Episode Eighteen : Introducing the Househusband

Dear Bloggy

I’m sorry I haven’t written to you recently.  I can offer a thousand excuses that I had pre-prepared, but I know that you know me too well to believe anything I might throw at you other than the absolute truth.  So, I am sorry.  For some reason, in society people value a hard days work, and paychecks.  Don’t ask me why.  The husband just seems happier knowing that I’m stretching my brain while sitting under florescent lighting rather than when I was basking in the ability to nap anytime I want.  I.just.dont.get.it!

So, my job is pretty interesting.  I am solely responsible for marketing and branding a ridiculously wealthy company.  I don’t know why they picked me but I think I can handle it.  I was just watching ‘How its Made’ with the Husband and they showed an assembly line of people making lockers for a school.  Can you imagine being in the same place for 8 hours a day doing the same teeny meaningless task?  I said this to the husband, and he simply replied ‘people want those jobs right now, they’re secure and they don’t require you to think.’  Really?  Bloggy, I ask you, WHO doesn’t want to think?!  I am on the other side of the spectrum, thinking almost too much with this new job.  I think my brain is about to explode in technology-input-overload (hence me not blogging for a week).  I couldn’t manage to produce a single clear thought in sentence form, let alone make it interesting and witty.  Who knows if I’ve ever been able to do that, but last week, it was ridiculous.  I’m pretty sure I was talking in Acronyms.  On Easter, I may have actually said el-oh-el instead of laughing.

However, the lack of posting doesn’t mean that I wasn’t thinking of you, dear bloggy.  I began to compose about 4 blogs in the last week.  I even used you as motivation for a grueling task that I had to perform.  You see, I made a lemon cake, filled with home made strawberry/cream cheese and topped with homemade cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberry slices.  It was a masterpiece.  I took pictures of the whole act, but we can’t seem to find the Canon cord, alas, you do not get to see the pictures.  All for the better though.  We had Easter lunch down in Connecticut, a nice hour away, where the whole cake melted all over itself.  It was delicious nonetheless, but wasn’t as pretty as I had hoped.  If I had to look at the pictures today to post here, I would probably just cry. 

I also wrote a blog about my Friday confessions.  But the only semi-interesting confession was that while I sat responding to a weeks worth of blog postings, I ate half a bag of Salt and Vinegar potato chips.  I didn’t even realize I did it. To my own defense, I think the bag was full of air upon opening it.  But that’s not the confession.  After I finally realizing that I devoured half the bag of chips, I looked at my manicure, only to realize that somehow in that 30 minutes, half of my nail polish chipped.  I never found evidence of the chipping… but I continued to eat chips anyway.  Ha!  Oops. 

As I mentioned a week or so back, the House-o-Belmont is now without a fulltime housewife.  The husband and I worked out a clean-as-you-go plan that lasted about a day, but luckily, he’s on vacation this week, so the house has been staying fairly clean.  I shutter at the thought of what it will look like when my househusband starts back at school in 2 weeks.  For some reason, I don’t think I’m going to be able to train the dog to vacuum. 

OK, this is crazy long, and I don’t really have any fun pictures to put in, so Ill end it here.  Dear Bloggy, thank you for being a great follower and allowing me to know that you will always be here for me-even when I take a week away from you due to my brain leaking out of my ears. 

Xoxox.  Shell

PS, I just politely asked my Househusband NOT to do my laundry anymore.  What's worse, shrunken clothes, or doing laundry?  I'll let you know...

Episode sixteen : Its a Saturday...

I just got a job!  Yay Me!  You know what that means?  The House of Belmont will be without a Housewife.  I mean, I’m still going to live here, the Husband isn’t looking for someone else, but I wont be doing all those fun housewife duties – at least not as much as I was use to.  On Thursday, while we were celebrating with champagne, I brought this dilemma up to the Husband.  You know, now that I will be working 40-60 hours a week, I wont have time to cook, clean, shop, walk the dog, pick up dry cleaning, and all that other stuff that’s been keeping me busy for the last three months.  And let me tell you, I HAVE been busy.  But now, I’m bringing home the bacon, and I’m not gonna fry it up as well (especially considering I don’t even eat bacon!)  He insisted that we try something new.   Lets CLEAN AS WE GO.  Oh yeah, ok.  We’ll see how long this lasts.  He’s gone three months without touching the washer, and I’m pretty certain his hands are aren’t dishwater-safe. 

