Cara's Major

I got a really fun new homemaking book.  I didn't realize it when I bought it, but it is actually a book for home economics teachers on how to be better teachers.  Cool!  I was stumped by the first chapter, though, when it told me that in order to be a certified home ec teacher, I need to have an education degree with a home economics major from a reputable institution.  A home economics major?!?!  That was a possibility?? Where was I?  I could have taken COLLEGE CLASSES on how to be a good housewife?

No.  As it turns out, I could not have done that.  I checked MSU's website, and their whole home economics (AKA "Home Ecology") department has been shut down for years.  Not only is it no longer a major, but there aren't even classes covering the topics.  I can take a class on the life cycle of a fly, the literature of the Lord of the Rings, scuba diving, or the history of Lao, but I can't take a class on cooking and cleaning?  That's ridiculous!  Isn't college supposed to prepare students for their future?  Most students are going to do much more cooking and cleaning in their life than traveling to Lao, so I think practical classes in homemaking should definitely be offered (possibly even required...but that's another argument altogether).

Anyway, I got pretty heated up about this injustice while talking to my friend Elle.  She said "You should give MSU a piece of your mind!"  She was most likely being sarcastic, but I thought that it was a fabulous idea.  I first decided to write them a strongly worded e-mail, but who wants to wait for a reply?  Plus, I wasn't confident that they would reply at all.  I decided to give them a call.

I, as a rule, do not lie, so I had to come up with a good excuse to call.  Here is what I came up with:  "Hello, Admissions?  My name is Christine.  My little sister Cara is looking at possibly to coming to MSU, and I'm helping her explore her options.  Do you offer a home economics major? Like, where you can learn to cook and clean and such?"  Of course, the answer was no.  The person on the phone sounded like a student, and she also sounded like she thought I was nuts.  I asked why they don't have a home economics major anymore, and she answered that they've never had one.  I replied with "Actually, yes you did.  Mary Mayo started it, and now you have a residence hall named after her.  I'm just wondering why there are no longer any ways to study this topic at your university?"  The snarky student said, "Well, I don't remember ever having a major like that."  Oh, really?  You don't remember it?  Well then, I guess it never happened.  Michigan State University has 40,000+ students and hundreds of majors.  Is this kid really so pretentious as to think that she knows all MSU majors past and present?  I responded with, "Well, sorry you don't remember it.  It wasn't a major while you attended school, but it used to be one.  I'm sure of it."

Now certain that she was dealing with a crazy person, the admissions girl gave the only logical answer she could think of:  "Ummm........I'm going to transfer you to the registrar....."  Okay, you do that.

The lady at the registrar was older and seemed to have more time to deal with me.  I explained my situation, and again I got the same answer: no home ec major.  She, at least, admitted that there used to be one.  I asked if there were even any classes pertaining to home economics subjects.  Nope, none.  Then I asked the question of the day: "Why?  Why are there no ways to study such a practical field?"  She didn't know.  I pressed further: "What causes classes to be discontinued?  Was there low enrollment?  Did people feel it was outdated?  More importantly, how do we bring back a class to study these things?  My sister needs this class!"  The registrar lady didn't know, didn't know, and didn't know...  What are these people good for?  Why can't they answer my questions?  And most importantly...

Where am I supposed to go to get my masters degree in homemaking?

New Apron

I love aprons.  I started a collection of them before I even started this project, so I guess that should have been a heads up that I really belonged in another decade.  Most women today use aprons for decoration rather than function, but I really like them.  I read an article on the history of aprons, and I liked this quote from it:

"Magazines from the 1940s and 50s feature apron-adorned women in nearly  every advertisement that is related to housework or cooking. It was a standard uniform that, at the time, was not frowned upon. Aprons were a selling feature for irons, kitchen appliances, food products and more.
The 1950's brought out the half-aprons of highly starched cotton,  
feedsack  and sheer fabric trimmed with lace for special occasions.  Two piece aprons and short smocks of bright cotton prints for every day use were popular."


