Baking 101

I thought I would start with something my newly hatched inner housewife could manage, something simple, something well proven: chocolate chip cookies.

I couldn’t ask for a better experience or a better illustration than this to justify why the title of my blog is “Finding My Inner Housewife”.

Project: bake chocolate chip cookies

Outcome: Fail

Ok… re-imagined. Even though my goal was baking chocolate chips cookies, the project evolved and I rolled with it. And by rolling with it I mean that when all attempts at turning this batter into cookies failed, I tried to make a cake out of the batter.

[NOTE: I will later fill you in on the time I had to staple a cake together].

Cookie dough is different than cake dough, right? I think I just got lucky this time. Bonus.

Here is the image of what the recipe says these cookies should look like (thank you Mrs. Fields, housewife and businesswoman extraordinaire):

Here is my mega-cookie (squint and you will realize that this is evolving into a cake):

And here are some other shots to give you a better idea of this process and other activities calling for my attention:

Broken glass with melted chocolate (oops #72):

Trust me, I didn’t try to make these “cookies” turn out like this. This is real, this is me! So, I am embarking on a new chapter in my life. Some people call it a “stay at home mom” or SAHM, others “instructor for future generations” and still others, “housewife”.

My daughter made us a salad with the fresh veggies I chopped up as a snack. Her creation involves a half cup of carrots and celery (me) and a cup of ranch dressing (her):

Meanwhile, my infant son has gripe water spilling onto his onesie.

Anyway…We’re still having fun. That’s not the point – or maybe it IS the point. I am rediscovering that the point is really to have fun with my kids – while trying not to burn the house down.

Next week, I’ll let you know if the cookie-cake was any good…

Introduction to My Blog: Finding My Inner Housewife

In honor of Mother’s Day 2010, I’d like to acknowledge the wisdom of the Mothers, Grandmothers, and other maternal figures in my life. These are people that I have looked to for guidance, advice and orientation as I have tried to figure out who I am as a woman, a friend, wife, and mother.

I am fortunate in many ways to be the daughter of a generation of women who broke the rules and broke barriers. Feminists: intelligent, capable, savvy, beautiful, resourceful women who knew what they wanted. They were willing to takes risks and face losses, to secede a more comfortable path for OUR sakes, for my sake…and I appreciate the benefits and freedoms of my position. I have choices available they could not have imagined. For example, the choice to work in a field I am passionate about or to stay home and raise my children – and to feel positive and empowered by either path. I have the added benefit of living in a generation and culture of self-exploration (eg. “Eat, Pray, Love”; Oprah, etc.) and “safe space” to process my identity and experiences. But, somehow along the way, I lost one of the threads (no pun intended) that has connected women for generations – the thread of homemaking. And somehow, I never learned to do even the simplest homemaking/housewife tasks: such as how to sew button.

So this is my journey. My journey is to lean the staples of underappreciated housewife daily productivity. As my best friend Marcus once told me: “are you good at homemaking? No. you are good at hiring people to do things!”

Which was followed by: “why don’t you pay ME to do any of this stuff?”

Granted, he’s a remarkable gardener – another of the things my ideal inner housewife will discover on this journey.

My goal is not to fit someone else’s definition of expert. My goal is to fill in some missing pieces about domesticity that I somehow missed out on.

I will learn from a variety of sources – my very wise and sassy friends, classes, workshops, books, mothers, fathers, teachers all - and I will enjoy paying attention to some of the tasks of maintaining a home, marriage, children, friendships, parents, in-laws, siblings…I’d like to learn some new skills and to have some laughs doing so.