Storm before the calm

AAAAHHHH!!!!  The house looks like a bomb exploded.  The living room is occupied by two half-packed backpacks and numerous piles of to-be packed items.  Toiletries in various states of fullness and size are waiting on the bathroom floor to be consolidated and packed away.  Documents are laying waiting to be copied and filed away safely in separate locations. 

The house is waiting to be cleaned but I reckon I only have time to do one room.  I’m leaning toward the bathroom.  After two weeks of Moroccan facilities I think I may appreciate a clean bathroom on return. Of course, it may also appear clean by comparison as is.  Tricky. 

In lieu of vacuuming, I have decided a light ‘DustBusting’ session before turning in will have to suffice.  That is if I can get up the energy to care by the time we head to bed. 

With that, I leave you.  There is a fridge of perishables waiting to be eaten through. 

But don’t despair!!  While I am away I have wrangled some friends and family to keep these pages occupied.  Stay tuned for the next two weeks for my first guest series!!!!

a word on movies and marriage...

Yesterday I went for a run.  I was thinking it would be my last chance before heading off to Morocco.  And the way my knee is feeling today, I might be right. 

At just past the 3K mark, just over halfway, I was ready to be done.  As usual.  Then the music kicked in. 

Beastie Boys Sabotage. 

Nice. 

While I powered on, I began thinking about a movie I had watched twice in the past two days.  The new Star Trek.  I guess it isn’t new anymore, but relatively speaking.  Before I go on, I have a confession to make. 

I am a bit of a Trekkie.  Yes, I am a shoe-aholic and a Trekkie.  It is totally possible. 

I’m not the type of Trekkie that has memorized every episode or gets too bent out of shape about improper quoting, but I am Trekkie enough that I had the Starfleet Academy sticker proudly displayed on the rear window just below my actual University. 

I remember being slightly concerned with the prospect of a new movie.  I needn’t have worried.

Have you seen J.J. Abrams’ take on the franchise?  You should.  Immediately.  Go. Now. Watch. 

Not only is it just awesome.  It also incorporates just enough of the old to be perfect.  Those beeps and bops and breathing new life into those trademark lines.  I mean who knew ‘Live Long and Prosper’ could equate to ‘Go F**k yourself.’  Brilliant!!!

And, getting back to the original spark, any movie that incorporates Sabotage into the opening exposition is already in my good books. 

This movie may become my new go-to favourite.  Do you have these?  Surely you do.  Those movies you put on in the background or watch when you need a little comfort. 

My husband doesn’t really have this need.  He can’t understand watching a movie over and over until you can recite it in your sleep.  As I may have done with The Princess Bride, The Breakfast Club, The Cutting Edge, The Sandlot, numerous Robin Hood movies, Footloose, etc. 

Speaking of, have you seen the previews for the Footloose remake?  Please Do Not.  Look. Away. Now.  It is sacrilegious!!!  I do not think I am alone in this thought.  

I digress.  Back to the good stuff.

The Goonies.  What child of the 80s doesn’t have The Goonies ingrained into their very being? 

I’ll tell you, shall I?  It is disturbing and a bit embarrassing to be honest.   

My Husband. 

I know. 

I have married a man that doesn’t appreciate the brilliance and magic of The Goonies.  It was on TV the other day.  I got very excited.  His response?  “You love The Goonies too much.”

I’m just going to blow past this.  It’s too distressing.  I can’t think about it today.  I’ll think about it tomorrow. (Yet another movie committed to memory.) 

We watched Star Trek instead.  A very pleasing evening was had by all.  I think my husband has the makings of a Trekkie.  He probably won’t admit to this and I did catch him questioning the physics of the movie, but I think there is potential there.  We may not agree on which captain is the best (I’m Picard all the way, I have a feeling Pete would go the Kirk route, although he does enjoy Patrick Stewart in American Dad, so it could go either way) but this shared SciFi (SyFy?) movie interest will go a long way to redeeming ‘the comment which shall not be repeated.’

So go on.  Confess.  What are your embarrassing go-to movies? 

