Before

Before I got married, I had these ideas.  I had ideas of what married life would be life.  I had ideas of how I would be as a wife.  I had ideas of how we would be as a couple.

Before I got married, I thought we would sleep every night cuddled up – like you see on the movies, or on mattress commercials.  I thought we’d fall asleep each night spooning, and wake up in each other’s arms.

On our wedding night, I realized that sleeping close to a person is not my thing.  I can remain cuddled up to AMP for about ten seconds before I need to shift around or flip my pillow over to the cold side.  I drive the poor man crazy.  In the 3 years we’ve been married, I’ve only managed to fall asleep cuddled to him and wake up that way twice, both occasions being mid-afternoon naps…

Before I got married, I thought I could handle being a great housewife.  That I would have a cleaning schedule that I would stick to, that I would learn to cook fabulous, well planned meals.  That I could become a morning person like AMP.

In the first year of marriage, I realized that I suck at domesticity.  Although I’m decent at cleaning, I can’t stick to a schedule and am always having to do major clean ups as I’ve left things around me to fall into complete disarray.  I realized that cooking is not my area of expertise, at all.  I realized that for me being a morning person is impossible.  That I need 2 to 3 hours of sleep more a night than AMP – and waking up is never something I’ll do ‘gracefully.’

Before I got married, I thought we’d be the couple who got up together every morning and had breakfast together.  I thought we’d be the couple who ate dinner sitting at the table.  I thought we’d be the couple who did everything together and exuded love and happiness.

In our three years of marriage, I realized that having breakfast together every morning requires me giving up sleep that I desperately need.  So we have breakfast together most weekends, but never during the week.    We eat dinner while watching television.  And, while we do a lot together, we definitely don’t do everything together.   

Before I got married, I thought marriage should be a certain way.

In three years I realized everyone’s marriage is different… and what we have works for us. 

Before I got married, I thought I would never love AMP more than I already did.

In three years I’ve realized that I fall a bit more in love with him every day.

i <3 weekends

It feels like the middle of the night – but in reality it’s only 11:20 p.m.  Even with the time change, that would only make it 20 minutes after midnight, which in no way could classify me as an insomniac.  Nevertheless, I really should be sleeping.  Considering my need for at least 8 hours of sleep, and the fact that I (again) promised AMP that this time I would get up to go the gym at 6 a.m., I’m already at leat 2 hours behind in sleep time.

I find blogging so hard on the weekends.  I feel bad sneaking off to the computer when the weekends are so busy, and when AMP and I primarily spend time together.  It’s different than weekday nights, when the exhaustion and frustrations of the day turn us into zombies staring at the television.  Ok, it’s an exaggeration, but still… Weekends are the best.

This weekend we managed to get quite a bit done.  The fish tank stand is coming along – thanks to my father’s expertise.  I’ll post pictures when it’s done and AMP’s put in all the fish and everything.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.  I can’t wait to get some more fish – though all the ones I seem to want the most are ones that can’t coexist with my clown fish.  Oh well… There are quite a few of different, gorgeous colorful fish that will not try to eat Uhtred (or vice versa), so I’ll end up being able to get some of the fish I want.

Today, we had a lazy-ish type day, just the two of us, and it was pretty wonderful.  :)  It was nice to relax a bit – especially since this week is going to be a little on the hectic side.  I decided to throw AMP a mini-graduation type party for finally finishing his degree, so I have some of his family coming to stay with us, plus all the shopping, cleaning and planning that it all entails.  And considering my lack of domestic skills, and my tendecies toward anxiety and panic attacks in these types of situations, we’ll have to see if I survive the week…

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake

I love Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake.  What’s not to love about it?  After all, it is chocolate!

Usually, when the craving hits me, I pull out a Betty Crocker’s Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake, beat in eggs and water, and 30-40 minutes later, I have a cake.

But, in my desire to practice baking & cooking skills, yesterday I decided to make the cake from scratch.

I used a recipe from a cookbook I received at my wedding shower, The American Test Kitchen. 

It came out pretty good, my only complaint being that I found it left a cocoa aftertaste.  The boys said the cake was delicious, and although they could taste the cocoa, it wasn’t a bad thing, so we’ll see.  Maybe next time I’ll tweak it to use a little less cocoa powder? 

