Some days I’m completely at peace with the way things are in my life.  I’ve more or less chosen this life, the one where I’m a stay-at-home mom of two kids and I’m a supportive and loving wife.  In fact, when I imagined my life while growing up, I wanted to get married, make babies, and cook dinner.  My Barbie dolls were forever pregnant, hanging around the Barbie house, driving the Barbie purple corvette, all paid for by Ken.

But with accepting my life the way things are, means accepting that the bulk of home related tasks rests upon my often weary shoulders.  It means that I do laundry, and pick up all the water bottles someone leaves all over the house, I plan the majority of meals, I know when we’re out of diapers and Teddy Grahams and soy sauce.  These aren’t necessarily bad or unfair responsibilities, but things that occasionally make me feel bitter and overworked.

I hear my husband talk about his career and we discuss his plans for the future.  They really are our plans for the future, but with the way things are, it means that I agree to move, uproot our family, and lose my safety net of friends every few years for his career.  In other words, I don’t really feel like I have any control over my own future as it’s completely based on what happens to Tate.  I haven’t pursued getting licensed as a Speech-Language Pathologist in nearly three years because I’ve been the devoted wife who’s agreed to move twice and put my career on hold to raise our children.  But I do realize that the way things are, are because I chose this.

Tate has two business dinners and a softball game this week, which he didn’t have to think twice about since he didn’t need to worry about childcare for his two kids.  Of course I’ll be home to take care of them, that’s what I do.  I stay home and tend to the children.  But when I have an opportunity to go out in the evening with friends or when I plan on going out of town for a little blogging conference, I have to make sure Tate will be home or ask my Mother-in-law to come watch the children.  I don’t get to just make plans and go and be free.

I don’t mean to sound like Tate is a modern day neanderthal that comes home and pounds his chest and demands dinner and his woman stay home, care for children.  It isn’t that way at all.  If I weren’t generally happy with the way things are, he’d be fine with me pursuing my career, though I doubt the household responsibilities and childcare arrangements would change if I were working outside the home.  

This is just one of those days when I have a hard time feeling content with my chosen lot in life, despite it being EXACTLY what I always wanted.  

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Mommydom, Randomness, hole-y matrimony, my stream of consciousness by Jennifer
83 Comments »

I have a question to ask about your husbands.  Before I do, though, let me just be clear…I’m not saying that men are dumb idiots, ewww, yuck, blech MEN!  No.  I’m simply asking a question.

Let me set up the scenario.  Husband can’t find something and calls to you to help him find it.  “Honey!  I can’t find the ointment/peanut butter/towels/shoes/whatever.”

You call back, “Honey!  It’s right there on the shelf/in the drawer/on the floor/where ever!”

Somehow the Husband cannot find the item.  You are beckoned to come find it for him.  You are irritated because you KNOW that the item is RIGHT THERE.  You huff and puff and roll your eyes on your way to find this item for him.

And voila!  There it is.  It truly is RIGHT THERE.  Husband would have found it if he had looked behind, over, beside…..  Instead of putting any effort into the search, he asked for your help.    Instead of being grateful, he’s irritated that it wasn’t in plain view, and that he’d have to actually LOOK.

This male pattern blindness, as I like to call it, also occurs in the kitchen.  Let’s say that the Husband offers to clean up after dinner, but cleaning up only entails putting dirty dishes in the washer.  It does not include wiping the counters, sweeping the floor, or hand-washing any items not suitable for the dishwasher.  When the “over sight” is mentioned, the Husband claims not to have “seen” the smeary counters, crumby floor, or giant high chair tray in the sink.

Does this happen to all husbands or just the one I’m married to named Tate?

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Huh?, Men?, hole-y matrimony by Jennifer
99 Comments »

I have a very serious medical condition.  It’s called Icantdecorateforsh*t-itis.  Please don’t worry, I know you want to help me and luckily FOR YOU, I think you can.

One of the symptoms of Icantdecorateforsh*t-itis is the inability to decorate a large patio door with anything besides UGLY VERTICAL BLINDS.    Help!   This will eventually will be a door that we will go in and out of frequently, although right now we don’t actually have a yard.  In the mornings we need something that blocks the sun’s blinding fury. 

I think my dilemma is obvious.  Those blinds SCREAM 1990.

Yet another symptom of this very serious disease, is the utter and complete feeling of being overwhelmed when trying to figure out how to decorate this wall…

Please note the monstrosity that is our television, currently fulfilling the role of “focal point.”  I’d like to hang some pictures along the wall next to the TV, but I’m afraid it will look terrible.  Also, I wonder if I need some sort of table thing to “anchor” the pictures.  How would something like this look?  Table?  No table?

You can help!  For just one comment, you can cure me of Icantdecorateforsh*t-itis. 

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I had the pleasure of meeting several great bloggers at the Indianapolis area blogger meet-up this past weekend.  I would have written about it yesterday, but my thumb and elbow were too sore from bowling.  Have I mentioned how much I love Indiana?  Well, I DO.