Housewife Scores!

It’s Friday!  Welcome to ‘The Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife’ documenting my learning curve as a new, and unexpected, full-time homemaker.

Red wine & salt

While you wouldn’t know it from our current weather, last week was a bit chilly and I was feeling a bit snotty and the leaves were starting to turn so I decided to make my first cup of mulled wine.  I had a big mug and while I was sloppily taking the last gulp I dribbled.  A lot. 

‘SH*T!’

By the time Pete poked his head out of the living room to see what the fuss was about, I had ripped off my shirt and pulled the salt out of the cupboard.  Everyone has their own remedy for the red wine spill.  Mine is salt.  Lots and lots of salt and let it sit.  The next morning, the stain was almost invisible, in the wash and now you would never know. 

Sadie 1, Red Wine 0

Clean floor-who knew?

This past weekend I woke up with a pounding headache (see above).  In my addled state I decided it would be the perfect time to wash the kitchen floor.  On my hands and knees. 

Now our kitchen isn’t very big, at all, but it took me at least 45 minutes.  I stood up and, I sh*t you not, the floor actually sparkled.  The sunshine streaming through the window was reflected off the floor!!  I was so shocked by the difference, I think I mentioned how clean the floor is at least five times.  I still can’t believe it. 

Sadie 1, Floor 0

Salt in the eye

This is an easy one.  I was sprinkling salt flakes over a dish.  I might have been a bit too theatrical in my sprinkling form because somehow I got salt in my eye. 

SH*T!!

So much for my Top Chef flourish.

Sadie 0, Salt 1

Domino’s Dipping Sauce

We tend to get quite a collection of those green tubs of dipping sauce that come with Domino’s Pizza.  We stopped using the dip for the pizza awhile ago, but what do you do with it?  It just starts piling up?  It seems a shame to just pitch it.  In the last week, I used it to marinade chicken (which I then wrapped in streaky bacon and baked with tomatoes (YUM!!) and then a garnish on stuffed eggplant which I partially stuffed with breadcrumbs made from old croutons.  Am I crafty and resourceful, or what?  Don’t answer.  Let me live in my delusion for awhile. Still marking it as one for me.

Sadie 1,  Random Foodstuffs 0

‘Seasoning’

Last week during the cold snap, I made potato leek soup.  There are many ways to make this soup.  Our recipe calls for sealing the pot with parchment paper while the taters and leeks cook down.  You are also meant to stir frequently.  Now, Pete usually handles this recipe but I was rocking it out this night.  I pulled the parchment off to stir and apparently didn’t notice where I placed the paper.  I go to seal the pot again and find the paper in flames. 

SH*T! SH*T! SH*T!  

 Again, by the time Pete poked his head out of the living room, it was under control. 

Those black flecks in the soup?  Freshly Ground Pepper. 

(We don’t have a working pepper grinder)

Sadie 1, Soup 1

So, on the homemaker front.  Not too shabby.  Sadie streaks ahead with a score of 4 to 2. 

The profanity front…. Looks like Sadie looses to SH*T!  4 to 1.

You win some, you lose some. 

Blocked

I am feeling drained of words.  I am feeling drained of opinions. 

As an aspiring writer, this is not good.

For the last week or so, I have not seen the stories in the little things.  I have not been mindful of the days going on around me.  But I am also tired of the words and opinions I find around me on the interwebs.  Which is where I spend a lot of my time lately.  I miss my physical friends.  I miss real laughter.  I am beginning to hate interweb shorthand, but find myself continually drawn to the virtual looking glass.

For the last few weeks I have been participating in an online ‘PathFinder’ course.  Its purpose, as I saw it, was to detect your passions among all the things you actually do all day and find a way to pursue them more regularly, more mindfully, and in the process find a creative path for yourself.  A feel good course, as my mom calls it.  And it was working, I was writing everyday and becoming more and more convinced that I could be a writer and explorer in my own way. 

Then the words stopped.  I had no more words.  I had no more stories to tell. 