Last night (one day later), I opened a bottle of wine and left the tin and cork on the counter while I took a big swig as I wanted back into the office.  He so kindly called me into the kitchen and pointed to the trash and reminded me that we were going to clean as we go.  Oops, I figured you forgot about that, thanks for the reminder.  Damnit.  See, here’s the thing about me.  If we live together, and YOU clean, I will clean.  But if YOU are a slob, I will be a slob.  I’ve been that way with all of my roommates of the past.  I even warn them about it before hand.  It’s me, and to know me is to love me.  I can’t change.  I’ve tried. 

Fast forward to today.  I went into the kitchen to make lunch, only to find the sink full of dishes (somehow I was oblivious to them last night.  You see, I have that talent, its called selective-observation).  As I began to rinse and load the dishes, I found a lot of coffee cups.  Hmm, that’s strange, I stopped drinking coffee a few months ago, so that means…….  AH HA!!  MY TURN!!  I called the Husband up at his conference (After all, this was important!)

    Husband: Hello

    Me: Hi Stinks (pet name)

    H: Hey Whats up?  I cant talk for too long..

    M: That’s ok; I just wanted to tell you something.  Remember our Clean-as-you-Go rule? 

    H: Yeah?

    M: Well, I just found some coffee cups in the sink under the pans from last night’s dinner that you    

          made. 

    H: Oh…  Well…  the dishwasher needed to be emptied. 

    M: Nope, it was empty. 

    H: Oh.....

    M: But don’t worry; Ill put them in there for you. 

I just have one (over-used, obnoxious, cliché) word for this situation.

#Winning!

On a complete different note.  Remember that Manicure I got on Tuesday?  Gels, promised to last two weeks.  Its been 5 days, how do you recommend I go show the manicurist my boo boo?

pls excuse crappy photo quality, I was too lazy to turn on another light.

What I'm Loving Wednesday : Home Edition

I hope I linked this correctly..

I know I already posted today, but as soon as I hit publish, I remembered it was Wednesday!  I get to jump on the bandwagon and play Positive Shelley for a brief moment.

I hate doing laundry.  The first person to make this a fun chore gets a gold star in my book, but until then, I’ll just have to find joy wherever I get it.  These are our new washer and dryer.  It was a very adult purchase that wasn’t very fun, but necessary.  But the best part, they PLAYS MUSIC when they start and finishes, and the musical tune is very bubbly and upbeat.  It makes me giggle every time I hear it-which is much better than the dread of past machines. 

This is my Desktop.  Same as yours?  Well, this is an accomplishment for me.  For years, regardless of the computer, I’ve always had a trillion (yes, a trillion) icons and files and documents all over the place.  It was impossible to find anything, so I was constantly recreating everything.  Now, all I have on here is

• A file for the here bloggy Blog
• A file for my resume/writing samples
• Two unfinished blogs that you might be seeing in the future
• A background picture of the Boston Public Library’s ceiling (pretty impressive, huh?)

Everything else is neatly tucked away out of sight.  (Yes, I hide things in closets when company comes over, what’s it to you?)

I LOVE MEN!!  I know I know, obvious, right?!  But that’s not where I’m going with this, I’m married, remember?  So, I love that every time I interview with a man in the past, I have been offered the job.  I’m hoping today follows this course because I had a kickass interview with THREE men today for a job that I would be exceptionally good at.  I went into the interview with the idea that if I don’t get the job, I can just go back to school to get my Masters (I’ve been weighing both options heavily for the last few months trying to decide which would be better for me).  Anyway, I think I have this job in the bag, but keep your fingers crossed for me. 

I love my dishes/tableware.  Granted, red and teal/blue/turquoise/aqua-ish don’t really go together, but, shut up!  They do!  I put together the place setting to show you, my lovely blog followers.  And since we NEVER sit at the dining table, it becomes home to coopers siblings our plants.  This is Planty, he was our first plant.  He doesn’t require as much attention as Whitey, Big Butt and Cooper.  He inspired our bamboo appearance here (um, we have bamboo utensils).  It kinda looks like Planty’s about to get his wine on. 

 It’s a very Seattley day outside, damp, cold and rainy.  So, I’m staying inside, stupidly in the coldest room of the house, what am I thinking?!   Anyway, I’m thinking of making something delicious…  Chocolate Chip Cookies.  And since, no matter how precisely I follow the directions for my Moms homemade cookie recipe, I cant get it right, so I’m sticking to the deliciously easy Betty Crocker Cookies.  Yumm. 

Episode Eight : Spring? Is that you???

Hello Spring!

