Do I secretly want to be a Stepford Wife?

So the Rock God came home from work at 4pm the other day and had a meltdown about the state of the house.  I admit it wasn't a pretty sight.  Last night's dishes were drying on the kitchen drainer.  The kids breakfast dishes were sitting in the sink, there was still breakfast stuff out on the benches and the kids plates and cups from lunch were on the kitchen table.  The floor had crumbs all over it, the kitchen could have done with a mop, the mountain of washing that had been sitting on the hall table for 2 weeks was still sitting on the hall table and there were toys from one end of the house to another.

I don't know why I can't seem to get the "domestic goddess" thing together....well actually, I have a pretty good idea and its boils down to 3 main problems which I have analysed and sorted into order of significance from least level of impact to severest level impact (see, I will do almost anything to avoid doing housework haha) -

1.  Environmental Background

My mother is the antithesis of a Domestic Goddess herself.....its just not her bag, baby.  She doesn't like to cook (when my mum and dad divorced we had fish & chips every night for 2 years!), she doesn't like to clean (don't you know that's what you pay people for) and she has an almost OCD perfectionist streak which manifests itself in bizarre ways such as spending 6 hours of the day polishing every door knob in the house until you can no longer look at them without being blinded while 2 days worth of dishes are starting to take over the kitchen.  Perhaps I can explain it better.....picture Martha Stewart for a moment....home baked cookies, handmade Christmas wreaths colour coordinated to your front door, attending school council meetings in a cashmere cardigan twin set in a lovely shade of lemon.  Righto, now imagine the extreme opposite of that and you have my mother.  And I'm not saying that like its a bad thing, my mother is a very intelligent, interesting, artistic and creative lady, but a Domestic Goddess?  Not on your life!

2.  Employment at the Siberian Salt Mines

Well, I shouldn't complain, its not soooooo bad....I work 5 days a week from 9am to 3pm as a graphic designer.  I am lucky in that I get to work from home but as I am contracted to a big software development firm in another state I must be at my computer for 6 hours every day.  This does not mean I get to vacuum my floors while talking on my mobile and tapping the keyboard every now and again.  Occasionally, if I am super organised I might get a load of washing on and get to hang it out in between phone calls, emails, ridiculous deadlines and spur of the minute video conferences.

At the same time that I am battling the corporate world,  I have a 3 year old and 4 year old at home with me who have to be fed, watered and entertained while I attempt to work.  Hence the toy chaos.

My day starts at about 7am with -

• making breakfast for the boys (none of whom will eat the same thing on their toast grrrr)
• making school lunches (oh thank you Miss XYZ in Year 1 for your helpful note on only packing healthy items in their lunchbox, its no extra trouble at all to cut up a mixed salad for a snack instead of throwing in an LCM bar and may I just remind you of this fact when you have 4 children of your own, double grrrrrrr)
• getting the boys ready for school (where is your other shoe/jacket/lunchbox/drink bottle/library book/oh what's this note about needing a zebra costume for assembly today).

Then its time for the dreaded school run from hell, battling all the other mothers who have also had to make last minute zebra costumes and are driving to school 10 minutes late like a bat out of hell.  After making a detour on my way back to get a large extra strong espresso, I get to come home and start what the Rock God refers to as my "real work" which makes me want to stab him in both eyeballs.

 3.  My Complete Inability to Give a Shit

Unfortunately, the biggest hurdle to me becoming a Domestic Goddess, is actually ME.  I hate housework with a passion.  I detest dusting, I cringe at cleaning, I mope if I have to mop and scrubbing my shower is something I simply was not born to do.

My complete lack of domestic inclination probably has a lot to do with No. 1 - Environmental Background because as hard as I try to 'not turn out like my mother' at the ripe old age of 39 I am realising on a daily basis I am becoming more and more like her!  Its almost like some kind of sick evolutionary process - I have made hundreds of decisions in my life which have purposely been made to  forge my own path and strike out from beneath the shadow of my parents influence and yet, inexplicably, I am becoming MORE like her.

