The Lazy Housewife

I recently finished reading Julie & Julia, which wasn't bad but wasn't all that great either. In truth, after reading reviews and interviews with Julie Powell, it seems as though I would enjoy the movie much better, so here's hoping that I get to see it sometime. It's out on DVD now, so maybe it'll be On Demand too, and I can watch it during one of Little's naps. I will confess that my reading of the last half of the book was marred by the fact that I learned (from the almighty Internet) that Powell had an affair after the book was published and wrote another book to talk about the effects of that affair on her marriage (along with butchery), which sealed her fate in my mind, as a highly unlikable person, prone to histrionics, and suffering from excessive narcissism. Whereas she portrays her husband as a sweet, level-headed, decent guy who definitely doesn't deserve to get cheated on after putting up with all his wife's temper tantrums. So there was that. More so, however, I was just disappointed that it really wasn't that much about cooking and more about said histrionic fits. I realize that it is a novel based on a blog based on real life. I realize that one has to have a certain level of narcissism to even write in a blog in the first place. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather read about someone who cooked delicious things, took some risks, suffered through them, and then came out on the other side changed, became a better person from it. All I can say is that I'm glad I don't know her because she doesn't seem to be someone I'd want to be friends with. I did appreciate her vast knowledge of pop culture references (many of which I totally didn't get--probably due to a generational gap--) and the window she provided into a life so foreign, so different from my own or any sort of life I imagined other people living. It was interesting, if nothing else. So thank you, Julie, for keeping my mind occupied as I ran on my hamster wheel at the YMCA.

One other thing did (albeit very briefly) emerge from my reading of Julie & Julia: I thought, for a moment, that it would be cool to do the same sort of thing she did (cook every single recipe from a famous cookbook in a year) with the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I even went as far as pulling my copy off the top shelf in the pantry and flipping through it to see what sort of things I would be forcing myself to make, should I decide to go crazy and partake in that endeavour. Fortunately for me and all those who live in my household, I decided that I don't have the time, energy or desire to cook AND eat all of that stuff. So the idea was quickly shelved with the book.

If I did have a blog, I think I would call it "The Lazy Housewife" (wait-- aren't I already writing in a blog?), in which I would write about my everyday chore-avoiding and half-ass-doing, as well as exalt the every other month obsessive cleaning spree (I'm due for it again any day now... maybe) that I occasionally go on. I would detail my excitement upon seeing my lovely Calphalon pan sparkling like new from scrubbing it with Barkeeper's Friend after months of that sticky grease that never quite gets cleaned off with a regular washing, thinking, while I'm scrubbing, that I should really clean all the pots and pans with this stuff tonight, but being spent by the time I rinse off the last remnants of the cleaner and realizing that my hands are in dire need of moisturizer instead of more Barkeeper's Friend. So the other pots and pans will have to wait. Indefinitely. I could give pointers too, on how to make your house appear clean without actually being clean, which sometimes is just as much work as actually cleaning it, but most of the time is totally worth it. A lot of people have told me that my house is very clean, when in reality, the carpet hasn't been vaccumed in weeks, the furniture hasn't been dusted in months, and the bathrooms... well, we won't go there. I think the key deception is that my house is tidy. Not clean, just tidy. There is a difference there. I don't let clutter take over my living space. There aren't toys strewn about left and right, and we make it a point to put clutter away every night. Yes, we. Another reason why I'm a lazy housewife. My husband does do chores. Not many and not often, but he is a good partner when it comes to household duties. We frequently remark that we really have a good arrangement for our lives. It makes us happy. So that's what I would blog about. I might even throw in the occasional fun thing that Little and I did on a given day, but only if the fun is truly exceptional or creative. Today I cut a Christmas tree shape out of green construction paper and helped her decorate it with crayons and stickers. The fun part was that a fair amount of the stickers ended up on both our faces, which made us both laugh. She even kept a sticker on her forehead as we went out to do a little bit of Christmas shopping. I don't know if writing about those things would make people want to read my blog, but at least it would be fun to take that approach to examining my life. Except that the blog name has already been taken, and true to her name, The Lazy Housewife wrote one entry over two years ago, and hasn't written anything since. Which is too bad. I would have done a much better job than she.