In Which I Dabble in Domesticity

Hello there! Writing on the couch in my living room on a Friday afternoon. Yep, it’s Fall Break.

I didn’t have to go to work yesterday or today, and I get Monday off as well. Unfortunately, Spencer doesn’t have the luxury of a teacher schedule, so he still had to go to work, leaving me on break by myself.

Luckily I’m quite practiced at being alone, so I’m faring pretty well. Yesterday I did a lot of laundry, started watching “Queer Eye” on Netflix (LOVE LOVE LOVE), read a lot of the Book of Mormon, ran to Office Depot to get some stuff for my classroom, walked back carrying all my stuff, and then found myself with a few more hours before Spencer would be getting home.

So I decided to [drumroll please] try my hand at being domestic.

^what I thought I should look like

Not gonna do a “what I actually looked like” but maybe you can imagine. We keep our house clean, so there wasn’t much house stuff to do. So I decided to delve into my Food board, which has hundreds of delicious-looking recipes that I’ve never even thought about since pinning them. I know Spencer loves Buffalo Wild Wings, and we’re trying to eat healthier foods, so I decided to make Buffalo cauliflower. It turned out fine. The pumpkin cookies I made were mediocre at best. Needless to say, I was nearly in tears when Spencer got home.

Should have taken a picture.

Anyway, here’s the thing– doing the stereotypical wife things (thank you Mrs. Brady) is not easy for me. I guess I’m good at “keeping house” because I’ve been a fully independent adult for almost a decade and I can’t stand any kind of mess. But cooking is not my thing. I can kind of do it, and I plan on getting better, but it just doesn’t come naturally to me, and it is NOT fun for me.

Doing stuff for Spencer is fun for me though.

So of course I will continue to strive to do wifey things when I can. But we both work full time, and we’re both really busy. And who says good wives have to be good cooks?

I have this image in my mind of all the things you have to do to be a good wife (hi again Mrs. Brady. Hi Mom. Hi Grandma Hall. Hi Cathy.) and I feel terribly guilty if I’m not “measuring up” to that image.

But here’s the thing: Spencer didn’t marry me for my cooking skills or my sewing skills or my 1950s housewife persona. Nor did he fall in love with my mom or my grandma or Mrs. Brady. He married ME because he loves ME. So I think rather than getting down on myself for not being as domestic as I feel I should be, it would be better for both me and Spencer if I could just lean into my own strengths and focus on authentically being the woman Spencer fell in love with.

Society has a lot of expectations for women, but society can go jump in a lake. Society has no part in my marriage or in anyone else’s marriage. I think everyone should do what works for them and makes them happiest. If that means being a housewife, amazing. More power to you. If it means something else, you do you honey.