In the end though it comes down to my personality.  I spend most of my time in complete creative over-drive.  I am really not happy unless I am creating, designing, writing, singing, enjoying art, studying history, the list goes on.  But there is only 24 hours in a day.  Somewhere in that 24 hours I have fit in being the best mother I can be (a role I take very seriously despite the lack of mixed salads in their lunchboxes), working six hours a day, running around between Scouts, football and cricket, and getting enough time to sate the creative beast.  Something has got to give and unfortunately, its the housework.

There are just so many things I would rather do than mop floors.  Of course this is very bad news for the Rock God - particularly as his environmental background is that of a very traditional immigrant family.  My mother in law is a Domestic Goddess demon - the woman cannot sit down!  The Rock God did not have to lift a finger the entire time he lived at home because my mother in law did EVERYTHING.  Some people hate it when their mother in laws come to visit and start cleaning up the house.  I LOVE it, infact I wish she would move in!

Now, although I say I don't really give a shit about being a Domestic Goddess, that's not exactly true.  I hate it when the house gets completely feral, as it does at times.  I wish I was super organised and on top of everything.  I would love the house to be tidier, the bathrooms cleaner and my laundry baskets emptier.  Deep down inside, there is a little teeny tiny part of me that secretly wants to be one of those Stepford Wives  that turns up at school without a hair out of place, in my perfectly colour coordinated gym clothes, smiling with my perfectly bleached white teeth at my perfect 2.5 children.  I love the idea of sitting at home baking a perfectly decorated Toy Story birthday cake instead of buying one.  Or hand painting Christmas ornaments and constructing an elaborate 25 day Advent craft project.  I even secretly like the idea of opening the door when my husband gets home with my hair done, lip stick on, a smile on my face and a spotless house.

Thank goodness, the voice of reason has managed to squish the teeny tiny anal retentive part of me that thinks being a Stepford Wife is a good idea.  Who gives a shit about whether the vacuuming is done tomorrow or the next day......I'd rather play hide and seek with the kids while the sun is out!

Are you Stepford Wife material?  Do you have any Christmas advent craft projects to share?

Freebie List - "8 Glasses of Water a Day"

Unless you are a fish, most of us probably don't drink enough water every day - come to think of it I'm not even sure if fish actually do drink - but you get what I mean.

The old '8 glasses a day' rule has been around for ages, and even though the latest scientific evidence somewhat debunks the theory that we need at least 8 glasses a day, I know there are days when I don't drink a single glass at all.  Which is not a good thing.

Some of the main benefits of drinking plenty of water include -

• It helps to suppress your appetite 
• It helps to keep skin moisturised, radiant and supple
• It helps our digestive system to work properly
• It helps to flush toxins from our body
• Drinking enough water stops your body from retaining water

So, combining my need to drink more water and my exorbitant love for lists, I've created a little chart to track how much water I am drinking each day.  So far today I've already had 3 glasses - which is roughly 3 glasses more than I had yesterday so I'm on a roll so far, woohoo!

The good news is scientists now agree that most liquids you drink count towards the total, including tea, coffee, juice, etc. but obviously there are far more benefits from drinking water than downing 8 glasses of soft drink!

5 tips for drinking water (if drinking water is not your thing!)

1. Drink 1 glass as soon as you go into the kitchen in the morning.

2. Personally, I find water is easiest to drink with a straw, it goes down quicker and easier.

3. If you drink a lot of coffee or tea during the day, trying drinking a glass of water between each one.

4. If I feel like a little extra zing, I add a dash of one of Bickfords traditional cordials.  There are 9 cordials in the range but the Diet Lime cordial is my favourite - super refreshing and not too sweet.  And I just love the look of the Bickfords bottles - so vintage!

