house wife

i do the grocery shopping and buy two magazines (one of them called Hip Mama- I put it back three times because i am not a mama, but then think when i am i will not have time to read this, and decide to buy it). When i get home, i hide them under the bed because i do not want my husband to know i have so frivolously wasted his hard earned money. i spend my days whittling away at my list of things to do, and find myself lost in our house. i hang the clothes on the line, take them down, fold them, and put them away. i fret that my husband will not like the meal i've made or the fact that the house is messy (we are always messy, and still i do not have the energy to make it truly neat). i feel during this time great empathy for the young house wives of the fifties who after marriage before children had only this. no wonder valium was so popular. i mop the floor, scrub the toilet, sweep the basement, weed the garden, harvest the beans, cucumbers, and squash. why am i not doing all the things i never have time for? preparing submissions, working on essays, crafting my heart out. i bake my first cherry pie- use local cherries from the farmer's market- decorate the top with pastry stars, and i feel proud.