Nevermind, I Couldn't Be a Housewife.

It has always intrigued me that some women don't work. Just don't work. And their husbands just keep going to work and aren't jealous at all. I know it's hard work to raise kids, and buy groceries, and clean the house blah blah blah. But let's be honest, these women never have to dread their annoying boss coming around the corner. They never have to spend countless hours of their life with people whose eyeballs they want to gouge out. And this fantasy land is what the majority of this blog is based upon.

However, after my recent week off for Christmas - the most time I've had off since college - I began to feel differently. The first few days were bliss. Other people were at work and I was not! I got things done that I had been putting off for months. I picked up my retainer. I spent 15 minutes picking out a color of spray paint. I had a much-needed appointment to an ENT, in which I leisurely discussed my sinuses without having to rush back to avoid the glare of an annoyed boss. I sat down and just watched a Christmas movie. I baked cookies. If I could bottle that day up and take swigs of it throughout the work week, I so would.

It was 3 days after Christmas that the change started. I had had all the joy I could stand. All the fudge, egg nog, cookies, and Chardonnay that any human should ever consume. I had been to the movies. I had eaten out approximately 15 times. Been shopping twice. There was literally nothing left to do. I craved nothing else. I could not stand one more bit of entertainment. I needed some freaking work.

I assume housewives reach this point eventually. One can only watch so many episodes of Oprah, fill up so many scrapbooks, and go on so many park strolls. At some point, don't you have to have a crappy activity to do so you can actually look forward to a fun one? Like Jason Mraz says, "It takes the night to make it dawn. It takes a day to make you yawn...It takes some cold to know the sun. It takes the one to have the other."

I guess if you're going to be a hardcore housewife, you really treat it as work. You get up, take a shower, run errands, clean house, and stay very scheduled. And then maybe it does feel like work and you do look forward to the weekends. I'm afraid my housewife-hood would go more like this: Wake up at 10:30. Watch HGTV for hour to hour and a half. Eat breakfast. Go to Hobby Lobby at 12:30. Come home with multiple craft projects around 3:00. Begin several crafts. Possibly take shower. But most likely not. Brush teeth. Then the work day is over!

So maybe that's it. You turn your household activities into actual work that you dread. What a sad idea. I'd much rather dread spending my day with a micromanaging pissy boss than spending my day picking up after a chubby little toddler. I want any time I have at home to feel like a treat. Even when I'm folding clothes, I like to remember that I could be arguing with a colorblind old man about which color of carpet will look best in his office. When raising my kids is now my only job what is there to be relieved from on Saturday?

On second thought, why do the weekends have to be my only happy time? Why can't I be happy with just having fun, non-work activities 7 days a week, 365 days a year? I guess the real answer is that work feels good. I do enjoy a good day's work. It's the people around me that I don't enjoy. So maybe working from home is the ultimate goal. Yes, this is the answer to all problems. You aren't jobless. You still have tasks that don't involve scrapbooks, but you can't see or hear your annoying co-workers. Yet you retain your social skills through email so you're not stunned at dinner parties with nothing to talk about except a diaper genie. This still doesn't solve the problem of how to get me to take a shower when I don't have to be in public, though.