Great!

So, by now I have established that I am a bad housewife or at least a lazy housewife. The dishes have regenerated in my sink, the dishwasher needs to be emptied again, the dirty laundry has begun to multiply, dust bunnies have morphed into dust ponies and my sheets are still mismatched.
Some people fight their ineptitudes, and I usually do myself, choosing to happily follow the plot of second-rate  movies by working and working harder to improve from my underdog self into a champion. I would consider myself (and so would my BFF) a formidable opponent to Danica Patrick, I can out-parallel-park my hubby who works on and handles cars for a living, I can change a baby's diaper one handed and I can navigate my overly cluttered, shoe strewn, pant littered, book scattered and dog distributed floor in the dark with my eyes closed! I am not a quitter and I work hard to improve upon skills - usually. You see, it is important to improve upon oneself, but I think it is also important to recognize that you can't be perfect and sometimes you must embrace your imperfections and limitations as those facets of yourself that make you unique, lovable and human. So, I embrace the fact that my housekeeping skills are abysmal and harrowing, because I know I can't be good at everything and I don't need to be.
So I am not a good housekeeper, but, I am a good customer. No, I am a GREAT customer, as evidenced by the hand-written-in-marker thank you note (complete with hearts) I received from a certain customer service rep with a delicious southern drawl, who graciously assisted me in my procrastination project. Take that better-than-me-housewives!

Procrastination

There comes a time in everyone's life when one faces a task he or she just does not want to do. Some work hard and quickly to accomplish the task and move on; and some procrastinate. I procrastinate. It is something I am good at, if one could be good at procrastination. I even like to say the word - procrastination. Procrastination. It is fun to say and fun to do, until you can do it no longer. But being that I am an unintentional housewife and, though my husband threatens to fire me, I can't really lose this job - no matter how hard I try, the only indication that I can procrastinate no longer is a phone call from my mother saying she is stopping by. I have received no such phone call, so I procrastinate.

Today, I had errands to run, calls to make, clothes to fold, dinner to cook and floors to sweep. I brilliantly plotted out my day and made the first (and as it turns out only) phone call. I needed to return shoes from my favorite online retailer Zappos.com. Expecting courteous (which I received - I LOVE Zappos!) though expedient service, imagine how pleasantly surprised I was that the customer service rep was friendly, funny and TALKATIVE! He made it so wonderfully easy to procrastinate and avoid the three piles of dirty laundry on my floor, as I curled on the couch and laughed at his silly jokes. I won't admit just how long of a conversation we had, but I will be forever grateful to the chap who signed me up for VIP service, convinced me to apply for a job cross-country and provided me with company and interesting conversation while I avoided all chores around the house today.

Thank you, customer service guy with the super cute southern drawl and impeccable phone manners! Project procrastination complete for today! Dishes in sink, check, dirty laundry on floor, check, innards of the closet strewn about the floor as though an earthquake hit, check. Today, rather than perform mediocre housewifery, I excelled in procrastination,  and I owe it all to the thoughtful conversation of a complete stranger, and I am truly grateful.

Breakfast

I have been informed (by my mother, my step-father, my grandfather, my mother in law and my husband) that a primary responsibility of any decent housewife is to ensure that her husband has been fed at least three times a day. This often requires preparation of breakfast, a lunch to send with him to work, and a dinner upon his coming home.

The thirty-something-year-old man who can rebuild an engine, rewire the electrical wiring in the house, and install our very own reverse osmosis water system complete with secondary faucet, can not be trusted to fry his own bacon.

So this morning, after waking early to walk our dogs, I climbed back into a bed with mismatched sheets and a blanket two months over due for a trip around the washing machine, to lay next to the man I vowed to love for all eternity. When I woke for the second time in one morning I found my husband and two dogs piled on the couch, each with their head on a different decorative pillow. I was greeted not by "Good morning, dear" or "Goooood Moornnning, Wife-o-mine!" or even my personal favorite, "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty-bum"; but by "I'm hungry and thirsty. Can you make me pancakes and coffee?" followed by his trademark pouty lip and puppy dog eyes that put our actual puppy dogs' eyes to shame.

I truly dislike cooking. I do it because if I didn't I'd end up eating fried fast food every night and I am rather fond of my arteries. Pancakes I dislike most. Why? Because it is literally impossible to make pancakes NEATLY! I can't keep 700 square feet clean under normal circumstances, now I have to add to the equation a sloppy mixture that can not pour from a spouted measuring cup without finding itself on my counter, my floor or the top of my under-the-cabinet microwave that is three feet above my head? So, as always I strike up negotiations. After three minutes I agreed to run out for specialty bagels and cream cheese, would brew our cup-at-a-time coffee when I got back, if he would empty our dishwasher - so I could load it back up with the pile in the sink upon my return. So, as far as I am concerned I met my housewife breakfast obligation because at 1:30 pm breakfast was served.

Measurements

So, in true spirit of my inability to be a decent housewife, the house is a mess. It gets this way over time. Cluttered and disorganized, stuff - everything from junk mail to new non-perishable groceries to my latest nail polish color to the husband's shoes to the dogs' favorite chew toy - stuff, multiplies all over my countertops, floors and kitchen table. After a special month of cultivation, like the month of May, the stuff even migrates to my coffee table and couches. I am not a hoarder and I am not in denial of being a hoarder. Its just stuff literally propagates until the chaos of my tiny home affects my concentration and general disposition.

Two days ago I pondered. And I reflected. And I saw. The chaos of my countertops was the direct result of poor storage. My teeny tiny home is only 700 square feet and the builders apparently didn't think closet space a necessity. I had an epiphany. Storage. I needed to better organize my available storage space so that things didn't have to sit on my counter. If there was a place for everything, I could put everything in its place.

My brilliant solution began with a shopping spree. However, shopping as solution is rarely beneficial for me. Though shopping I went! Seven stores, YES! SEVEN stores, seven and a half hours later I had bargain shopped my way to apparatuses, gadgets, gizmos and shelving systems that were guaranteed to organize my space and therefore my life. Right? Well, not so much. I came home after shopping for the equivalent of a day shift, excited to get organizing. Excited to clean so I can clean more. I built one under-the-cabinet organizational unit, just to learn that the five other units I bought were going to be the same 3/4 of an inch too tall to fit in the cabinets. I built the cart on wheels only to learn that it was 1/2 an inch too tall with the wheels on and nearly impossible to move without the wheels on. It was after midnight, I was sweaty, tired and totally defeated, again. My effort was a huge quantifiable fail. There it was in my hand, a white rubberized metal mesh cabinet organizing reminder of just how bad a housewife I truly am. So, I balled. Actually, I wailed. I nearly threw myself onto the floor kicking and screaming in tantrum; I did, however, throw myself onto my bed kicking and screaming in tantrum - I was distraught, not demented.

My wonderful husband, when he finished laughing at my hysteria, calmly walked to me, put his strong arms around me and pulled me tight. He kissed my forehead firmly. He pulled back just far enough to look deeply into my eyes and asked "Why didn't you measure the cabinets first?"

First

So, as my first official post, I should explain, I have actually been unintentionally performing bad housewifery for almost two and a half years. I lost my job, along with thirty million other people at the end of 2008. After months of searching and no job insight, I went back to school, to make myself less marketable in a horribly competitive job market. So now, I am competing with Ph'D's for a cashier position at the local grocery market. So in between school and volunteering in my favorite arts, I have been attempting to morph into a half-decent housewife, biding my time while I wait for my resume to lure a prospective employer. And between you and me, half-decent housewifery is truly an ambition and holding very high standards for myself, because I am really bad it.