Another Picture and a Confession

Olive's first vet visit was yesterday afternoon, and I'm happy to report that she is in perfect health! Everyone at the vet's office was completely smitten with her, and they were all so sweet. We are so very happy that we have a healthy {and absolutely adorable} little dog.

{favorite picture of Olive so far...}

Anyway, what with these past few crazy days, my routine has gotten kind of off track. And so when we got back from the vet's office at about 6:45 last night, I got out the ingredients for a pretty simple dinner of macaroni and cheese {from a box, don't judge me...it doesn't happen often} and hot roast beef sandwiches. You can imagine my surprise then, when at 7:00 exactly, our doorbell rings. We live about a half hour away from most/all of our friends, so our doorbell doesn't ring very much without me knowing exactly who is on the other side of the door.

Standing on our porch were two of our dear friends with a pie in their hands.

I had completely forgotten that I had invited them over for dinner last night. I felt like an idiot, standing there in my white socks with holes in the them and my hair all over the place. Thank goodness they weren't too offended by my absent-mindedness. Robert entertained them on the couch while I threw everything on our dining room table into the office, chopped vegetables furiously for a salad, and ordered pizza over the phone. I even got out my cake platter for the pie and set out cloth napkins, just to make myself feel better. And with a bottle of wine {of which I drank four glasses, again trying to abate my intense embarrassment* over the situation, which probably just increased the spectacle I was making of myself} it was like the dinner was completely planned.

*Even more embarrassing than last night is the fact that I still can't spell "embarrassing" without looking it up in the dictionary...

For some, the above impromptu {can it be called impromptu if I invited them?} dinner date probably wouldn't be such a big deal. For me, however, an aspiring domestic connoisseur, it was a huge deal. And it made me realize a few things.

I don't like to talk about my domestic ambitions. For one, I have this completely irrational fear that women {read: feminists} will think less of me because I want to have the perfectly groomed home. I'm still trying to rationalize this goal within myself. And again, it's just kind of embarrassing. I mean really...what twenty-four year old dreams of cooking for her husband every night and having the perfect cleaning schedule? Well, that would be me.

Hi everyone. My name is Joelle and I want to be a homemaker.

There. I said it. I want to be a homemaker. I want to spend my evenings ironing my husband's button down shirts. I want to spend my Sunday afternoons making homemade bread and peach preserves. I want to throw elaborate dinner parties with beautiful flower arrangements that I make myself {this will need to wait since our dining room table seats exactly six people without anything on the table at all}. And I desperately want to go to this.

It's because of all of these things that last night was so difficult for me. They saw my messy bathroom and the piles of mail and the dirty floors. This isn't how I want to present myself to people, even if they are my friends.

Now, I know that I'm not perfect and I can't keep my home perfect all of the time. But I also know that I haven't tried nearly hard enough to do this. I'm procrastinating, trying to get everything done at once. I want to be the perfect homemaker now...I don't want to have to wait. But that's unrealistic. Doing these things is a process, one that will take time to learn and master. I just need to accept that fact and figure out the steps to get me where I want to be.

It will happen eventually. I hope.

Thanks for listening. And thanks for your support. And thanks in advance for any advice or resources you have about homemaking. I really appreciate it. Truly, I do.

xoxo,