So the half-apron started in the 1950's.  Who knew?   It made me happy to read that because I just got my first ever half-apron for my birthday!  My in-laws gave it to me.  I figure I will put a couple of pictures of it in this blog for you to see since it's so cute.  For those of you who care about brands, it's Vera Bradley. The acquisition of this half-apron makes me one step closer to being an official fifties housewife.  I'm not a forties or thirties housewife....don't you see my half-apron?!  That was popular in the FIFTIES.  It wasn't even around before then.  Now I can have the functionality of an apron in the kitchen but still be able to sit at the table and look sophisticated and put together from the waist up.  What a good invention.  Apron makers everywhere were probably so excited about that trend.  They got to use less material and still make the same amount of money.  Someone certainly had their thinking cap on.

If I ever find a time machine, I'm zipping back to 1953 and donning my new apron so that I will be the most fashionable girl in town.  My in-laws rock.

Here is a picture of the apron.  The picture below it is the box it came in.  The box was shaped like a small oven, and when you opened the oven door you could pull out the apron.   How awesome is that?!

Guilt Trip

I have discovered a fatal flaw in my plan to be a perfect housewife.  The books tell me that I have to have kids, and I don't want to.  Here is the way I see it: I have kids all day long at my job.  I love them very much,  but I like the part when they go home at the end of the day and I can have some peace and quiet.  What's so horrible about that?  Everything, apparently.  Check out this quote from one of my books:  "Couples who marry without any intention of having children, even though able to do so, are often motivated extremely selfish desires which, in themselves, defeat marriage, since marriage assumes love, the opposite of selfishness."

Rude!  Why can't I be a selfless wife if I don't want to be a mother?  It's not like the reason I don't want to have kids is because I want to have extra time to sit on my duff eating bon bons and watching Jersey Shore. I don't watch Jersey Shore, and I've never eaten a bon bon in my life.  I don't want to have kids for a lot of reasons.  There's the work reason, there's the fact that I like having extra time to write children's literature so that I can enrich the lives of children all over the place, and there's the fact that my doctor said that considering my current medical conditions, a pregnancy could result in many health difficulties for me and for my baby.  So really, I just don't want one.  Rex and I have prayed many times that God would give us a desire for kids if we're supposed to have them, and so far we don't have that desire at all.  So basically, we were okay with that conclusion until I read page 209 of the book Your Marriage and Family Living.  I took a picture of that page for you:

Bad news, Rex.  We have a 70% chance of divorce because we don't have kids!!!  Forget the fact that we love each other, constantly sacrifice for each other, and are best friends.  We don't have any diapers to change, so we're screwed.

Except..........  does this graph look weird to anyone else?  SEVENTY percent of marriages without children fail?!  That simply can't be true, especially back in 1946 when this book was written.   I tried to do some extra research on this issue, but unfortunately there aren't many online articles about divorce rates in 1946.  I can tell you, though, that 1946 was before birth control was widely available, therefore virtually all families had children.  I'm sure the divorce rate was lower then than it is now, but I doubt it was as low as 8%.  I just think these stats seem very strange and unfounded.  I wish they would have told me a bit more about where they found these numbers.  Frankly, I think they're bunk.

***EDIT***  I did find some research on divorce rates in 1946.  They were at roughly 20%, which was "deplorably high" and "an indication of an unstable society."  So yeah, I think the stats in the book were dumb.

So I guess I'll put page 209's advice with the previously referenced asbestos article on my list of "Rules I'm Not Following."

RIP Monopoly Iron

The executives at Monopoly have chosen to remove the iron from their repertoire of player tokens.  Instead of the iron, they are adding a cat. 

When you stop hyperventilating out of shock, proceed to the rest of this blog post.

Dear Monopoly Executives,

You and I are in a fight.  Why did you decide to stop making the iron!?  Was that really the piece that you needed to vote out?  I think the wheelbarrow is definitely more pointless.  I've been playing Monopoly for twenty-four years, and no one ever wants the wheelbarrow.  Or what about the boot?  No one wants the boot!  I take your rejection of the iron very personally.   

