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Domestic Life and the Challenge of Not Being Martha Stewart
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Wow this past week has been chock full of domestic activities. I just finished a light-hearted book on nesting.

It's definitely a fun book full of ideas, tips, vignettes of women living a domesticated type life and feeling a little bit more accomplished. Of course I realize it all goes out the door when you have kids as I have heard from close friends. However the recipes and short-cuts for entertaining or even gardening will prove useful someday.

So this past week I learned how to make cookie-cutter sugar cookies and with the lack of artistic abilities was able to decorate them for a community outreach activity. I was also able to do various baking activities involving recipes not found on the back of the Toll-House Chocolate Chip bag, banana nut bread, chili from scratch, and corn bread from scratch.

In addition, I was able to hem my own pants which has saved me some good money since I'm shorter than most petite sizes on the market. I'm starting to get a bit more familiar with my sewing machine and can claim 2 successful projects, even though they were just 2 aprons from Sewing for Dummies.

The garden is a mess but will definitely weed and mulch in the next week or so. Will be planning to add lighting and a better system for the fountain. It's been neglected for the most part this past year because of the redesign of the interior which as I speak is short of a couple of pieces of furniture and some lighting. Did manage to borrow a Christmas tree this year, with just 5 ornaments it's kind of sad looking right now, but hope to hit up Ikea or Kmart shortly for more. Feel free to send us ornaments if you have no clue what to give us.

While at times I envy Martha Stewart's abilities at making domestic life exciting and fun, I still fall short of the eye for detail, patience and creativity to really fully pull it off. I don't have all the entertainment ware and haven't even pulled out our nice stemware for get togethers. Although wine or champagne in styrofoam is definitely a path I won't go down.

Do you mind if I just serve salad in a bag sometimes? Or just get the pre-mixed cookie dough? And maybe oatmeal is the only thing good right now while the weather is chilly. I'll probably have to solicit the help of domestic experts shortly to help with adding the finishing touches at home, but for now I'm content and happy to serve up all the meals and doing laundry.

Posted on December 16, 2005 11:55 AM