’d be wearing a knit scarf, but I never finish my knitting projects, so I’m wearing one I got as a hand-me-up from my little sister. I’m trying to look busy, but I’m not very organized. How does this datebook/planner work? What’s a list?

P.S. That is not actually my kitchen that I’m standing in. You can tell because, 1) There are fresh flowers in a vase, 2) The counters and floor are clean, 3) Where are the dirty dishes?! 4) I’ve never cooked a turkey before - and probably never will!

And now, the results of an interesting poll that I’d been wanting to post - until I lost the book it was in for a couple of weeks.

From The New Messies Manual, by Sandra Feltion:

How often do Americans change the sheets on their beds?

Once a week - 52%

Twice a week - 31%

Once a month - 12%

Less than once a month - 2%

I read this question to my husband to see what he’d guess, because he is the trivia king. I don’t want to tell you his guess, or our actual answer, because it’s like bearing a dirty little secret. Let’s just say we are not in the majority.

How often do you change your sheets?

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One of the tons of wonderful things I’ve learned from my husband is how to make vinaigrette. He’s very anti-bottled-dressing (I’ve gently reminded him that I grew up in a single parent home and wasn’t even aware that there was an alternative, aside from ambitious, gourmet types).

It’s incredibly easy and it’s almost the only thing we put on our salads. The only bottled dressing we’ve used this past year is Annie’s Goddess dressing (and ranch, which we don’t put on salads, but which I use to dip many, many different foods into, from veggies to pizza.)

Anyway, it’s so easy that, although we were too tired to cook tonight and Tim picked up pasta from our favorite Italian restaurant on the way home, I still made a salad AND a dressing.

So how does one make a vinaigrette, you ask? The materials I like best are a small teacup (see photo), because I’m usually making a small salad for two people, and a fork to whisk with. I’ve tried a bowl and a real whisk, but for me, the fork works better (I also use it to scramble eggs for french toast batter).

Next, choose your vinegar. We have been using sherry vinegar lately, but in the past we have used red or white wine vinegar, or balsamic vinegar. I’ve also heard you can use lemon juice, but I haven’t tried it. For myself, I’ve used a fancy fig flavored balsamic vinegar that I bought for my husband and he never used once. I put this on a salad that featured strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.

Put one or two tablespoons in the cup or bowl (eyeball it.)

Next, add seasonings that you would like to dissolve in it. I always add salt and cracked black pepper. You can mix it up by adding a dash of cayenne, as well, or white pepper instead of the black. This is also when we often add garlic. Usually a fresh clove pressed in a garlic presser. Raw garlic is very good for you but causes potent burbs, so beware!

The final ingredient before the oil is a tiny bit of dijon mustard. We sometimes leave it out, but it’s very good in the dressing. Try not to use too much.

Whisk a bit with the fork to mix the additions into the vinegar.

Finally, add extra virgin olive oil. A good rule is about 2:1 oil vs vinegar. If you are using a teacup, completely cover the top of the vinegar with the oil. Whisk, whisk, whisk, and taste. Add whatever you think is missing, toss on salad, and enjoy!

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How to avoid doing housework #1: Get really sick. 

I’m sick today. Thank you elementary school kids! Sitting around in my PJs, coughing and feeling sorry for myself, I’m reminded of all the things I have to do. My computer has finally been fixed (Sort of - Hubby spilled liquid on it and the internal airport card no longer works and cannot be replaced - thank goodness they have this wireless USB thingy that allows me to use the Internet!). Anyway, I’ve always gotten some twisted (sick?!) pleasure out of getting sick. Before college, it meant that I could get out of going to school and turning things in on time. (In grad school, that never worked though.) And now, I feel like I’m actually justified in laying around feeling sorry for myself (heaven for a chronic depressive). But, I’m weird, and somehow, as I feel my body ache and tingle with fever, I manage to get into a meditative state and reflect on life and even feel some sort of pleasure and positivity. Maybe it’s the forced rest. 