Maybe I should be more clear.  I have stories to tell.  I have stories I am contractually obligated to tell.  I have no words.  I have no ideas about how to gain words.  I do not see a place to start. 

This is not good. 

I decided to try a different tack.  A different approach with different tools.  Usually, I write on the keyboard and pretty much free-flowing.  I type because I can type faster than I can write and I can proofread as I go.  But as anyone who writes knows, the blank open document is daunting.  There are of course tricks to diminish the daunting: copy and paste previous attempts to fool the brain into thinking you have already begun and just need to pick up a thread and keep weaving, type out the prompt/assignment/abstract/subject line in the blind hope it will trigger some pithy thought that can then be spun for a few lines until the juices start flowing, play with fonts and sizes and colours until the proposed title looks pretty and maybe the design element sparks the literary element, physically move yourself and your computer to a different setting (with no internet connection).  

I tried all these, it’s not working. 

Then I decided to sit down with paper and pen and see what happened.  Journaling is an integral part to this course and has always been part of my coping and ‘working through’ process, so why not try to journal the story and see what happens.  The journal atmosphere can be a bit more freeing than typing.  There can be arrows and side-notes and scribbles and cross outs.  It is more visual and more easily creative and flowing than left-clinking, track changing, shape inserting word processing.  At least for me.

I find it is also a way to slow down the thinking and allow for a little more composition rather than hit and run typing.  You can work on your penmanship.  The letters connecting become a bit of an art.  The words get messy when the ideas flow, when the idea is just forming the words are each a little piece of art, each a variation on a theme leading to the next idea.  Eventually they make a page of vacillating, oscillating prose.  The shadow of the pen and the words on the page simultaneously spill from the pen on a sunny day, so rare now.  Just like the writing.  So rare now. 

I still feel like I have no words.  No stories to tell.  No opinions to make.  But I am putting pen to paper and focusing on the process, looking for new inspiration, hoping a product comes eventually.  Leaving the house, engaging in the world.

It’s all I can do. 

**despite my writers' block, I recommend the Path Finder for a fun few weeks of introspection.  It won't necessarily change your life but it could highlight a way to change your life, if you so desire.  You also are given an excuse to break out the crayons and markers, as if you need an excuse.

To sleep...

It’s Friday!  Welcome to ‘The Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife’ documenting my learning curve as a new, and unexpected, full-time homemaker.

This week has been interesting.  I have only just recovered.  Amazingly I have provided dinner every night despite not having gone to the grocery in two weeks.  It’s a combination of improvisation, take-away and numerous runs to the shop around the corner.  This is what happens when I don’t get sleep. 

That might not be completely accurate as I swing between being an insomniac and light sleeper on a regular basis, but this week I went three nights in a row with about four hours of sleep a night.  I know this doesn’t sound like it should be a problem as I stay home.  I could just sleep-in, right?  But then I’m not getting up until 10, which means I’m not showered and coffee-ed and ready to face the world until 1 and then it’s just all downhill from there. 

But why was I only sleeping four hour a night, you ask?  Was it my usual brain-racing insomnia? 

No.

It was because Britain doesn’t believe in window screens and I can no longer stand the sound of rain.

This was the combination that threw me over the edge Tuesday night and had me outside, in the rain, in a flimsy robe, at 3am, inspecting the down pipes like a crazy woman.  

Let me back up. 

It began on Sunday night.  Around my routine 3am wake-up I was dive-bombed by a mosquito.  Repeatedly.  It wouldn’t just get it over with and bite, it decided to torture me first by hovering over my ear at intervals spaced just far enough for me to almost fall asleep.  After flaling at it a few times while grunting, I finally just pulled the sheet over my ear and tried not to move too much. 

The next morning, I had a bite on my arm.

Monday night. 3 am.  Dive-bombed again.  I didn’t realize they lived longer than a day, but I pulled the sheet up and again attempted not to move.  This didn’t work.  Every time I shifted, I also had to re-shift the sheet over my ear.  It became too much work.  I tried stuffing tissue in my ears but then all I could hear was the tissue ruffling in my ear.  Like someone crumpling paper.  All. Night. Long.

