I don't understand the way life slips out from under me so easily. I'll get all on top of my shit. I mean, ALL on top of it. I'll clean the room, clean the kitchen, play with the cat, cook a huge meal, AND have a date with my sweetie, and those are the days I feel the best about life, the most fulfilled. And then a couple of days will go by and the clothes will pile up in the hamper, Rob's and my dishes will pile up on the kitchen counter, and turds will pile up in Cubby's litter box. And then I'll have a day off and fix it all again. Don't even ask how long it's been since I really, truly crafted.
I have learned so many important skills in the past year: I can now cook several very delicious dishes that contain sauces, spices, fresh vegetables, and nothing from a can (I don't think it matters that they're mostly one pot meals, do you?), I can sew curtains, I can make a home with people I love, I can be a responsible pet owner. But on the days that I work 8 hours in a khaki, polyester encasing, all I want to do when I get home is strip and attach myself to the laptop or TV. I usually have the energy to come up with a good dinner, usually not consisting of leftovers, but not much else. On the days that I have lunch at 10 or 10:30, I barely have energy even for that. We'll get to 7 o'clock, I'll realize that I haven't eaten anything of substance besides mini muffins and Triscuits in over 8 hours, and my brain will shut off. Those are the nights we have spaghetti, or just go to McMenamins. After dinner we usually watch TV until I can't stay awake any more (usually about 45 minutes to an hour - I can't easily stay up past 10 or 10:30 these days).
I need to learn a new skill. A mama skill, though I am not really a mama (besides to my cat and roommates). The skill to get off work, and still find energy to make myself feel fulfilled and make my house livable. I need more planning ahead. To decide in the morning what will be for dinner so I can stop at Freddies when I get off work, and not take a second trip later in the evening. To find a nutritious snack to eat when I get off work so my blood sugar doesn't whither up and die right around the time I should be cooking dinner. To do dishes before I'm too tired to keep my eyes open, and to reward myself with TV once everything I wanted to accomplish is done.
Last night Rob opened a bottle of Drop Top and found this prost under the cap: "A prost to doing nothing on your day off." He showed it to me and scowled, a mock annoyance at all of my days off he's had to sit through where I feel like I have to catch up on everything. If I can master this skill, maybe I really can do that with my days off. Nothing.
The Mama Skill Saturday, October 18, 2008
at 8:57 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I have been working on my housewifing for a long time now, and I'm just full of suggestions.
1. Ain't nothing wrong with one pot meals, or simple spaghetti dinners. Brad and I eat about 99% of our meals at home these days, and I'd say about 80 percent of them are pretty simple, and totally homemade. This is accomplished in large part by . . .
Canning! I know, it's pretty grandmotherly of me, but I've gotten into canning in a huge way. Sauces, soups, chili, applesauce, jams, pie filling. On and on. Plain spaghetti tastes about a billion times better when you've got really good homemade sauce to put on it. It's a shockingly easy process, too.
The best part is that if you're like me and you love to cook (but ONLY when you have time, and not at the end of a long day), it's even more fun. For me, cooking is a really creative process. Canning and other types of preserving let you do it when you feel like it, and enjoy the benefits later. It is remarkably satisfying to be able to pull out a jar of chili, grate some cheese and onions, and have a delicious filling meal in about 4 minutes.
2. Cleaning is terrible. This process was made about a billion times better for me when we moved and got rid of about half of our things. Now our house is really sparse yet really beautiful. Everything has a place. We don't have to spend any time just picking things up, or organizing, or searching around to find things.
We also got rid of a lot of our old, mismatched dishes. Now we just have one nice set, and about 10 matched glasses. When you run out of dishes sooner, you have to wash them sooner, and it doesn't build up to that horrifying point as much. It's a hell of a lot easier for me to do a little cleaning every day then a lot of cleaning every few days.
3. Random, but do you take iron supplements? I've had a few episodes in the past few years where I'll get sort of low energy, then I'll get sort of depressed, then I'll get REALLY depressed, then I'll realize I'm just anemic. And then I get angry that I've been depressed and tired for so long totally needlessly! Just a random thought . . .
Ok. So, about the iron thing. If you put a few drops of liquid iron supplements on your tongue and it tastes like nothing, you need them. If it tastes like bitter hell just took a crap in your mouth, chances are you don't.
And if you find those good mama tips, do share. But this is my two bits of hints. On my day off, I cook something like a bunch of rice, or soup broth or some one pot meal that keeps a few days. Then I make sure that I have fresh vegetables and spices in the house so that the next few nights when I get home from work exhausted, I throw the veggies in pan, some protien and spices and add them to the rice or other dish that I made the night before. I also cut up salad fixings that will stay for a few days, like carrots, cooked beans etc, so I can throw a salad together last minute if I need vegetables.
As for cleaning, well...you've seen my house. But I am getting SO much better. I have a book, How Not to Be A Messie. And it's awesome.
And not to compare Emily and Rob, but I make it all a part of our daily activities. We cook together so that we get the chance to talk and when I clean, she usually LIKES to help, but if not, I make it a race to see who gets done first. But I am pretty sure Rob's mentality may be less like my four year olds...
Oh, and....I love you.
Post a Comment