I'm a housewife, not a house

Today marks my third morning of dragging myself out of bed before 6am and doing my Kickboxing Workout for Dummies DVD. Three days may not sound like much to you, but it's oodles better than the long range of nothing that I was doing in a row.

That's the thing about working at home, on a computer all day-it gives me no legitimate reason to move around. If I'm moving around, it's to do something around our home (dishes, dinner, etc.) or I'm avoiding doing work. Unlike some boring jobs where you can still get paid even if you're not exactly doing anything, that doesn't happen when you're freelancing. Every minute counts. Seriously, have you ever taken a gig that pays by the minute? It's kinda stressful.

But back to the kickboxing DVD-I've had it for like 5 or so months. I break it out every once in a blue moon. I don't know what's different this time. This time, I'm actually taking it seriously. I take that back. I do know what's different. I have a goal to lose some weight (or at least tighten up) before my first wedding anniversary in May. I stumbled upon some DVDs that I want to try-Chalean Extreme actually-but I had to be realistic with myself first. I had to be realistic about what kind of shape that I am currently in. Right now, that shape is somewhere between a pear and an oval. Honestly, I'm too short for that.

There's no way I can leap into any workout that ends in extreme when I'm basically coming off of an almost fully sedentary state. I give myself about a month to be able to get through Kickboxing for Dummies. When I say get through it, I mean get through it successfully without feeling like I may need to call a medic. The DVD has 6 basic parts. Right now, I get through two of them before I start giving Keli Roberts the slanty face. I do the warm-up and "Fat Burning #1." I'll tell you this, I've noticed that as my form improves, I get more out of the workouts. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right. After a month or so, I hope to be in a little better shape so that I can start the Chalean Extreme and my fitness level (or lack thereof) not make me want to quit in the first 3 minutes.

So, why am I not a house? Simply put-I don't want to be as big as a house. I don't think I even want to be a brick house. Don't they get old and crumbly sometimes?

Productivity Flow...or and flow (gross, right?)

You may not want to hear this, but I don't really care. I am a woman, and as a woman, I have certain monthly obligations. For me, I've had this monthly obligation since I was nine years old. I am not Anne Sexton. I am not celebrating my uterus-no, not in the least. (You can find that poem here if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) What I'm actually doing is seeing how my monthly menstruation affects my productivity. Get the title? Cute, right?

If you don't know by now that I work from home, let me take this time to reiterate: I work from home. Now that you're caught up, let's move on. I recently put myself on a schedule to accommodate a few new responsibilities that I've acquired. Go me! For this schedule, I've set a certain number of tasks to do daily for each job. This way, I am constantly being productive and don't get behind in anything. This was a splendid plan until my period came on.

Today is Monday. As I was in the shower mapping out my list of things to do, I realized that I am a full day and a half behind schedule. Mind you it's only the eighth day of the month, so it's not too detrimental. The thing is, I was on schedule (even a little ahead in one area) until my period came on last week. Where did the time go? Well, most of it was spent curled up into a ball and the rest of the events that are coupled with that time of the month. The remainder of the time I was doing work...ever so slowly. Monumental Discovery: You really can't get a whole lot of work done in the fetal position!

Judging from all the Pamprin and Midol commercials, I'm not the only one whose period slows her down. All the tea, heating pads and ibuprofen in the world don't do a thing for me when 1) I feel like there's a monster trying to gnaw its way simultaneously through my stomach and back and 2) I'm convinced that I am hemorrhaging. So, I've come to a solid truth. I will fall behind at least once a month and have to make up for it the day after day 5 aka post-period day 1 aka p.p.day 1. Yes, I made those names up. You can use them or come up with your own if you would like.

How do you stay productive with Aunt Flow wreaking havoc? At this point, she has the upper hand on me. It could be worse though, I guess. I could be completely unproductive the entire five days. When I look at it like that, a day and a half isn't that bad.

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.

Love as a battlefield-is it really?

Now, you know I love T.V. I can pull a life lesson from any show I watch. I was listening to one of those music choice channels, the ones that play music but no videos, and I kept hearing song after song about battles, struggles, and wars with love. For some reason, it got on my nerves. Plus, the songs repeat after a while. Overkill!  I turned on the T.V., thinking that I could escape from the depression-inducing music, and started watching "How I  Met Your Mother" (season 5/ episode 7 "The Rough Patch" if you care). At some point in the episode Barney says, "You know what they say about relationships. Every waking moment's a battle." 


Are you kidding me?! My train of thought seemed forced in one direction at this point. Is it true? Is love really that Hellish? I know from experience that love can be awesome, blinding, premature, hurtful and overwhelming. A battle though? 

I don't expect every day of married life to be full of sunshine, ponies, and pansies. However, I don't expect to have to build a defense strategy to get through it either. I am well aware that these folk said "love" and "relationship" and not marriage. But if marriage isn't the biggest testament of a loving relationship, I don't know what is! Now if I think back to my pre-marriage/ pre-housewife days, my worst love experiences had less to do with love and more to do with a heap of other emotions gone awry. Do I think love is a battlefield? No; but I could very well be wrong. I think love is always good. I think the particular situation, people involved and extenuating circumstance can project an aura of badness upon it. Maybe the real battlefield is all of the obstacles you have to get through in order to get to love-real love.

Home Economics-an oldie but goodie

I took many random classes as a college undergraduate. My classes ranged from Alfred Hitchcock to a gods and goddesses course. Were these classes practical? No. Were they interesting? You bet! But as my years outside of the college classroom increase, I have come to realize that I may have made a mistake.

I went to Albright College. Their motto is something like "a different way of thinking." Well, they succeeded at that. The array of miscellaneous classes I took provided me with an arsenal of different thoughts. As a result, I tend to be halfway decent at random trivia games.

What class did I need? Home Economics. I see no reason why colleges don't offer home economics as an elective. I had home economics in middle school. We sewed a few things by hand and made a couple of meals. If the ability to sew on a button, repair a small hole or tear and keep from starving isn't invaluable, I don't know what is.

No matter what path you take in life, a solid home economics course could do nothing but help. You wouldn't even have to call it home economics. You could call it basic life skills. The final exam could be seeing if you can fix an entire Thanksgiving meal by yourself. Again, it's practical.

I don't proclaim to be a cook. I can, however, keep from starving. I can sew on a button or fix a small hole on an article of clothing. Now, as I was looking through the supermarket circular I was honest with myself. I have no idea how to fix a whole chicken or turkey. I know how it's done in theory, but a theory is far from a fact and nothing more than a strong maybe.

I can admit, he's a better cook.

My husband has been cooking up a storm lately, and dinner has been awesome. He comes at dinner with a whole entire plan. His preparation routine is vicious. He makes brews it over in his mind, makes phone calls...it's intense! Me? I think about dinner, let it go, search the 'net for ideas, and call my grandma. What's the difference between his tactics and mine? He has one meal in mind and follows through. Me on the other hand, I pick a meat, pick what I like from the advice, and hope it works out for the best.

This past week, I made a breaded chicken breast. Ingredients: cheese, garlic powder, bread crumbs I made from leftover buttery biscuits, and a bunch of other seasonings. It turned out pretty good. My husband made steak(w/ onions and peppers of course) w/ roux, broccoli and rice. I'd never even heard of roux before, but I won't ever forget it now!

So, why do I think my husband is a better cook? Well, because he's more methodical with his cooking. I'm more helter skelter. Yumminess tends to occur at any rate, so hey.

Chicken cooking in the oven

Finished chicken dinner

Steak in the making

Finished Steak dinner

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.