The Meaning of Love

The Housewife who can "Do It All" unfortunately doesn't exist.

I’m awake at 12:40AM.
I’ve been awake for 21 hours now.

Jake is still awake as well, and I’m feeding him on my lap as I type one-handed, with two fingers. 

The room is dark, and every so often my hand strays off track on the keyboard and my words start to look juhe yhis… so I slowly back-space over them and begin again.

We’ve had a trying day. This blasted blizzard destined to engulf us has caused tension and stress to build in our community – just listen to some of the angry comments made by frazzled customers wanting their milk and eggs (to the frazzled associate who can’t stock the shelves fast enough to meet demand).

It makes me want to call a Time Out on everyone, reminding people to show some respect and understanding for one another.

The commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” is especially appropriate for this Valentine Season.
I do wish, however, that a synonym of “love” would be “acceptance”… for when we truly love someone, we accept them as they are.

“Appreciation” is listed, though, and that is another excellent mode of feeling that tends to get taken for granted.

This Valentine’s Day, I join the thousands of stay-at-home parents who simply want to be appreciated for our contributions. 
Forget the chocolate and flowers.

We may not commute to our jobs every morning, and receive a monetary paycheck to show for our efforts… but we still have a demanding workload which unfortunately doesn’t end at 5:00PM.

I can safely assume that quite a few eyes are rolling. 
I once worked a full-time job outside the home, and listened to my co-workers’ tales of stay-at-home spouses who “sat around watching trash TV, eating cereal in their pajamas at 3:00PM” and who apparently never did a lick of housework. 

Of course, I believed the stories… and I thought,
“Wow, it must be nice to stay home and have all your needs provided for. Relaxing, yet incredibly boring.” 

Humbug Infestation?

My new "Kimono Cat" painting, one of my Contest prizes

Everywhere we are being reminded that Christmas is 3 weeks away.
Some people have been putting money aside all year, others are dreading their next paycheck – knowing they must squeeze a few more gifts from it.

Children are great about letting you know what they want (and expect)… the one thing guaranteed not to fall prey to procrastination, they’ve been planning and revising their lists for the last 6 months.

If you’re shopping for someone other than greedy children, however, you might not have a clue what to purchase as a gift.
Never fear, every retailer on the planet seems to know what your mother-in-law really wants this year.

One of the most irritating things about commercializing Christmas (for me, anyhow) is the amount of stereotyping you find…

Everyone is pigeonholed into a nifty little phrase or a couple keywords:
“My Handyman Husband”, “My Computer Geek Father”, “Our Son the Quarterback”, “Spa and Facial Lovin’ Sister-in-law”.

We wives automatically get jewelry, whether we want it or not… and apparently ALL teenagers love Twilight! It’s only a matter of knowing which “team” they’re on. Pul-eeeeze.

The Today show has been doing segments on gift-giving, and some of their recent suggestions included: beaded clutches, glittery earphones, lacy underwear, a $52.00 make-up kit (and she stated that it did NOT include mascara, lol) and a DVD of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” starring Danny DeVito.
I kid you not.
Actually, I think I just described a Philadelphia hooker.