And yet, my house looks like drug addicts live here. I’m serious. I was watching season five of Nip/Tuck on DVD yesterday, while imobile on the couch after work, and one of the charaters and his wife are addicted to meth and live in a pig-sty.

I looked into my kitchen….There isn’t a room in this house that isn’t riddled with clutter and neglect. 

If I were feeling better, I’d take a candid photo (see also) of it. But I’m sick and it’s just too much trouble (which is just an excuse, albeit a good one, because I don’t know if I’m brave enough to take a picture of all this). 

I talked to my mom a couple of days ago and she’s really struggling with work and trying to make progress on her house and hoarding situation. I wish life weren’t so cluttered with one thing after another, after another. I thought that going home with my older sister to help mom with her hoarding at the beginning of the summer was a life-changing event, but now, I’m almost worse off than I was before that. 

I know it’s just transition and not permanent, but damn it’s hard to keep it all together sometimes. How will I ever survive kids if I can’t even keep it together with just Hubby, Doggie, and me?!?

On a happier note, here is another beautiful mountain photo from our last summer trip:

PS. The title of this post came from an old nightgown I got for Christmas when I was thirteen and had stopped eating meat. It had a Far Side comic of cows standing on hind legs. One of them was grilling a hamburger and caption was of the other cow saying “You’re sick, Jessie! Sick, sick, sick!”

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In my last post I finally brought up my mother’s hoarding problem - which was the original raison d’etre of this blog (see my About Page). On our journey we have discovered two invaluable books that will help all of us work through the emotions and reasons behind the obsessive collecting. Overcoming Compulsive Hoarding, by Fugen Neziroglu, Ph.D., Jerome Bubrick, Ph. D., Ph. D., Jose A. Yaryura-Tobias, MD and Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding, by David F. Tolin, Randy O, Frost, and Gail Steketee.

They are both excellent resources for recovery from this particular affliction, and we are buying both books for mom and each of us sisters. 

They aren’t like your average, ubiquitous clutter-busting books, which talk about organizing and getting rid of stuff, but don’t really help the person with a bonafide compulsive hoarding problem. These books have proven techniques for getting to the root(s) of the problem: the emotional issues and erroneous beliefs that cause behaviors of acquiring and not throwing away to get out of hand.

We’ve also found a website - Clutterer’s Anonymous - which has lists for face-to-face suport groups as well as other resources. My sister and her good friend (whose mother we have recently discovered has the SAME PROBLEM!) took my mother to a meeting last Saturday and said that it was great. I’m so excited to hear what it was like and how it went!!!

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Wow! I blink my eyes and weeks have passed since I last posted. It’s been so long that I’ve begun to develop anxiety about posting again. It all started when I worked some extra hours at work. Then we acquired ants in the kitchen and I was battling them for days! Then the weather was bad here in Denver, a snow storm that cut out our Internet for a couple of days. Then, I started to develop carpal tunnel like pain in my arm and gave up knitting and typing for a while. Then there was the funk I was in. I get those from time to time. Finally, my husband bought me a terrific book (which I’ll post about soon) which inspired me to go to the library and bring home a giant stack of books to read…instead of writing myself.

Well, I think those are all the reasons for my absence. Since I’ve been gone, we’ve been doing some exciting things, though.We are still trying new grains and new greens in the kitchen. I wish I could say that my house was getting cleaned and organized during this time, but it’s been two steps forward, one step back with that area of my life. We invited friends over to grill with us and I cleaned voraciously. I managed to get through a very, very large pile of mail that has plagued our dining room, organized and stack them neatly in a box that could be hidden away when company comes, but when I lifted the box a day later, the bottom fell out and the mail is now in a nasty heap on the floor of the sun room. But, I’m making an effort, and that’s all I can do really. Move forward one step at a time. 

There is another excitement in my house these days. We are growing heirloom vegetables from seed and our seedlings are sprouting and growing strong! My husband and I literally sit and stare at them, maybe not for hours, but for a surprisingly long time! 

