The Accidental Homemaker

Since I can remember, I have wanted nothing in life than to be a wife and mother. My childhood was filled with carrying for my baby dolls and fantasies about the man I would marry (until I was 10, I figured I would marry Michael Jackson).

My mother taught me all of the domestic arts: cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, crocheting and knitting. Honestly, my mother should have taught home ec. For her, homemaking is in her genes. Unfortunately, I apparently did not inherit those genes.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I love a clean house and a well cooked meal. But when it comes to actually doing those things, well I'm a bit lax. Ok, I'm a lot laxed. I think I'm just lazy. However, I'm trying to overcome my lazy ways.

I can pinpoint when I began to loathe domesticity. It was 1984. I was 16, and babysat not only my brother and my cousin's son, but the two neighbor kids, plus the two kids of a friend of a friend of the family. That was also the year my father played Farmer Ted and planted a huge garden. We literally had mountains of greens! We had tons of green beans and beets and probably some other vegetables that I've blocked from memory. I was in charge of cleaning and freezing said bounty. Since both of my parents worked, I was also in charge of the house till they got home. I had to make lunch for the kidlets, make sure the house was in decent order, and whatever else needed doing.

That was the year that I decided that I did not want to be a housewife. There was no way I was going to have 6 kids and stay at home cooking. No way, no how. So, I ran in the opposite direction. Fashion magazines and makeup were where I placed my interests. I set about to become an executress (see "Boomerang" for the origin of that term). It wasn't until my daughter was 8 that I began to listen to God's silent nudging that I was missing out on what it really meant to be a woman and a mother.

And so began my journey to embrace my inner domestic diva. It's slow going, and there are many days when I would just rather not deal with it all. But, as with everything, I am a work in progress.