Another bite, on the other arm. 

Tuesday night.  3am.  Dive-bombed again.  Shifted the sheet again.  (Notice in all this time we haven’t thought to just close the damn window!  Except we have done that in the past and it gets too stuffy.  We have closed the window and turned on the fan, but the noise of the fan drives me to the brink of insanity and circulated stale air is still stale air.) Now I am awake I notice it is raining outside.  Great.  But it’s not raining very hard, just a steady drizzle.  Just enough to make the downpipes gurgle.  Gurgle.  Gurgle. 

So now I am sleep deprived, hiding from a mosquito and having leak flashbacks and really need to pee.  I silently scream into my pillow.  I decide I can’t take it anymore and get out of bed and grab a robe and head downstairs.  I am going to pee and then investigate.  The gurgling pipes just seem too loud to be right.  Something is leaking, I am sure of it. 

I get downstairs and realize I have grabbed the flimsiest robe we have and that it is actually raining harder than I thought.  I don’t care!  Something needs to be done! 

Outside I am crouching over drains, scrambling over the lumber pile that has been in our side-return since we moved in, and sticking my hand into the down pipes to figure out what is making that horrible noise!!  Of course, I didn’t grab my glasses or a flashlight so I can’t see a damn thing and I am out of my mind with no sleep and water torture.  I don’t’ find anything out of the ordinary (except of course, me, wandering around in my back garden in the middle of the night in a silk Chinese robe and clogs). 

If you’re wondering where Pete is during all this…He’s in bed.  Sleeping.  As you do.

I climb back into bed, slightly damp, and settle in.  I. Will. Sleep.

And then it starts.  The dripping.  Something is dripping with a regularity that can only be purposefully orchestrated.  I can’t tell where it is coming from.  It seems to be moving, but the rhythm never breaks. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

I try the tissues again.  I can hear the dripping and gurgling through the tissues stuffed in my ear.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

7am.  Wednesday Morning.

Pete finds me sleeping on the couch.  Or at least attempting to sleep.  The place that is perfect for an afternoon nap is not perfect for a night’s sleep. 

That evening I dig out the camping supplies and locate all our mosquito repellent.  I’m convinced the only thing between me and a good sleep is a healthy dose of DEET. 

Wednesday night.  Slept like a drugged insomniac. 

Thursday morning.  Pete finds a bite on his arm. 

*Cue a slow-mo montage of myself storming the bedroom draped in cans of DEET spraying anything that moves, mouth open in primal scream and Pete bolting out of bed ("What the ****!") completely unaware that his wife has been driven to yet another insectal genocide.

Admission is the first step

When Pete flipped the calendar a few weeks ago, he immediately said, “that’s you all over.”

And while I haven’t quite got to the point that we have had to resort to cheese and crackers for dinner, I do have a bit of a shoe problem.  We can no longer go to T.K. Maxx as I have to pass the shoe section to get to the homewares and I can’t help but have a glance.  When I finally meet up with Pete in homewares, I am inevitably carrying the shoes I came in and trying out a new contender.  If they are still comfortable by the time we head to the check out, I usually get them. 

To be fair, it is only recently that Pete voiced a concern about this practice.  Over dinner with friends on Friday, he was unusually vocal about our T.K. trips and my burgeoning tribute to Imelda Marcos.  Hmm.  What makes it a bit more embarrassing is that I ‘work’ from home so I very rarely have the need to put on actual shoes.  I spend the majority of my days in socks and slippers.  But a girl has needs. 

Unfortunately, my ‘needs’ are beginning to take over the house.  I currently have shoes stored in at least four different areas in the house.  Wait, five.  I don’t actually know how many pairs I have in each area and to be honest I am a bit scared to do a head count (foot count?).  I have a feeling I will find that I have enough pairs to wear a different pair every day of the month and still have some left over.  In my defence, some are very specialized.  I mean, hiking boots cannot be included in the count as they are necessary, but only used for very special occasions.  The same can be said of my wedding shoes and other related ‘dress’ shoes.  These are only brought out for cocktail parties or photo shoots, so those shouldn’t count either.  Then there are the seasonal pairs that really should only be counted when they are in season.  I can’t be expected to get rid of my flip flops and cute sandals just because I only wear them for three months out of the year.  Same goes for the tall boots.