Without the Monopoly iron, girls of the future are not going to be able to iron their Barbie clothes.  If they never iron their Barbie clothes, they'll never encounter the spark of joy that leads to become a domesticated woman.  I used to iron each space that I landed on when I played Monopoly.  It was very satisfying.  Now what am I supposed to do??  Is this a feminist plot to make women more modern?  You may be removing our tiny irons, but I assure you:  we will find a way to teach our children the fun of pretend-ironing.  Don't even try to stop us. 

Also, you didn't choose to replace the iron with another domestic item such as a broom, mop, skillet, or monogrammed serving spoon.  You chose to replace it with a CAT.  What's up with that?  You already have that cute little scottie dog to represent the animal kingdom.  Now you have two pieces representing the animal kingdom and zero pieces representing the housewives of the world.  That is rude!  I will not stand for this discrimination!  Who was behind this switch, a feminist at PETA?  Down with womens-lib-tree-huggers!  Up with irons!

As a personal protest, I vow to never use your new stupid cat piece.  I will get my own iron (my full size iron), and use that as my game token.  It might cover up a few spaces at a time, but hey - more properties for me.  You should have left me with the small iron, and I would have been more inspired to play fair.  Now all bets are off.  I hope the new cat gets run over by the racecar.

Sincerely,
Christine

Tomato Pop

                  Do you know how to skin a tomato?

                  I do.

                  Oh, and by the way, it’s not the same way that you would peel a potato.  I got laughed at when I said I was going to do that.  I asked if Rex thought I could use a potato peeler on a tomato, and he laughed at me.  LAUGHED.  He said, “You’re going to get tomato junk everywhere.  Don’t do it.”  Of course, he didn’t offer up that criticism with any better ideas, but I digress.

                  Don’t ask me why I was peeling a tomato.  It really didn’t need to be peeled.  It’s been a long week, and I wanted to try some new domestic technique to cheer me up.  I read that peeling a tomato is supposed to be complicated, so I decided to try it.  One of my textbooks tells me that in order to peel a tomato, I should “hold it over a gas flame until it pops.”

                  I’m sorry…I need to do what?  Turn on my stove and roast the tomato like a marshmallow?  Is this some kind of sick version of a health food s’more?  I wanted to refuse, but it was too tantalizing of a challenge.  I pulled out a fork and skewered my tomato.

                  Rex asked what I was doing.  Peeling the tomato with a potato peeler didn’t seem quite as ridiculous now that I was roasting it instead.  I felt a little ridiculous myself, to be honest with you.  I turned on the stove and tentatively pushed the tomato into the flame.  I held it there for a few seconds, but nothing happened.  I took it out of the flame and looked at it.  Was it possible to roast a tomato wrong?  I put it back in the flame….held it there for a few more seconds….and….POP!

                  I jumped and screamed in surprise.  Rex laughed again (he’s always laughing at me).   I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, but I hadn’t expected the tomato to pop.  In retrospect, the book did say to wait until the tomato “pops,” but I guess I thought that was an exaggeration or something.  Anyway, the tomato popped.  More accurately, the skin popped.  It was loud, and it startled me.  Once it popped, I easily slipped the skin off of the meat of the tomato.  It was way cool.  You should try it sometime.

                  So there I had it – a perfectly peeled tomato.  I was very proud of myself until I realized that I had absolutely no use for a peeled tomato.  Why do people peel tomatoes?  What kind of recipe calls for a peeled tomato?  Rex says that you need to peel tomatoes for canning purposes, but that’s obviously dumb since you can just BUY canned tomatoes.  I see no reason to can your own.  I asked Rex if he wanted the tomato, but he didn’t.  Neither did his friend Steven.  I’m pretty sure Elvis wanted it, but I heard somewhere that tomatoes are bad for dogs so I ended up just throwing it away. 