Its finally Spring in Boston.  Its time to shop for flip flops, Redsox (and/or insert your fav baseball team here.  Go Mariners!!) Tee’s and pump up the Wii Zumba routines a bit for those summer clothes just around the corner.  However, the warm weather hasn’t quite caught up with the sun shining outside, so I’ve been stuck in the house seeing water streaks on the windows as I gaze longingly outside.  What better to do that start that Spring Cleaning?!  Now, I’m a housewife with nothing better to do than cleaning (while watching Reality TV), so my house is not dirty, but it can use an extra deep scrub.  In fact, when the Husband came in, he didn’t comment on a cleanliness which came from 6 hours of cleaning, but on why the house has an orange/lemon/lavender and bleach aroma.  I actually used 12 different cleaning products and 6 cleaning utensils.  PLUS, I pulled a Danny Tanner, and cleaned the cleaning products as I put them away.

Since being on vacation, my new baby, Whitey, has shot up about 6 inches IN-A-WEEK!!  I am such a proud plant Momma-I mean, its been two weeks (one of which I was on vacation) and I haven’t killed him yet. 

As to not play favorites, here’s a picture of Big Butt.  He’s doing a good job of encouraging Whitey to grow tall like him.

Why did I name him Big Butt you ask?  Well, where the base of the trunk meets the dirt, it looks like two big butt cheeks.  We named him before we planted him, then when you water him, bubbles come up from between the “cheeks.”  No Lie, it looks like Big Butt farted in a bathtub.  He earned his name!!

OK, time to go back to scrubbing the oven door.  Don’t be too jealous, its not as fun as it sounds.  In fact, the only one having fun in this household today is the Dog, who is currently practicing his sun bathing..

Episode One : Appearing Busy

I’m not sure that I understand the allure of being a housewife.  Staying home, cleaning, organizing lives and watching daytime TV?  How unfulfilling.  Perhaps back in the day there was better programming on TV.  It cant be normal to want to punch through TV every time I see one of those soap actresses use the word commitment, then tell their husband/lover/brother/pastor that the child is actually a love child of their own brother.  Yuck.

I’m pretty sure 4 loads of laundry every single day that I’ve been here.  Not that we go through that much laundry, but once it touches the ground, it needs to be washed, right?  On Thursday, I left the clothes in the dryer and a wet load in the dryer just to give myself something to redo on Friday.  Perhaps I really am doing this right, creating more work for myself so my husband thinks I’m really busy.  As long as a different room is clean every day, I must be doing my job.  Although, I mentioned that I was planning on cleaning his office, and he got a bit twitchy and told me not to.  Maybe that will be a nice treat for him when he comes home at midnight on Tuesday – a nice shiny clean office, ORGANIZED and everything.  I kinda need one or two of those desk drawers.  Those papers from 3 years ago cant possibly be necessary to keep, right?

I’m not quite sure what the husband thinks of me staying home.  Sure, things are getting done here.  He almost always has a hot 1950s style meal waiting when he gets home.  He doesn’t have to listen to me complain about a horrible coworker anymore.  He doesn’t have to walk the dog or clean up after him – because as a stay at home wife, that’s my sole job, regardless of the time of day, cleaning up poop.  He must love this.  He’s told me numerous times that he has this desire to take care of me.  Yeah, I have that same desire, to take care of myself.  How do we clash there?

The dog on the other hand, certainly is unhappy with me being home.  Sure, he needs a bit of food and a walk every now and then, but I’m sure I’m disturbing his busy social schedule.  He’s constantly telling us that he’s a professor of Pupinomics at the Harvard University Extension school, but since I’ve been home, I’ve yet to see him go to class once.  He doesn’t even grade papers or work on his manuscript.  All I see him do it chew on some dumb bone.  How can anyone be so entranced by a simple stinky and now sticky bone for so long?

So my schedule for today…

• Redo some of that laundry from last week, and luckily this weekend (I think I’ll leave that till later so I have something to look forward to.  Plus, in the week that I’ve been here, I can already tell that it looks good to appear busy when the husband comes home.
• Sand and paint the spackled white spots on the bedroom and living room walls.  (Mental note: throw more hard things at said walls in the future to create more busy work when attempting to appear busy).
• Do dishes from this weekend (damnit, I already checked this off my list.  Why do I feel so productive so early in the morning?  I should cut out that coffee at 8am)
• Bathe dog. (Perhaps wait for husband to volunteer.  After being here for a week, I’ve become immune to the dogs smell.  Husband has not)
• Mop floors, again (train dog to NOT to pee on the floor).
• Wii Fit.  178 days until my friends wedding, and have to get my arms a little toned to look hot in the bridesmaid dress.  Husband bought me a medicine ball to hold while working out.  Not sure if this is a sick joke or not-will let you know soon.
• Search for a job that allows me to utilize all 8 of my talents and will allow me to fulfill my dream of being important, wealthy and notable in a trade magazine.
• Use the word ‘Exponentially’ in conversation.  This may take a while, since I can only talk to the dog.