Being Totally Honest

Well, if I'm being totally honest (and I promise I always will be), this week has been very un-50's-like. Usually, I'm a stay at home mom, which makes the art of trying to live as a 1950's era housewife not only possible, but at times even enjoyable. However, this week I started a new job which will allow me to work part time on the weekends after a week long 8:30 - 5 orientation period. Ugh. I have been completely and utterly spent at the end of each day so far (and, God help me, it's only Wednesday!). I have a whole new appreciation for working moms everywhere, as well as a whole new confirmation that the working mom thing just isn't for me. I've been missing my sweet baby boy like crazy, the house has never looked less like the 1950's (actually, it more closely resembles my early 2000s-era college apartment), and my husband is having a hard time dealing with my crazy emotions stemming from too little sleep, information overload, and just plain hormones!

Today, the scene my husband found when he walked through the door after a hard day's work was anything but 50's-like. Instead of his wife in an attractive outfit, hair and makeup done (as it was hours before at work), he found me in pajamas...his pajamas...with a glass of wine in my hand, talking on the phone. House a mess, dinner not cooked...he just laughed, shook his head and said "I like your outfit." I had to laugh too.

Before he came home, my mom and I had a glass of wine and perused my 1950's book collection, laughing at all the hilarious things that are in them...and I whined about things like where I would ever find a rabbit to cook, that I didn't want to cook frog legs, and how the heck do you use a needle and thread to sew up a beef heart when you can hardly sew on a button, to mention a few. I promise to write on these and many other adventures, culinary and otherwise in the near future. I just have to get this crazy week of working under my belt first.

Until my 1950's escapades can fully continue, I will regale you with the last bit of Amy Vanderbilt's suggested morning cleaning routine:

After beds are made and bedrooms tidied, bathrooms are cleaned and put in order, then the living room tidied (if this was not done the night before). Now with everything in order, dishes washed and beds made, dusting and floors come last (p.377).

Wait, she doesn't mean dusting and doing floors in every room, does she? Clearly, she did not have children. I guess I'm just going to have to be creative about cleaning the 1950's way in 2011. I wonder if my little one would be so kind as to learn to crawl with a dust mop attached to his belly...then we'd really be in business!