At least I tried.. :)

Here’s the recipe I used:

Devil’s Food Cake:
1 1/2 cup – all-purpose flour
1 tsp – baking soda
1/2 tsp – baking powder
1/4 tsp – salt
1 1/4 cup – boiling water
4 oz – unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup – Dutch processed Cocoa powder
10 tablespoons – butter, softened
1 1/2 cup – lightly packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup – sour cream
1 tsp – vanilla extract

1. Grease three 8-inch cake pans (or in my case two 9-inch pans) and line the bottoms with parchment paper.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and set aside.  In a separate bowl, whisk boiling water, chocolate, and cocoa powder until smooth.

3. In an electric mixer, beat on medium speed butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, 3 to 6 minutes.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated, scraping the bowl and beaters as needed.  Beat in sour cream and vanilla.

4. On low, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture.  Beat in half of the chocolate mixture.  Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture, then the remaining chocolate mixture, and finally the last third of the flour mixture.

5. Give the batter one final stir using a rubber spatula.  Divide batter evenly between cake pans.  Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean except for a few crumbs.

6. Let cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack.  Flip onto wire rack, remove parchment paper, and flip cakes upright.  Let cool completely before frosting, 1 to 2 hours.

Re-thinking the ‘perfect housewife’

Image via Wikipedia

When I first started The Undomestic Housewife (exactly a year ago yesterday!), I was on a journey to become domesticated.

Earlier this week though, I was reading D @ Unpolished Parenting’s post, Not Your Typical Housewife, and she got me thinking, what does being a ‘perfect’ or ‘domestic’ housewife mean to me?

I’ve made no secret my plan to become the perfect housewife.  Besides it being a completely unrealistic goal, I don’t think I really mean it, at least not in the traditional sense.  I don’t want to be the 50’s housewife that stays at home all day to clean and cook and turn out a perfectly cooked gourmet dinner every night at 5:30 p.m. on the dot, while making sure I look wonderful for the husband who is returning from work.  I expect my husband to help out, and I’ve been pretty blessed with AMP as he is even more neat and tidy than I am, and does help out quite a bit (most of the time).

But, I just want to be able to do domestic things. 

I grew up with around a gaggle of perfect Italian housewives.  While there were times growing up where my mom worked outside the home, for the most part, she was a stay-at-home mom.  Our house was always clean and dinners always delicious.  My dad has always helped out around the house is some form or another, but my mom mostly took care of everything.  You’d think with such a perfect example to follow, I would have picked up some good skills…

My only saving grace is that I can clean.  Mom made sure of that.  That’s not to say I’m neat and tidy, but I can make the house look sparkling with the best of them… I just can’t seem to keep it looking that way for longer than a couple of hours. 

But, with cooking… That skill is lost on me. My dad has always been a picky eater, so I happily let mom worry about cooking, which now I realize was probably foolish.  Perhaps some practice when I was younger would have made me more confident in the kitchen now.

But, I’m not.  I have no confidence in the domestic skills area…

And, I know I’m always full of new ‘goals’ and resolutions, but I’m thinking that I need to rearrange my priorities…

Right now all I think about is babies…And well, that’s not getting me anywhere.  If I’m going to be a mom someday, I want to learn to be a little more domestic – I want to be the mom who teaches her daughter to make lasagna from scratch, and the best way to clean the bathroom quickly, and how to sew on a button.  I want to be a stay-at-home mom like my mom – the kind of mom who made homemade healthy meals every night of the week…

So for my new challenge, to keep things interesting, I’m going to start scouring cookbooks for recipes, and start practicing.  I’m going to create a cleaning schedule and stick to it.  I’m going to slowly become more domesticated.  Not so I can be the one solely in charge of all things domestic (I know AMP will continue to do his share as always) but so I can finally have some confidence in that one area of my life.

This post inspired (in part) by prompt no 1 at Josie’s Writing Workshop.

Making Cake

In my attempts to spit out half-way decent posts for the Writing Workshops this week, I forgot to mention an accomplishment.. I actually baked a Cinnamon Coffee Cake from scratch this past weekend.

It’s sad, isn’t it, that I have to point out that I actually used real flour and everything?  Haha.

It actually turned out pretty good.  I think it’s a little dry, but both AMP and The Brother-in-Law both say that it tastes great. 

I wanted to make it with fresh apples for a little more moisture to it, but couldn’t be bothered going to the store when I realized I had all the other ingredients I needed right at home, but I’m going to try that next time.

