Adventuring into Wifedom

Well, today marks my one month wedding anniversary to my bear of man husband, Rob. So far in our one month of marriage I've gone from a working woman with a bedtime curfew of 8:30 to an unemployed housewife, who at this very moment is sitting in bed re-watching the first season of Friends while eating pita chips and garlic hummus, and drinking a tiny 100 calorie can of Coca Cola (yes, they make those). Oh, and there's a Hershey bar too. And it's after 10. This might sound depressing to some, but to me it is an excellent night in.

I'm beginning a new chapter of my life and I'm a little scared. I quit my job without having anything lined up. Everyone keeps asking me if I feel like I've made the right decision "in this economy". The answer is yes. I do feel like I've made the right decision. I just need time to clear my head and figure out what my next step is.

Right now I'm enjoying living as a "housewife". My daily agenda so far consists of getting up at 8 and going to 9:30 Jazzercise, then cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned, because now I have the time and energy to do so. I have big plans for being crafty. After all I'm sharing this blog with Joy, who is my secret arch nemesis in the crafty department. I wish I was as talented with a glue stick and a sewing machine as she is. I plan on making my halloween costume this year, Joan Holloway of Mad Men. I'll just be sewing an early 60's style wiggle dress. I think I've found the pattern, but we'll see if this actually happens.

I'll keep you updated, but for now, it's Friends time.

Ball of Fire

My intentions were pure and true. I was going to read a little of The Risk Pool while I digested my dinner, then I would clean the bathrooms and put laundry away. Then I fell asleep while reading and didn’t wake up until 11pm. I fail. I sleepily stumbled upstairs feeling defeated while my husband giggled after me.

I really needed to do laundry last night. I had to wear a skirt today because all my work slacks are dirty, but I had to wear my knee high boots because I haven’t shaved my legs since Friday. No one likes a hairy accounting clerk.

There is so much good reading available to me right now. I’m re-reading the aforementioned Risk Pool; which is my favorite Richard Russo book. I also finally found Pretty Things at a reasonable price, so I’ve been reading that while smoking on the porch.

Meanwhile, the bathrooms stay dirty and my clothes stay in the hamper.

Pretty Things is a super badass/super interesting book on the history of burlesque. I caught the documentary on HBO years ago and have been waiting for the companion book to get below the $50 mark so I could purchase it. The husband and I went to the Hustler superstore in Tacoma this past weekend and I found it on their sale rack for $19.99. Cha ching!

Betty “Ball of Fire” Rowland is featured prominently in Pretty Things as she was one of a handful of dancers that was still alive when the book was being researched and was willing to talk to Liz Goldwyn (the author) about her (Rowland's) days as a stripper.

She's got bright red hair, which unfortunately, you can't see in this video. Apparently the carpets matched the drapes - hence her nickname.

Tonight I’m not allowing myself to touch either book until my chores are done. It’ll be just like when I was a teenager and I had to do my Thursday chores before I was allowed to turn on the TV to watch Friends and Seinfeld.

The Fruits of My Labor

Boom.

Thursday night I put together my cork board jewelry holder and I think it turned out pretty damn well. I got the fabric from the table cloths I made for the wedding.

Then I had quite a productive Sunday. While watching The Powder and the Glory and True Romance I painted the cats portraits.

Tonight I'm cleaning the bathrooms (including the litter boxes) and doing laundry. You know what? I'm even going to put my laundry away once I've cleaned it, because that's what adults do and I'm an adult.

Take that single Joy! Married Joy is such a together lady she can barely stand it.

She's Crafty, etc.

I went to Michael’s (My second favorite store after the ubiquitous Target) today and totally scored. Michael's is having a big sale right now so I intended to go there to purchase some storage bins on the cheap, but they were 1. overpriced (even at 50% off) and 2. wicker. Why is wicker so expensive? More to the point, why is wicker so ugly? The world may never know. So I'm thinking I'll have to go to The Container Store or some reasonable facsimile, so that I can find some stylish bins for my craft organization extravaganza.

So what did I score at Michael’s?

