I'm a housewife, not a bum.

What makes a housewife? A wife that stays at home while her husband works. What does a housewife do all day? I think that depends on the individual person. When I tell people that I work from home, I swear they equate that as being unemployed. They look at me with what I call the "slanty face." You know the slanty face when you see it. It's a sad attempt at an understanding smile with a recognizable covering of disbelief. 

I've seen that look enough times to know that what it means. It means the person doesn't really think I do anything. Try to see if you can guess where the slanty face would go in this example (but typical) conversation:

Person: Where do you work?

Me: I work from home.

Person: Oh, so what do you do all day?

In case you couldn't guess, the slanty face goes after the "oh." This usually strikes up a curse that I have to fight to keep inside. There are lots of better responses-"What kind of work does that involve?" "What does that entail?" "What types of things do you do?"

It's the "oh" that gets me. I swear it's a shortened version of "Oh, you bum." All I'm saying is let's not make assumptions, and more importantly, don't underestimate my hustle.

If I were a T.V. wife

I like shows that are centered around families-not to be confused with family shows. So I was watching reruns of one of my favorite shows-That 70's show. As I watched Kitty try to solve everyones' problems with food,I came to a realization: Hey, I tend to do that. I started wondering if I were like any other T.V. wife. Have you ever done that? I don't think I am fully like one particular wife, but I do think that I have a characteristic or two from a few different ones.

Here are the ones I came up with for me and why:

Kitty (That 70's show) - for how she deals with food (not her alcoholism)

Roseanne (Roseanne) - for her constant sarcasm & willingness to do whatever she needs to do for her family...& and maybe even for her odd relationship with her mother (lol)

Carrie Heffernan (The King of Queens) - for her overall awesomeness and her stick-to-itiveness when overcoming any obstacles she and her husband face

That's just my opinion. My husband may have a different one, but I'll have to ask him.The longer I'm married, maybe the list will change. We'll see.

Crock pot success and a gravy miracle

Once again, I decided to break out the trusty crock pot. Seriously, how many mishaps can you possibly have with one appliance? And with the toaster oven out of the way, I was sure to get it going without a hitch this time.

I didn't make chicken this time. I made a roast. I've seen my mom make roast beef hundreds of times. I figured it couldn't be that hard. She seasoned it, tossed in onions and peppers, and let it do it's thing. That's just my style! The roast turned went over without a hitch. But, of course you know there was a slight issue. I only had one jar of gravy.

What on earth do you do with an entire roast,a tiny jar of gravy, and your spouse coming home in 15 minutes? Well, here's what I did: I pouted. After that, I did the thing I know how to do best. I called my mom. She laughed and told me good luck because she only uses gravy from a jar. I obviously phoned the wrong lifeline. I called my grandmother. Of course mom-mom, as I call her, knew how to make gravy. Her explanation of how to make it was so long that by the time she got to the end I was at more of a loss than when I started. My aunt laughing in the background and yelling out "You better dig up another jar!" wasn't exactly helpful either.

With that, I went to old reliable: Google. I knew I had to use the essence from the roast, so I'd dumped that into a pan. That, however, is all I knew. A quick Google search told me the easiest possible way to make gravy:

1. Bring the essence from the meat to a boil.
2. Find a container (like a small Tupperware bowl) with a lid.
3. Put super cold water into the container.
4. Add flour.
5. Shake. Cover. Pray. (Well, the pray part is mine. I always think a dash of prayer is needed when cooking something for the first time, but it's completely optional.)

Keep in mind, I'd never made gravy before, but this seemed doable even for me. What do you think?

Wife vs. Linen...Let the ironing begin!

I'll cut to the chase. I lose the linen battle. It's not a small loss. It's one of those painful defeats you like to watch between your fingers. Yeah, it's just that bad.

My husband is always on the move, so I try to do little things to help him out like iron his work clothes. If I was any good at ironing, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. I give it a good try, so he never complains. I even looked up how to iron men's dress shirts on e-how. Those guys really do let you know how to do just about anything.

At any rate, I've greatly improved at ironing dress shirts. My most recent foe: linen pants. Yes, they look dashing. But, how do you really iron these? They laugh in the face of steam. Unfortunately, e-how tells me how to iron pants in general (not linen pants). After several website fails, I stumbled upon an AskMen.com post about linen.

So, you're apparently supposed to iron linen when it's damp. There's something my intuition never would have told me. And it should be ironed not once, but twice (once on each side). Yet again, that's just not something I would've known. Let's make a rule that retailers shouldn't be able to sell linen if they're not going to tell you how to care for it. It just may increase linen sales if you're not angrily ironing the linen garment that you purchased. Who would buy lots of linen garments if they're ferociously frustrated by them?

Are there any other linen tips or tricks? Who am I kidding? I'll take any ironing tips.