Household Tips

I moved out on my own when I was 17, living in dorms for the first two years of college. Housework was essentially comprised of making my bed and confining my junk to my side of the room. It was the summers, living with a roommate in student housing, that gave me my first taste of "keeping house".

I had learned basic skills while growing up. I could make a bed, run a vacum, execute a load of laundry and dust, using Pledge and a rag. I had done a spot of cooking, using a child's cookbook that had belonged to my mother (darling book, nasty recipes) or the ocassional Betty Crocker recipe card. My culinary repetoire ran primarily to Jell-o molds and salad dressing. It wasn't that I was uninterested in cooking, it just wasn't especially required of me.

Fast forward to living on my own. I had a room-mate from a very different background. Mom had us do certain homekeeping tasks because a) it helped her out and b) it doesn't hurt to know how to fold towels. S. however, had been pressed into service at the tender age of 9 when her dad left. She had a younger brother and a baby sister. Her mom had to go back to work and S. was suddenly promoted to "housekeeper". She came to college seeming older than her years and terribly knowledgable about all things domestic.

I didn't make a big deal of what I did know and mentioned that I hadn't cooked much, so S. assumed the leadership role in our home, with attitude. She called the shots. She told me what to do and how to do it. She was, in fact, both martinet and martyr about the whole thing. Especially when it came to cooking. She did it all because she had deemed that I couldn't. Until the time that I, fed up with her superiority, tried my hand at making crepes. I filled them with ice cream and froze them, serving them as a surprise for dinner with hot fudge and sliced almonds. S. became slightly less snotty about cooking after that.

I can't help but laugh about those days, now that I am Queen of my own home. I am - gasp - a housewife, and not half bad at it, either. I once tried to compute my replacement value and stopped after I hit $75k. Homekeeping is not a lost art but it is certainly undervalued. But unless you have the saavy of Martha Stewart or work for a service, not only does homekeeping not pay, most of the time the recipients of your art don't even realize what a treasure you are. It's one of those jobs where folks notice only when something isn't done.

I prefer to use the term "homekeeping" to "housework" because it embraces the broad scope of what I do for my family. Yes, I perform all the panoply of what one would define as housework, cleaning tasks. But if this were a resume I would have to include the menu planning, shopping and preparation of 18-21 meals/week. I do an average of 10 loads of laundry a week, inclusive of ironing and mending. Book-keeping responsibilities include budgeting, bill paying, reconciliations and cash flow projections. I am the social coordinator and party planner. I am the gardener (both design and groundskeeping). I am a dog-trainer, receptionist, organizer, decorator, painter and perform small repair jobs. Parenting responsibilities include, but are not limited to, tutoring, psychotherapy and chauffering.

In short, despite appearances to the contrary, we don't have have house elves. I do a lot. But it is good that I ocassionally reflect on my years with S. because the moral of that story is that nobody loves a martyr. I have this role because I chose it. It is a blessing that we were able to create our lives in such a way that we could live on one income. Out of blessing flows peace. And that is my ultimate goal. I want our home to be a haven of peace, for us and for all who come through the door. And I ain't gonna get that with a mess o' attitude.

I also wanted to mention that a melon baller is great for seeding chilis.