So, there you have it. I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long. I’ll try to catch up. Pictures of things we’ve cooked, the book Tim bought me, and the seedling we are growing are forthcoming.

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This picture is an illustration of the kind of week it has been. Tim is post-call today and is napping; Casey is always napping; I’m trying to get something productive done today, but can’t seem to get out of my pajamas. 

Today is the kind of day where you feel dirty even though you’ve actually managed to shower. Actually, it’s been a real effort to shower lately. While usually, I crawl out of my skin if I don’t manage to shower by 10 AM, lately, I’ve been disinterested in the whole process. But, I did manage to shower today, and I still feel gross! My hair feels limp and yucky. I’m too fat for all of my clothes and can’t stand wearing the one pair of jeans which actually fit me because they need to be washed. I feel frumpy and dumpy - I guess this is a call to start integrating exercise and healthy eating into my life. 

As for integrating productivity into the rest of today, I’ll spend it making plans for the rest of my week - see, I have the luxury of a spring break since I’m a teacher, but somehow it’s Tuesday already, and I’ve done almost nothing I’d hoped to do. I’d like to blame it on the weather and the flat tire I got last week, but I’m sure it’s really just laziness. (I haven’t even managed to post the recipe for the beet salad I wrote about last week, and all I really need to do is post a link to the New York Times page which it’s on.)

At the moment, I’m taking a break from washing dishes (while those in the tiny dish drainer are drying), watching Disney’s The Rescuers, and trying to interest myself in making lists. I’ve never been a good list-maker - just like I’ve never been a good diary-writer - but I think the reason I never get anything done is because I do nothing for a long time (days, weeks), and then want to do everything I’m not doing all at once. Like now: I simultaneously want to learn to cook, clean my house, finish my lesson plans early, exercise, eat more healthfully, and lose weight. Plus, my husband and I want to start a container garden this year. So, what I end up doing is picking up fifty books from the library on all of these subjects and then perusing them until I’ve lost all motivation to do any of these things (since you may not believe me about the quantity of books, I’ll try to post an actual picture of all the books I have out from the library tomorrow - if I can get off my butt). 

Alrighty then! I shall spend the rest of the evening making lists and dividing goals into doable steps. We’ll see how it goes!

(P.S. My husband is not very happy that I posted these pics. But my snoozing lads are soooo cute!)

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Yikes! I’m sure you’re all familiar with the studies which show that women are still earning less than men, or the studies which demonstrate the supposed monetary value of a housewife, but a Vanderbilt professor of law and economics, Joni Hersch, has found that housework decreases the earnings of both men and women. That is, the more hours a woman spends on housework, the lower her hourly wage will be, regardless of her profession outside the home.

You can read the story here:

Women’s and Men’s Earnings Hurt by Housework

I suppose that’s why such successful career-holding mothers as Caitlin Flanagan, and Penelope Trunk have - or have had - nannies, cleaning services, and “House Managers.” (And by the way, when Penelope Trunk announced that she hired a House Manager, her reader response was off the charts. People do NOT like a working mom who can afford such luxuries. Surprisingly, of her 175 commentors, it was the men and fathers who were most supportive of her decision.)

I think the moral of the story is that you cannot have it all - there will always be a trade-off.

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I’ve been bad again, not blogging the way I thought I would when I started this adventure. And the day is so incredibly sunny, so unbelievable, that part of me wanted to feel upset about the state of my house. This should be a day where I open up every window and let the air flow through my sparkling domain. But it ain’t gonna happen today, and I’m not going to allow myself to get upset about it. Yes, that part keeps tugging at me: that part of me that is embarrassed and feels guilty about the pile of dishes, the insane pile of mail, the shoes that are overtaking every inch of the downstairs, the crumby, spilled-upon countertops, the fact that I’ve not mopped my kitchen floor once since we’ve moved in. Not once! (We’ll talk more about that in another post.)