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One last thing, you can check out my new celebrity buzz column over at Blissfully Domestic (among many other far better columns) every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday!

Tags: Ask Teh Internets, Happy Homemaking, Pictures, photoshop fun by Jennifer
60 Comments »

Welcome to yet another installment of Jennifer’s Meijer adventures.  I should be earning free groceries for all these Meijer laden posts.  Are you listening Fred Meijer??

So the excitement today was this:

Meijer was on fire.  (I’m a poet and didn’t even know it!)  (I’m sorry that was lame.)

Really!  Meijer was on fire while I was THERE this morning!  I truly couldn’t make this stuff up.

As I paid for my groceries, I saw the manager rushing towards the deli with a fire extinguisher in hand.  The cashier (who was an excellent bagger, by the way), nervously told me, “Ha!  Yeah, there’s a fire.  Ha.  Ha, ha!,”  and yelled at her manager,  “send smoke signals if you need help!”  (I’m sorry, again, that was also lame.)

I looked up and saw smoke billowing from the deli area. 

And you know what a fire means, right?  That’s right!  Firemen!  Raur!

Too bad they didn’t arrive until after I had pulled out of the parking lot.  I might have needed to be revived by mouth to mouth resuscitation when I was overcome with smoke.  *cough, cough*

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Pictures, meijer by Jennifer
30 Comments »

Thy name is Suzie
Homemaker.  I bake cookies.
Bring on the butter.

Suzie Homemaker’s logic for baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies…

1. OATmeal=HEALTHY. Even when the OATmeal is surrounded by butter, sugar, and chocolate chips.

2.  There’s no need to add raisins to oatmeal cookies.  This would be a healthy overload.  The OATmeal is sufficient.

3. Butter is a better, healthier choice than Crisco or margarine. Crisco=lard. Margarine=weird hydrogenated oils. Butter=pure heaven from a cow.  Therefore butter=healthy.

4. OATmeal (cookies) can indeed be a part of one day dieting. One must only eat half a cookie at a time. 8 halves of a cookie do not actually equal 4 cookies when you properly do cookie math.  Cookie math is very complicated.  No time to fully explain here, just trust me.

5. One must entertain the children on these long, cold winter days. What better than a enriching and educational lesson in measuring, mixing, baking, and tasting?

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Pictures, haiku friday by Jennifer
62 Comments »

This is my glorious pantry…organized, neat, unblemished by dirty fingers and laziness. 

I know it won’t last, the newness of just having unpacked will fade.  I just wanted to capture it, this fleeting beauty, before it all goes to Hell.

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Pictures by Jennifer
59 Comments »

(It’s possible I should change the name of this blog to Jennifer’s Meijer Ramblings Or Jennifer is a DORK and Can’t Believe You Keep Reading.)

As proud as I could be, I stood back and admired my work.  Strategically planned and carefully implemented, I watched my groceries on the conveyor belt as they patiently awaited their turn to be scanned by the Meijer cashier.  Large items like diapers and soda were placed on the belt first.  The can goods, boxed items, and jars were lovingly segregated.  Fresh fruits and veggies were placed far, far away from the germy raw meats.  Bread, tortillas, greeting cards, and eggs were the final products, placed at the back so they’d be less likely to be crushed.

It was truly a work of art, fit for display in the Louvre.

I was pleased with my organizational abilities and looked forward to going home and putting each item in it’s place, knowing that it would be easy since it was already separated for easy unloading.  The satisfaction I felt at my accomplishment made me feel all warm and snugly inside.

Imagine my horror, though, as the cashier began bagging my groceries all willy nilly.   My carefully crafted work of art was suddenly dismantled at the hands of this maniac cashier.   Why was she putting carrots in with one box of elbow macaroni, 2 jars of baby food and a can of pinto beans???  I audibly gasped when she put my bread upright next to the rice cereal, soy sauce, and one (of two) 1/2 gallons of milk.  My eyes grew wider and wider and my heart raced with each bag she filled.  And filled she did.

She somehow fit $172 worth of groceries into FIVE plastic grocery bags.  I was certain that the bag filled with one package of size two Pampers, a jar of Apricot jelly, one can of artichoke hearts, four jars of baby food, rolled oats, flour, Swiffer floor wipes, and the other milk would bust.  (Somehow it didn’t, but I don’t know HOW.  It defied the laws of physics.)  What should have taken five minutes, took double that as the cashier undid my handiwork, picking and choosing items to fill the bags.

I didn’t say anything to the cashier.  I just sheepishly thanked her as she gave me my receipt and 746 Meijer coupons.  Walking away, I tried to regain my composure as I headed for the automatic doors.  Shell shocked and exhausted from the ordeal I drove home, replaying the horror over and over in my mind.  Why didn’t I say something?  What was I afraid of?  Could Meijer and I still be best friends or were things cooling for us?

First the car carts and now the pillaging cashier.  Oh, Meijer?  Why?  WHY? What have I done?

Tags: Happy Homemaking, Huh?, meijer, my stream of consciousness by Jennifer
53 Comments »