I was pretty happy with myself that I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried at least.

Now, for the big challenge… Replicating my mother’s amazing tiramisu for a ‘International’ themed get-together next week.. :S   Have I mentioned yet how nerve-wracking it is for me to cook for other people?!

Just a little bit of me…

After this post, I decided I had to get a Writing Workshop post done.  It’s therapeutic for me.  It’s healthy.  And right now it’s best for me to think of something else.

I’ve read the prompts over and over and over.

I could talk about feeling sexy, but that is nothing of my doing.  The way my husband looks at me, the way he touches me – that is what makes me feel sexy.  This despite my losing battle with the scale.  This despite the fact that the reflection in the mirror is not yet what I wish…But when he looks at me, I forget all that.

Depression – I’m not depressed.  I’m sad.  I’m in mourning.  But, I am not depressed.  I am thankful for that.  I feel for the millions of people worldwide who suffer.

Being first – being selfish.  At last a prompt that resonates with me. 

I’m not selfless.  I am not.  I would never say that about myself.  But I find I spend so much time doing stuff for others, that I push things I want aside.  My mother wants me to go visit, so I don’t go to the gym.  My cousin needs help with paperwork, so I spend afternoons and evenings cursing her father’s company.  I enjoy visiting, and I’m happy to help, but my time is all sucked up.  My energy is gone.  And, then, I still have to get home and cook and clean up and do the laundry and so on and so forth.  At night, I feel guilty for what I didn’t accomplish.

And all this helping and visiting is selfish – it’s because I want to be useful.  I want to be loved.  I want to be wanted… Not necessarily the most healthy way to be selfish, I guess.

But all this guilt and running around has forced me to come to a decision… Starting from September I’m going to be more selfish – in a healthy way.  At the beginning of each week I’ll make a list of what must get done that week, and those will be my priorities.  All other things, except emergencies, will just have to wait. And once a month, I’m going to take a whole day off and just focus on me.  Maybe just sit and read all day.  Or go shopping.  Or blog and read blogs all day. Or treat myself to a manicure or pedicure – who knows, but it’ll be my day.  And I won’t feel guilty – even if I choose to sleep the whole day away. Just a little bit of guilt-free me-time.

I think that if I manage to reach my goals for once, I will be happier.  I will be more organized, less stressed, and less frazzled.  Perhaps… Perhaps in being selfish, I will be a greater help and support to my family and friends.  Perhaps by being selfish, I will become the person I want to be.

Perhaps…

 

This post is inspired by Josie’s Writing Workshop.

the new goal

I re-watched part of Julie & Julia last night, and I got to thinking – my blog about domesticity (or my lack thereof) had evolved, or perhaps been demoted, into more of a random journal of my thoughts and feelings.  This may be in part because day-to-day life makes me too busy to tackle ‘becoming domestic’.

I’ve set up so many goals for myself in the past few months, and I allow myself to be so easily sidetracked.  In all areas of my life, I feel like I’m drowning.

It’s inevitable really.

I went to a practitioner that specializes in something called Quantum Bio-Feedback.  It’s based on the premise that the body gives off frequencies that can be measured, comparing it to what normal healthy frequencies would be, and thus is able to identify imbalances and nutritional needs.

The results being: my thyroid is not working properly, my kidney/bladder/renal system is not working properly, both of which are affecting my liver.  Also, inhaled chemicals are affecting my respiratory system, which causes weakness in my heart and lungs.  This explains my sinus headaches, my too-high heartbeat and much more.  Hormonal imbalances is likely linked with the miscarriage and my body trying to get used to not being on the pill – which may change now that I’m back on it.  Plus my stress level is through the roof, which doesn’t help my body at all.

All things I could have told her without paying $50, but at least it’s a little more confirmed, and she could suggest which supplements I could take to get my body back on track.

Apparently, once my thyroid is working properly, I will be able to lose weight again.  I’m very excited about that.  I’m going to try hard to take all the supplements regularly and try to eliminate foods and chemicals that are affecting me negatively.

I want to feel healthy.  I want to be healthy enough that if, one day, we decide to have a baby, my body would make it through a pregnancy and we could have a healthy baby.

So, instead of focusing on weight loss, energy levels and so on separately, I’ll focus on getting healthy.  A much broader goal – but one that will help me to finally accomplish all the other goals I have.