Housewifing Gets Real

I’ve been given the wonderful gift of finishing up my last year in my Ph.D. by being a housewife-student.  Since school hasn’t started back up yet, I’ve only been the first part of the hyphenate…and it’s not quite what I imagined.  I thought being a housewife was going to be all watching TLC and being able to make microderm appointments for during the day.  I also thought that being a housewife meant wearing aprons and pearls and being afraid of being left alone with a serviceman. It turns out that it’s more like getting up sticky stuff and mystery crumbs while wearing yoga pants and a shirt from the 2009 National Book Festival, bear claw slippers, and hair that would make servicemen afraid to be alone with me.

I’ve made a pretty valiant effort at housewifing so far.  I get a bit of good karma each day for making Eric’s work lunches (including embarrassing notes so his friends will make fun of him).  Unfortunately, he sent me an email one day around noon to let me know his sandwich looked like this:

So maybe I should have coffee before making lunches.  I also tried couponing, thinking I could save our household some money, but the one I tried to use for $0.30 off Kashi bars wouldn’t scan, so I gave that up.

This has been pretty cool so far, but my worst fear is that staying at home and doing stuff around the house will lead me to become like the, ugh, other half of the Pinterest population.  Those are the pinners who, instead of swooning over shoes, vacation destinations, and interior design, are all like, “OMG, you can make your own laundry detergent?!” I d-o-n-apostrophe-t DIY.  In fact, I miss having an excuse not to cook or clean.  I also miss wearing real clothes and talking to humans.  All I get around here is conversation with Tater, and honestly, he’s either asleep or making this face:

He’s also very little help with research or dissertation planning.

Though my new workload is now a bit more physical –which is great because, you know, calories - it does allow me to watch Wendy Williams and be all “How you doin’” along with her to my 4^th cup of coffee.  Also, being at home really appeals to my OCD, because everything is now under my jurisdiction.  The dishwasher shall be loaded using the correct algorithm.  Laundry is done in the approved manner.  And, most importantly, only the raw, vegan, juiced, gluten-free – or whatever I’m feeling that week - meals will be allowed, since I feel fat and, therefore, Eric should too. 

We’ll see how things go this week when school starts and I feel compelled to actually do school work too.  Perhaps I’ll feel less like a neurotic waste of space? Probably not. It's part of my charm.