                  You might say that I wasted a perfectly good tomato, but no – it was a learning tomato.  Now I have learned how to peel properly.  Once I find a recipe that calls for peeled tomatoes, I am going to be absolutely ready.

Ironing Your Shower Curtain

The week gets really busy sometimes, so today I searched by books for a rule that would be relatively easy to follow.  I didn't have time to do something as extensive as my "seven step room cleaning program" (see post from 1/14).  Luckily, I found just the thing.  It's probably the easiest rule I have found in my books so far, and it takes me no time at all to follow it.  Ready?  Here it is:

Never, never, never iron a plastic shower curtain.

Do you want to know what's funny?  The fact that this is in the book means that someone did iron their plastic shower curtain.  The editors of this book found it important enough to warn people not to do that.  I can only imagine the stinky, gooey, melty mess that became of the shower curtain that got ironed.

Why would you iron a shower curtain?  Does a shower curtain get wrinkly in the course of normal use?  I mean, I suppose it has some creases when you first take a brand new curtain out of the package, but after your first shower the steam flattens them out.  I have never once had the urge to iron a shower curtain.  If I'm being completely honest, I never really have the urge to iron anything.  I try to fold my clothes well and/or hang them up right when they come out of the dryer so I don't have to iron them.  When I do have to iron, usually Rex does it for me because that's just how much I hate ironing.

Let's say for one second that your plastic shower curtain did get some wrinkles.  I'm not sure how...maybe you were singing and dancing in the shower, got tangled in the curtain, and fell over.  Then you didn't pick up the shower curtain after you ripped it off the curtain rod, and it dried all in a heap.  Why oh why would your first response be "I know, I'll iron it!"  That would be like ironing saran wrap - no way would it end well.  My best advice to that person would be to please stop dancing in the shower.  It's dangerous.  If you just use your shower for cleaning purposes, your curtain should stay wrinkle-free.

Looking My Best

I've been reading a new book lately:  Homemaking for Teen-Agers.  (That's really how they spell it: "Teen-Agers").  It is a high school textbook published in 1958.  On page 243, the book tells me that "An adequate wardrobe is one that includes the garments, footwear, accessories, and other articles needed to keep you suitably and attractively dressed at all times."

Dang.  I am definitely not suitably and attractively dressed at all times.  Sometimes I look like a downright slob.  Isn't a housewife allowed to have slob days?  When am I supposed to wear my old T-shirts and athletic sweats that I got in high school?

Today I decided that I was going to spend the entire day "attractively dressed."  I woke up this morning, showered, and looked my best.  I even tried to dress in a fifties style to fit with my project.  On the agenda for today was cooking and grocery shopping...not something I would usually dress up for.  It was kind of fun, though.  I felt like I was getting ready for a date with Rex.  It made grocery shopping way more exciting.  Here is how I looked before heading to the grocery store:

Have you ever grocery shopped in heels and a skirt?  It's kind of painful after a while.  I felt pretty sophisticated, though, with a hint of creepy.  Kind of Stepford Wives-y.  It was a good way to make me buy healthy food, though, because I can hardly tap tap tap through the aisles in my beautiful outfit and then buy oreos and coke.  I had to buy fresh produce and organic things so that other people would get the message that I am a good housewife.  I dress up to go to the grocery store AND I buy healthy food for my family.  Boom - beat that.

People were looking at me a lot, so I whispered to Rex "I think I look ridiculous.  People keep looking at me."  Rex whispered back, "No, you look fabulous.  You just don't look like normal WinCo clientele.  You look like you should be at Whole Foods or something."  I guess that's true...I did look a little bit overdressed for WinCo.  Still, the one time I went to Whole Foods I wore an entirely different outfit...you can read that story if you click on the link:  here.

So anyway, I had a good time looking great at the grocery store even though now my feet hurt a little bit.  That just means that I get to be barefoot while I cook dinner...  I haven't found a rule against that yet.  Homemade chili tonight - a new recipe!  I wish you were here to try some.  It smells delicious.