Hello!

I'd make a great 1950's housewife. I love cooking, cleaning, sewing, and gardening (when the cold, northern midwestern weather permits it). I get such fulfillment from having a great supper ready and waiting when my husband, The Husband, gets home from work. We love entertaining our friends in our home. I even live in a 1950's house. Rewind time by 60 years and I'd fit right in.

But there are three main problems with me emulating a 1950's housewife:

1) I work full time as a manager in a retail store. It's hard to be a perfect housewife when you're out of the house for over 40 hours each week. I also run my own photography company on the side. Most housewives weren't entrepreneurs. Working full times means sometimes we get to eat something that had its beginnings in a box. That's not how I like to cook for quality and health reasons, but sometimes I'm just to tired to make something more.

2) I don't have kids, unless you count my four furbabies, the loves of my life:


Riley has been with us now for three years and he's about 3 1/2 years old. We aren't really sure what he's a mix of, as he was born on the island of St Croix down in the Caribbean. The feral dogs down there don't exactly check pedigrees before they decide to get it on. We used to think he was part sheltie and part dachshund with some other things mixed in, but now I'm not so sure. His tail curls up over his body which doesn't happen with either of those two breeds. Who knows what he is. As my brother said, "You wanted a mutt, you got a mutt. What does it matter what breeds he might be?" Because of his tropical heritage we call him a Coconut Mutt. He's about 22 pounds. He's a pretty darned good dog and was our perfect first dog. We got him through a local rescue that takes dogs from the islands where their chance of being adopted is quite low. Most people in the Caribbean have a much different attitude about dogs than we do here. They rely on people flying back and forth between the islands and the mainland to transport the dogs to participating shelters. That's how our Coconut Mutt came to live in the snowy tundra.


We decided Riley needed a little sister last November so we found Josie. We know she's part Corgi because we met her brother and he was definitely part Corgi. But she definitely has some other things mixed in as Corgi's are typically around 30 pounds and this little kid is only around 16 pounds. Josie might be the happiest dog on the planet. She's one of those dogs that when her tail wags, it starts at her shoulders and works its way down to her tail. She gets away with things because she's cute and I think she knows it. She came from a shelter in Kentucky with a 98% kill rate. A local shelter partners with the shelter in Kentucky and brings very adoptable dogs north where they have a much higher chance of being adopted and getting a chance at life. We liked her when looking for pups of Petfinder.com because she looked like Riley. We fell in love with her because she was sweet and cute.

We also have 2 rabbits, Hank and Gretchen that live in the basement, but I couldn't find a picture for you today. They can get out of their cage when we're around to watch them. They are litter box trained so they aren't messy. They're the senior residents of the house as we'd had Hank for a year before we got Gretchen and then it was another 3 years before we got Riley. Hank was actually how we knew Riley was the dog for us. We brought Hank along on our puppy date with Riley. We liked Riley so we brought Hank out to see how he'd respond to something small, fuzzy and fast. Riley licked Hank's head, lay down on the ground, looked at us and wagged his tail. We were sold.

And frankly, I don't know if we'll have kids. We love the life we have now and don't feel a huge need to change it. We don't feel a huge gap in our hearts that can only be filled with children. So if we don't really want them, should we really have them? Just because society says we should?

3) As you might have guessed by my last paragraph, I don't believe is submitting to your husband and letting him control the relationship. I'm sure that not all 1950's relationships were like that, but that's certainly the stereotype. Yes, I said I get fulfillment out of making The Husband a superb dinner. But it's only because I choose to cook him a great meal. If I had to do it, he'd get spaghetti out of the jar every night. It's because I have the freedom to do all of this that I enjoy doing it.

But I enjoy many things of the stereotypical 1950's housewife and I want to share how these are important facets of my life even though I work full time. I want to share the things I cook, the things I sew, the other things I make. I also want to share my thoughts on this crazy life.