Cork Board to make one of these.
Canvas Panel 2 pack for painting portraits of my cats (I already have one canvas at home).
Fatty bottles of acrylic paints in white, black, brown, blue, red and yellow – see above.
Buzzy Grow Kits for sweet basil, poppy, curly parsley, black eyed susans and lavender.

Total: $37.33

Not bad at all.

I can’t wait to get my cork board project underway. I have seen this so many times on craft web sites and it never stops amazing me. I love to display my jewelry, but there was never a great way to do it. I have a few jewelry boxes, but I never use them because I like to have my jewelry out so that I’ll remember what I have.

I want to paint portraits of the cats because I love love love doodling pictures of them when I’m bored.

Example:
I feel like with the proper tools I could turn these doodles in to something that we could use to decorate our home and to celebrate our little furry babies.

The plants are for the home we have an offer in on. It’s got this awesomely humongous window sill in front of the kitchen window. It would be perfect for a little indoor garden. I’m trying not to go to nutso buying stuff for the house that we don’t have yet, but it’s getting harder the longer we wait to hear back from Freddie Mac (they own the house). The plants were 50% off and ended up being like $2 each. I believe that to be a sound investment. I’m going to wait to start them until we get in the house because right now our apartment is already too crammed with stuff.

To organization!

Quantifying Wifehood

Well I did it! I cleaned the bedroom. I even vacuumed and washed the comforter. My husband was so very happy. He said he barely recognized the bedroom without crap all over the floor. It’s the little things that keep our marriage strong and happy.

Today is our one month anniversary of being Mr. and Mrs. Bush. That’s right; exactly 4 weeks ago today we got hitched! Time has flown by, as it tends to do, and nothing really feels different. I don’t know that it ever will. I’m not sure what I was expecting – like all of a sudden I would feel like a wife. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been feeling like a wife ever since Brad and I moved in together 3 years ago. He is my partner and we are in the shit together.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far as a Mrs.:
• Together with my better half, put an offer in on a beautiful home in SE Portland.
• Decoupaged the front of the media cabinet.
• Cleaned the bedroom.

Here’s what I hope to accomplish in the near future:
• Strip and re-paint the movie shelf.
• Close on the beautiful home in SE Portland. (Once this has been accomplished it
will create a whole new list of crap to do.)
• Organize my crafting supplies – right now they’re piled behind my sewing machine.
• Work my way through my mending pile.
• Clean the bathrooms. (Like I said – it’s the little things.)

I don’t know why any of the above tasks = wifehood. I suppose it’s just that these are things that I want to do and I happen to be married. Being married is still a novelty to me so it’s my way of quantifying my wifehood.

Silly, I know.

Clean Your Room!

My bedroom has never been clean for more than a week straight. One week is my record.

The main reason for this is that I do my laundry and leave it in the basket for days until the contents have been strewn across the floor and become dirty again before I can even wear them. My cats lay on piles of “clean” clothes so that by the time I shake out a blouse and put it on it’s covered in cat fur and wrinkled beyond wearability. I am 26 years old. You would think that by now I would have matured and grown out of this messy bedroom thing. Alas, much to my husband’s chagrin, I am an adult slob. I tell myself that when I get home from work the first thing I will do will be to FINALLY put all my clothes away, dust the bed’s headboard and vacuum the cat fur laden bedroom. Then when I get home at 5:30 the only thing I can bring myself to do is eat a mixing bowl full of parmesan garlic popcorn and watch 3 hours of Mad Men.

It was the same for me growing up. I would tell myself that when I get home from school, I’ll put my clothes away and dig through the piles on the floor to see if I can locate where that cat pee smell was coming from. Then, I when I finally did get home from school at 3:30, all I wanted to do was eat a mixing bowl of Lucky Charms and watch Golden Girls until dinner time.

Now that I’ve been married for a whole month and I’ve been watching a whole lot of Mad Men, I feel like I need to make much much more of an effort to get my shit together. (Not that I'm aspiring to be in a loveless marriage in an immaculate house.) So tonight is the night. I am going to clean the bedroom. Who knows, I might get crazy and decide to wash the sheets!