A brief interlude in my contract work has led me to a life of housewifery in these past two months. This period of occupational inactivity has led me away from my computer, including my much neglected blog, and on to more real-world activities. I would apologize, but I’m not all-together sorry.
I’m not sure that I’m entirely cut out for this home life in the long term. As much as I enjoy playing at other time periods, I’m eternally grateful to be living in the here and now, to be able to enjoy the rights, occupations, past times that women’s lib has afforded me.
That being said, while Luke napped this morning, I cooked up a batch of apple sauce and crocheted a scarf. (You rebel scum.)
I’ve been crocheting a lot lately. I got bitten by that particular bug last summer. I picked by a fantastic book of patterns called The Happy Hooker recommended to me by a good friend who also has way too many hobbies, and I’ve had a crochet hook in my back pocket most days since. In the past month I finished an afghan, a shawl, and a scarf and I’ve got another one on the way. Next I might try something radical like a tea cozy. You never know with a wild one like me.
I also finished a 1850’s workdress (great pattern for the intermediate seamstress, but if you’ve never sewn a dress, don’t start here), I’ve got a Regency-era spencer on my dress form right now, and a 1770-ish American colonial cut out and waiting in the wings.
I’ve been dancing as much as I can, as usual, and I actually finished a short story last week. This would be the first piece of fiction that I’ve put a beginning, middle, and end to in quite sometime. It still needs a editor’s slash and burn, but it’s there on paper instead of muddling around in my head.
So I may not be producing much in the way of maps, but I’m keeping my hands busy.
Of course, I’ve also been busy rearing a baby into a toddler. Luke is 16 months old now. He has a vocabulary of 30 or 40 words, largely related to foods and toys. His favorite phrase, always shouted with emphasis and feeling, is, “All Done!” As in, “All Done” with lunch, which he pronounces when he has eaten 90% of it and thrown the remainder on the floor, or “All Done” with this bath, when I have washed half of the slippery, soapy baby and I’m trying to get ahold of the other half, or “All Done” with this diaper change, which he yells as I’m chasing him down to begin said procedure. Luke thinks that cheeks are called kisses, he’s enamored with stars and planets, and just recently he decided that running away from pants is a funny game which has added a bit of exercise and challenge to the process of getting dressed in the morning. He can identify various features such as eyes, ears, noses, mouths, feet, and belly buttons and he knows that the latter goes beep beep. He can pick out and name with reasonable accuracy about half a dozen letters in the alphabet. The rest he resolutely declares to be the letter “E” and with such conviction that you begin to wonder if maybe he’s right.
So I’m doing the mom and wife routine. I’m not very stellar at keeping up the house. I’m far more inclined to sew than vacuum the living room, but I do okay on some the handy projects around and about. The houseplants suffer in straggly neglect but the cats and kid are in good shape. The bills get paid often enough that nothing’s been shut off. There is generally food in the fridge and even, on rare occasion, a meal on the table when Shawn gets home from work, though the microwave has become my most frequently used kitchen appliance. I mend clothes but don’t wash windows. The bathrooms are passable enough to let most of friends use them, but not extended family. I never make the beds but the toys are corralled several times a day into something like order.
I get by. My household is nowhere near as organized as the spatial databases I once created and maintained for a living, but all the mammals here are well cared for and that counts for a lot.
This afternoon during Luke’s afternoon nap, I might just digitize that Sacramento neighborhood data I found into a query-able map layer, just to keep sharp. After I change the litter box and mop up from lunch, that is.