Time:   8:32 pm, 3 days ago

Setting:  Kevin and I are driving home in the car.

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Me:   :::sighs suddenly:::: It’s going to take forever to get that house cleaned once the bedroom floor is finished, and I have no desire to do any of it.  WHY can’t I just be the person I want to be???

Kevin:   ::::::turns the wheel, looks at me out of the corner of his eye whilst driving:::::::::

Me:   ….see, the person I WANT to be is inside of me.  I have this great picture of who she is.  But when I look at my life, I’m totally different than who I think I should be.

Kevin:  ::::raises his eyebrow, unsure of where this is going::::::

Me:   Well, for one, I hate getting up early.  I hate cleaning.  I rarely dust.  We eat from Little Ceasars, Taco Bell, Subway, and the Dollar Menu at McDonalds far, far too often.  The only vegetables I’ve ever grown in my life are probably about to die because I didn’t know how to transplant them properly.   We ran out of clean underwear twice last month.  And I swear, our stuff sits in the living room at night, breeding, and plotting how to take our lives over.  That, and I haven’t touched the laundry in a week, which might lead ot more trips to Kmart to buy you fresh underwear.  Why oh why can’t I just take a pill and instantly become the person I have in my mind that I want to be????  

Kevin, speaking non-chalantly:   Baby, you already do a lot.  Plus, you are with our baby 24/7.  That’s a lot of work.  Don’t make yourself sound that bad.   You know you always get around to stuff sooner or later. 

Me:   No!  You don’t understand.  I don’t WANT to be that kind of person. Period.  I want to be different than I am.  I want to be an awesome wife and mom.  See..here’s how it is.  I’m supposed to get up before you do, have your breakfast cooked, enjoy a wonderful hot meal together, then kiss you on the cheek, and send you off to work at 5:30 am with ironed clothes and a packed nutritious lunch……

Kevin, butting into my tirade:   Yeh, I remember you did that one time a couple years ago……

Me:   ::::looks at him annoyed::::

Me, continuing:   …..then after you leave, I should get the laundry caught up, do my morning routine, then wake up our son, get him dressed and feed him a hot nutricious breakfast.   I’m home all day, so the house should be spotless too, right????  The bed should be made, the floors sparkling, the dishes done, and soft classical music playing in the background.  It doesn’t SOUND like it would be too hard.  And truthfully, when I get to doing it, it doesn’t physically take that long.  Then, there should be a garden of vegetables out back.  I’d love to learn how to can things!  And all this talk about organic being the best, shouldn’t we look into learning about that stuff???  And we should see about getting a city recycle bin too as all this going green talk has me feeling guilty every time I throw the weekly circular into the trash.  Better yet, I should just turn it into paper pulp, make beads, and sellthem on Etsy!!   Also,  I want to look pretty every day and enjoy going out to lunch occasionally too. I don’t like being cooped up all the time and it’s good for Jack to get out.   Yet in reality, I don’t even want to get dressed when I wake up and by the time I return from taking Jack to the morning storytime, the hermit in me doesn’t want to do anything else, much less grocery shop or cook the evening meal every night.  But everything that SHOULD be done SOUNDS so easy in my head, and that’s the kind of wife I truly want to be.  As a Christian, that’s who I’m SUPPOSED to be, right??  Isn’t that what you want too???  Our home should be tranquil…peaceful…clean.   Anyway, that’s what annoys me – the version of me I picture in my head is not who I am in reality…..she’s there…I can almost feel her…but I can’t make myself become her….and….  

Kevin:   :::::cuts into my tirade, looking strait at me instead of the road::::::   Uh, no.  Listen, I don’t know what weird things you’ve been reading, but if you acted like that I’d kick you out or leave myself.   You don’t need to get up when I do!  You need your sleep. Plus you know I like to be alone during the morning.  And I could care less about any of that other junk you mentioned.  You’re awesome.  I don’t want you to be like all that.  Are you seriously nuts???  I want you to be like YOU.  

Me:   ::::::sinks into subdued thoughtful silence for the 2 minute remainder of the ride::::::::

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LESSON LEARNED:   Don’t try to be someone else’s version of the perfect wife and mother. 

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DISCLAIMER:  This is a true story.  The names were not even changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

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Ok.  There seems to be a rash of “realness” coming out in many mommy bloggers.  You see, there are a few (and one especially well known) home making blogs where the authors present themselves to be the perfect wife, mom, teacher, homemaker, etc.  In a turning of the tide movement, mommies every where seem to be coming out of the woodworks to show how UNperfect their life really is at certain moments.

And you know what?  It’s a breath of fresh air to see another homemaking blogger let down her pretenses and show what her house is truly like amidst the daily coming and goings of family life.  You see….sometimes, a dedicated stay-at-home mom (or any mom, for that matter!!) can get so caught up in wanting to be a “super-woman” that they feel crushed if they’re are unable to maintain a perfectly clean home and perfectly behaved children.  Reading blogs where other mommies seem to have it ALL together doesn’t help matters any either.  It can make us feel (in worst case scenarios) like jumping in our 3 day old pile of laundry and hiding with our store bought tide.

