I want to be June Cleaver, or Carol Brady... Or at least
some awesome 21st century version of them. I have this vision of waking
up to drink coffee with my husband and then sending him off to work. Waking and
spending the day with my children who are magical, well-behaved hybrids of the
Von Trap family and free spirited creative Waldorf kids. I bake bread and
make home-made everything. Our home is sparkling clean, the laundry is done and
hanging on a line outside, and our dogs are so well behaved they are the envy
of dog owners everywhere. I am of course a svelte size eight, I sport adorable
skirts I’ve sewn myself, and my toes and nails are always neatly manicured.
Okay - I realize that this is so far from reality, and anyone
with any sense is rolling their eyes at me right now. But we all have our fantasies and this happens to be one of my favorites! Right behind winning the lotto and moving to the Caribbean.
The reality is that we can't afford for me to stay home, and our life looks more like this: I wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, early enough to
feed my baby daughter so my husband can drop her at my mom’s on his way to
work. We try very hard not to be surly to each other as we chug our coffee and scramble to get out of the house on time. I head off to work for 7 hours and when I
get home I’m exhausted and don’t feel like cooking or cleaning. So I make a
salad and cook a frozen pizza. Our dogs
are sweet and well- meaning but so obnoxious that we have to toss them outside
when we have company because they get on peoples’ nerves. My husband works weekends so I’m on my own
getting us ready for the week; doing the laundry, grocery shopping, and doing
the bare minimum to keep our home livable. What little time is left I spend trying
to soak up as much of my daughter as I can.
In the midst of all that I can’t completely give up my June
Cleaver dreams. I try to keep our home tidy and as “green” as possible (on a
budget). I try to feed us healthy and (mostly) with whole foods. I read (obsess over) blogs
from “home-makers” that make their own everything (soap, laundry detergent,
bread, butter, salad dressing, etc. ad nauseum), women have their families on
the GAP diet, or some other healthy whole-foods structured plan. It’s all great in
theory but just not very realistic for a busy family on a tight budget. So we
do what we can.
Just recently I've been a little obsessed with doing as much DIY as I can. Some of it is (or can be modified to be) actually doable for a normal family like us. So now I plan to (when I have the time) share what I’ve found – and occasionally how I’ve modified my finds to make them more practical.
Just recently I've been a little obsessed with doing as much DIY as I can. Some of it is (or can be modified to be) actually doable for a normal family like us. So now I plan to (when I have the time) share what I’ve found – and occasionally how I’ve modified my finds to make them more practical.
