Being a Fulltime Housewife

Today I am a full-fledged, certified, tried and tested, true housewife! Today was devoted entirely to housework. Yes, seriously!

I spent the entire morning changing sheets and making the bed in all 4 rooms. I did three loads of laundry (whites, coloreds and linens). Took a break for lunch. Then it was back to work. I made a quick trip to Fresh and Easy to pick up some groceries, came home, and put them away. I prepared the ingredients for spaghetti sauce (lots of chopping, slicing and dicing). While the sauce was simmering on the stove, I folded the laundry. Then I did the dishes, scrubbed the kitchen counters, mopped the floor and made fresh mint lemonade. I set the table (we are having some friends over tonight) and took out the trash. Whew!

It's almost 5 PM and am marveling at how the day has just gone by. I have not even started on the bathrooms nor have I swept any of the rooms. And I was even planning to vacuum the area rugs and launder the bathroom rugs. Oh well. I am going to have to pace myself and save these for tomorrow (or whenever the mood to do housework strikes again). It’s not easy doing housework but it is very rewarding to know I can take care of our home. Of course, to be perfectly honest, I don’t do this much this often. But once in a while (like today), I find myself in “the mood”. And I really need to take advantage of “the mood”, since it comes so rarely and so fleetingly!

In the past, I had Luisa, a lovely woman who came in once a week to help me do housework. She barely spoke English and it was always a challenge for us to communicate. I took 4 semesters of Spanish in college but aside from saying “Hola” and “Gracias”, am unable to have a conversation with her! We always have a lovely game of charades when she comes. But despite the language barrier, she was pleasant and gracious. She also always did a great job and was such a hard worker. It often made me feel guilty having her do our housework, so the night before Luisa would come, I would force Jojo and myself to pre-clean the house. I was embarrassed to have her working while we lounged around watching tv so when she was working, Jojo and I would be working alongside her. Jojo found it hilarious that we would “stage” our home for her. And he would tease me that we both worked harder whenever Luisa was here.

Anyway, I really appreciated her help especially since I was working full-time then and didn’t have much time to keep house. But now that I’m not yet working, I figured I should probably do the housework myself. And that’s pretty much how I've spent my day so far. =)