So with that in mind, I was thinking of something else that I’ve wondered about.  (Brace yourself…I’m gonna “be real”, real quick).

In today’s health concious society, “homemade meals” are all the rage, right?  Cooking at home is purpoted to be the best invention since sliced (homemade) bread.

Now, I’m not sure about you guys, but growing up, “Homemade meals” in my parent’s house meant just that – meals that were made at home.  Whether that meant opening cans, dumping out a quick box of Kraft Mac & Cheese for lunch, or rolling out some pillsbury pie crusts, didn’t matter.  Homemade was anything cooked at home. I never even thought to question this!  Mom would often say “this is cooked from scratch” – and we’d laugh and say “who scratched it??”, to which she’d simply reply “The Jolly Green Giant” or “Campbells”.   And it worked great for us.  The food tasted terrific, it was made with love, and it guided me right on up into a pretty healthy adulthood life.  Therefore, it never occured to me that there was a whole other attitute towards homemade meals….an attitute that scoffed at homemade meals that weren’t completely made from HOME scratch.  I am finding this particular attitude more and more in various books I read or blogs I encounter.  I sometimes even get the impression from many blogs that one should never even buy store bought canned goods!  That was quite a shocker to me when I first started researching on how to fill a home pantry. 

Does anyone out there truly NOT buy canned goods??  Canned goods, to me, are quintessential.  Pork & Beans, french cut string beans, cream corn, canned peaches, cream of mushroom…. most cans cost less than 60 cent per can, so they’re not really that expensive.  And I’m not sure if I’m reading right, but when I look at the ingredients of a can of string beans, all I ever see is “String Beans, Water” (maybe “Salt” on some?).  Nothing funky, right?  I LOVE canned foods, and I’m not sure if I could survive daily cooking without them.  And the occassional can of pineapple is auyummi.

But when I read some homemaking advice books / blogs, I get the impression that I “should” feel inadequate because I’m not growing my own lima beans, preserving my own vine grown tomatoes, shaving the corn off of the cob myself, or chopping my organic farmer’s market mustard greens.  Since when did the cook at home movement become the “cook-only-from-organic-scratch-or-your-family-isn’t-being-well-fed” movement???  

So anyway…what I’m getting at (I can be quite long winded) is this….

Does anyone else besides myself still find “cooking from pure scratch” a novelty that just doesn’t fit into every day life?? What does “Homemade Meals” mean to YOU??

Sometimes I wonder if there are hoards of people out there cooking from scratch and laughing at my Jolly Green Giant loving self, or if these homemaking blogs present only an ideal that really isn’t followed by that many people.  I mean, c’mon people…opening a ready-made can or two for dinner side dish is, to me, a time-saving, awesome modern luxury that is well worth the “less than a buck per can” cost.  I also love me a 33 cent box of Great Value Mac & Cheese with Campbells Tomato Soup on the side once in a while.  (Isn’t that sooo UN-PC??) 

Other things I hear society “telling us” about eating, but I don’t go for, are….

 ~ “Everything tastes better if homemade”.  I don’t agree.  Little Debbie can make a better swiss roll than I can any day, Starbucks just has some major mojo goin’ on in the coffee arena, homemade tortillas tastes exactly the same irregardless of who makes them, Pillsbury chocolate chip cokies are beyond awesome, and Heinz can ketchup my fries any day.  I know many things contain some supposedly bad-for-you preservatives, but I’d bet my dollar bill that a company who cooks up millions of the exact same foods daily – and sells them – has found a winning recipe that you probably haven’t.  Just because something is “company made” doesn’t make it less tasteworthy than it’s homemade counterpart.

~ “Go Organic, or Die!”   Maybe it’s because I dislike fads, but everyone’s fascination with organic this, and organic that just bugs me.  Or perhaps maybe it’s because my wallet dislikes seeing one product for $3, and the same size product in organic for $6.  So I’m supposed to choose between eating “organic” and thus starving because I can’t afford much…or eating non-organic and dying a slow, miserable death from pesticide poisoning??  I dunno.  I’m just not all that convinced that the non-organic milk I’ve been drinking for 25 years now is suddenly killing me. 

…..which brings me to….

~ ”Choices, choices, for one and all!”   Why, oh why do we have so many choices for anything and everything??  Why can’t flour be flour and sugar be sugar and rice be rice?  Just give me a barrel to tote it out in. 

Anyway.  I’m not suggesting in any way that one should eat nothing but storebought items.  I myself do cook from scratch occassionally, and shop our local farmers market frequently (because it’s cheaper).  It’s just that I view eating and meal preparation like the Greeks suggest….”Do all things in moderation”.

So anywho.

That’s my bit of “realness” for today.  Although I do love cooking “homemade meals”, I rarely scratch them myself because I am a can-buying, non-organic, choice-denying, boxed mac&cheese lover. 

(Would you like fries with that?)

hrmph.

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