5. Finally, I like drinking my water out of a really nice glass.  Years ago I bought two gorgeous cut crystal tumblers and they are divine to drink out of - heavy and sparkly!  $20 is a lot of money to spend on one glass, but when you think about it $20 is not too bad to have a little luxury in your life and you may be able to pick up a bargain on eBay.  Waterford Crystal is some of the best crystal in the world.

If you have any more tips on how to increase your water intake, I'd love to hear them!

If you would like a free copy of the chart (its an A4 page with 2 charts per page), leave a comment with your email address, or you can email me directly at eloise (at) webbi . com . au


Lastly, just keep in mind that although 8 glasses is a great idea, it's not a big deal if you can't manage 8 a day.  If you are not a big water drinker normally (like me), even 3 or 4 is an improvement so don't beat yourself up about it if you are not crossing all the glasses off the chart.

What do Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe and Me have in common?

Very little probably - I am not a French queen or a famous sex symbol – (or ever likely to be!) but there is one thing that we all have in common.

During the late 18th century, it was considered the height of fashion in the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to apply small “patches” of black velvet or silk to the face.  These fake beauty spots were known as “mouches” [French for fly] and would typically be cut into the shape of circles, hearts, moons or stars.

Patches were worn by both men and woman and were so popular that people carried them around in pretty little patch boxes that were commonly exchanged as gifts.

So how did the equivalent of a large black spot on the face ever become so darn attractive?

It started in the 1600’s when patches were first worn to cover small pox scars.  But by 1653, John Bulwer wrote "our ladies have lately entertained a vain custom of spotting their faces, out of an affectation of a mole, to set off their beauty.”

By Marie Antoinette’s time, patches were no longer considered as the baroque alternative to Clearasil.  The French court had come to realize that an imperfection, such as a beauty mark, can actually enhance a person’s natural beauty. 

Or as Conrad Hall so succinctly put it “There is a kind of beauty in imperfection”.

By the mid 1800’s patches had fallen out of fashion. But when Marilyn Monroe appeared on the scene in the late 1940’s, her signature spot above the lip launched beauty marks into vogue again.

In reality, Norma Jean Baker’s famous beauty mark was a skin coloured mole which was initially covered up or erased from early photographs.

But Norma Jean was a smart cookie.  She recognized that this particular imperfection actually enhanced her natural beauty and highlighted her famous pout. By the time she had transformed into the blonde bombshell we know as Marilyn, her beauty spot was artificially darkened with makeup.

Even today, the popular trend of having a small stud piercing above the upper lip is known as a “Monroe Piercing”.

So what does this have to do with me? 

Well, I won’t be gluing black patches to my face any time soon or painting my moles with liquid eyeliner or getting any facial studs, but lately I have come to realize – as did my soul sisters Marie and Marilyn – that there is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

There is a lot of pressure in today’s society to be “perfect”.  Perfect looking, perfect weight, perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect job, the list goes on. 

The message is blasted at us from every magazine, every TV commercial promoting the latest wrinkle cream and every Kentucky Fried Chicken ad with it’s perfect mum and dad and their perfect children smiling over their perfectly positioned fries.  Ugggh.

But as I approach the big milestone of 40, I realize I am not perfect and I never will be.  And you know what, I’m comfortable with that. 

I might yell at my kids a little too often to be a perfect mother or avoid the housework too often to be a perfect wife and I definitely eat way too many muffins to ever be the perfect size, but that’s okay.

I forgive myself for my imperfections and more than that, I cherish them, because I recognize it’s those things that help to make up the beautiful person I am.

So let’s stop beating ourselves up over our imperfections.  Let’s stop feeling bad about our past mistakes.  Let’s admit we don’t have to be super woman or even super mum.

Be kind to yourself, forgive yourself, love yourself and recognize the beauty of your imperfection.

Do you feel under pressure to be 'perfect' all the time?  Do you have imperfections that you have come to love?  Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you!