So really……..If we continue this line of logic, it’s completely reasonable to have four, five, shoe zones.  One for each season and 'special use.' 

Hello, my name is Ariel and I am a shoe addict. 

Next week, handbags and totes.  

Oh my!

Whiny Wife

It’s Friday!  Welcome to ‘The Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife’ documenting my learning curve as a new, and unexpected, full-time homemaker.

Hello Friends.  A big thank you to those that stopped by on Wednesday to peruse these Chronicles.  I will also apologize.  I also perused the archive on Wednesday and realized it had become a repository for a bit of whining.  I am a ball of inconsistencies.  While claiming to embrace my home-maker-ness, I have also been whining.  To be honest, I was going for sarcasm, but it doesn’t always come across.  I once said my memoirs would be called, ‘Sarcasm doesn’t translate to print.’  Completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. 

The issue, as I see it, is that I have a constantly changing view of what it means to be a housewife and how I feel about the role.  I guess the straight-forward definition would be a wife that stays home and takes care of ‘the house,’ i.e. cleaning, cooking, ironing, schedule keeping, family finances, etc.  We won’t touch the child aspect.  I’m not going there, despite it being an assumed part of the gig.  However, I feel like ‘housewife’ must mean more than that these days.  In my small circle of friends there are quite a few women that are basically functioning as housewives on a daily basis, but are also studying for a degree, starting their own business, doing some light admin work for the family business or moving between freelance positions.  And I feel like this has always been the case with housewives.  They are always the engine behind the family machine. 

I am very aware that the ‘heyday’ of the housewife was coupled with an inevitability.  However, due to the tenacity of those housewives, and time just marching on, our generation* has, all things being equal (which is rare, I know, but go with it), the choice to chuck it all in and stay at home.  To be fair, I didn’t choose to stay home and I raged against it for a long time and that discomfort and inability to accept my position caused a lot of angst, as you all read.  Eventually, I got my head on straight and put my energy toward finding the positives in my position and I’m happy to say I am happy.  We are healthier, spending less money, less stressed and, I think, a better team.  Yes, being happy in my position includes my husband’s happiness.  If that isn’t important to me, then I shouldn’t be married.  But if I’m not happy, he isn’t happy so taking time to take care of me is also taking care of us.  For me, being a housewife isn’t about giving everything to my family or about being selfish with my time.  It is a happy balance that makes us all happy.  It’s about creating a support system that allows us to flourish, together. 

But our generation doesn’t want to claim the title of housewife with all its Donna Reed implications.  (Although, that reference has its own issues as it is a fictional character and she was the un-credited producer and writer.)  As a point of interest, I am the only one of my friends that refers to herself as a housewife.  Maybe I like the drama of the title.  It does elicit some interesting responses.  Maybe it’s the dormant non-conformist in me.  Maybe I’m retro.  Maybe both.  Who knows.

What I do know, is that I am happier than I have been for a long time.  It has taken me a long time to get here, but I know for certain I would not have got here without my husband.  I don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t go to Africa and if my friend didn’t work her wily ways to push us toward each other in those few short weeks.  But I don’t want to know.  That isn’t what happened.  What happened was a dream come true, literally.  Forgetting that in order to mourn a hypothetical parallel life is a waste of time.   

I guess this is a long-winded way of  saying that I will be working toward making the Chronicles a bit more lively, less whiny. 

But thanks for sticking with me through the whiny.  Into every life a little whine must fall.  I prefer mine dry. 

*please accept that the generation I am referring to is a sweeping generalization including women in my ‘demographic’ group, which to be honest is relatively privileged its it ability to accumulate education and careers and its ability to walk away if it so chooses.