Staying home without going shopping.

I don't know about you, but I am a girl who when I have extra time will sleep or shop. I used to have all kinds of things I liked to try. I once had high hopes of being very homemakery and crafty. I took classes, read Good Housekeeping and tried to buy every kitchen gadget known to Martha (Stewart that is, not Washington, she played the spinet). Sleeping was getting boring. Since I am not working and therefore poor, shopping was out.

So a home-makin' I will go, or at least Google-map it. It all started with making bread, moved on to painting fabric, more bread, scrapbooking, bread, organizing and labeling everything in sight, bread, a failed attempt to make jam. Now, the failed attempt at the jam was because I was too tired and besides, the Olympics were on.

Why the homemaking? I think it was all the working parent thing and now my job title is sans "working". My husband's mom, Deb, worked full time and was crafty. My mom, Joyce, was a stay at home mom and I remember her taking the popular 70's art classes like macrame (yep, it's spelled right, I checked), and whatever that "art" is that you have a ceramic figurine and you spray paint it (apparently the only color they had in those days were were gold and sparkly gold). Even though I was exposed to all of this culture, the only person who took to it was my sister, Kama.

Kama took sewing and macrame classes and did NOT get kicked out of ballet. Her sewing class and expertise scored her a special area in the house with her own sewing machine and pegboard filled with wondrous pointy objects hanging on it. I on the other hand, held to my feeling that sewing was stupid and who wants to make big owls with prickly string, big bead eyes and deadwood anyway. I was a tomboy. I mowed lawns for gosh-sakes. I only dressed up when threatened with giving me "something to really cry about".

Why the latent interest in crafts? If I am to get all existential, it is my need to have something to show for my time here on earth. To give something for my kids to remember about their upbringing and time with me. I don't want my kids only memories of me to be injections, unpredictable "cane days", dropping on the floor seizing, shaking and bleeding in a bookstore or the ziiiiiippppp sound of a grocery store-made Thanksgiving dinner in a box (Whole Foods has a great one, by the way) opening. My kids have gotten to the point where not much phases them as far as my health. My current craft interest, however gives them pause. They look around wondering if Rachel Ray is cooking dinner in 30 minutes.

Well, I'll show them. They will paint their shoes, lunchboxes, canvas bags and anything else I can throw their way. Garden, bake bread (I guess I should seek therapy for the carb addiction), cook with stuff from our garden, have cut flowers on the table from our garden and actually make dinner with non-processed ingredients. Then, they will scrapbook, create masterpieces with various sizes and types of stickers so they will damn well remember how crafty and homemakey their mommy was!

As God is my witness, they better have fun doing it!
I know I am.
Are you?
:-)