I’m not going to bother being upset by the way air flowing through the house might just be spreading the dust and filth around. Anyway, it’s bad. The house is bad. I couldn’t possibly entertain a guest that might stop by - I’d have to grab my purse and recommend that we go down the street for coffee. And what if my landlord stops by to pick up her mail??? (The pieces of her mail that I have been collecting since Christmas! and that I can’t find because they’re spread out in numerous piles throughout the downstairs.) 

But I’m choosing to ignore all that, because I want to relax outside in this healing sunshine for awhile, and then I’ve got a ton of school work to do, so I’m not going to waste my day trying to  clean the awful, awful house. I’m hoping that after taking care of myself so beautifully and getting some schoolwork done, I’ll be able to pour a glass of wine this evening, turn up the music and tackle the house once more. 

And here is the reason why that just might work: This is the first day my husband has been on call for a couple of months, meaning he’s not coming home tonight, meaning, I can have an unconventional, answer-to-nobody-but-myself day today. I can eat cottage cheese and fruit for dinner and then tackle the dish pile, instead of making more dishes by cooking. So, I choose to have hope today - that I will get to the bottom of it all eventually - just not right at this moment - when the breezy  air is tinkling in my neighbors wooden wind chimes and  it feels like a day to be spent poolside - at the beginning of March!

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Image of Le Tran with his Android via Feministing.com

Robots who do housework and respond to sexism in the workplace! As long as they don’t replace us wives and women, I say bring it on! Let them do my housework! 

Carly Hart says it best at Associatedcontent.com:

Where’s mine? Women can use a male robot like Aiko.

A woman around the house doing mundane chores is nothing new. Women would much rather prefer a male robot who’ll do the dishes without rolling their eyes or the laundry without much fuss. A male robot such as Aiko could be well received among the single women demographic if he could do basic plumbing, was handy with a hammer and nails and could change the oil in their car. 

Thanks, Carly, for giving the subject a much needed female spin!

But seriously, I discovered Aiko on feministing.com: Fem-Bots, the Perfect Woman? And a for more incendiary article via the same website: Female robot is the perfect companion, receptionist, sexual assault victim

I agree with many of the commenters to the feministing.com articles, as well as the authors, toomey, and Vanessa Valenti, that yes, this is pretty creepy! But not much surprises me these days and I often find myself looking, or trying to look, at various sides before getting in myself all in a huff (unless the offending item is the incessant commercials for Girls Gone Wild, in which case I have been unable to contain many fits of rage).

• One of the commenters, Bunny,  notes that the original intent of creating this android was as a care-giver for the elderly; thus, it is a noble endeavor gone awry. 
• Another source mentions that Trung invented Aiko after having a heart attack and though that someday he will need 24 hours assistance. 

After giving some thought to the matter, I’ve concluded that it’s not really the quirky fetishes or sexist views of one dirty old man or socially awkward inventor  that bothers me, it is the supposed views of men en masse as in the orgiginal article from the Sun which I find offensive. I suppose the Sun article reads like Maxim or any other men’s interest magazine, (and to be honest, I dislike reading overly feminist diatribes just as much as these lowbrow men’s magazines), but come on!

SHE is the perfect wife, with the body of a Page 3 pin-up and housekeeping skills that put TV’s Kim and Aggie to shame.

Her name is Aiko, she can even read a map, and will never, ever, nag.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t she fellas? And she is.

Aiko is actually a robot, a fantasy brought to life by inventor Le Trung.

And in Trung’s own words: 

“Aiko doesn’t need holidays, food or rest, and will work almost 24 hours a day. She is the perfect woman.”

In the end I find it sad that she is not touted as a tireless aid to the perpetually overworked housewife and working women of the world, but as “the perfect woman.” Maybe it’s not really Le Trans fault, but the slant of the author, Caroline Iggulden (a woman!) who must cater to The Sun’s readership via an expected “humorous tone.” 

Still, must it always be about and for the men of the world?

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