Playing House

Compared to today, I suppose 21 may seem pretty young to be confined to the world of cooking, cleaning, and housework, but I was in seventh heaven when I finally got to stay home and just be a housewife.  As far as I was concerned, all of my dreams had come true!

Not that I didn't enjoy being a college student.  It was lots of fun learning interesting things, meeting all kinds of people, being independent and deciding for myself where I would go and how I would spend my time, but having fun, dating and being footloose and fancy free didn't bring me the joy and deep satisfaction I found once I was married, focusing my energies on creating a comfortable, lovely, happy home.

All of my life I had dreamed of and planned for the day when I would be a housewife.  It was so much fun!  To begin with we house-sat for a couple of different families that we knew.  It was nice living in their big, comfortable homes.  All I had to do was keep the rooms we used clean and cook, which was nice since I was busy finishing school and working during those first few months. We got a lot of recipe books for wedding presents, so the first thing I did was start experimenting with food.

I especially enjoyed a Scandinavian cookbook someone gave us, although it's recipe for Swedish Meatballs was nothing like the ones Grandma Johnson made.  I remember the first night I tried making a fancy dinner for Sheldon.  I made chocolate moose for dessert, serving it in two of our brand new crystal goblets that were part of our wedding presents.  It was so much fun using my beautiful new wedding china and silverware,  lighting candles on the table to make the evening romantic, and serving a dinner I had cooked all by myself.

After a few months we moved into a tiny little duplex we rented in an older section of Mesa.  It was very old and crumbling down, but what fun I had trying to make it homey.  There was an old, threadbare camel-back couch in the little front room, stained and torn, but with beautiful lines.  I covered it with a sheet, then spread the afghan Grandma Johnson made me over the back, and I thought it looked lovely. 

For Christmas I stacked cans against one wall in that tiny room, then laid a plank over them, creating a sort of mantle even though there was no fireplace beneath.  We couldn't afford a Christmas tree, but Sheldon and I drove up to the mountains and cut some pine boughs.  I tied three or four of these together, stuck them in a can, and walla!  We had a little Christmas tree to set in the corner of the room.  I laid other boughs on top of my mantle, arranged candles among them, and thought it created a lovely place to hang our stockings. 

We didn't have much money, but it was surprising what we could do for next to nothing, and it was so much fun creating a home. Perhaps I'm an old stick-in-the mud, or just not smart enough to enjoy being out in the business world with all of it's lights and glitter and excitement, but give me a home to decorate and fill with the smell of food cooking, and I'm more than happy and contented.