Week One in review

I spent much of this first week of housebodness in a kind of haze of shock. To be honest there was a lot more lying around playing computer games then there should have been. When I'd envisioned becoming a housebod I saw myself as a montage. It's always a bad idea to make decisions based on an imaginary montage. In the montage I was blur of efficiency cleaning here and cooking there, inexplicably wearing pink high heels even though I don't own any.

I think I might have been influenced by images such as this.

A date with your family

Like the holographic doctor in the Star Trek Voyager episode 'Real Life' I had some very rosy expectations of what sort of wife I would be and how I would feel.

Naturally things didn't go to plan. Without the usual schedule of getting up and going to work I just fell apart. Before I'd started I'd drawn up a timetable of what I would do with every hour of the day - but I just couldn't find the motivation to stick to it. I lay in bed surfing the web, bored and wanting to change but unable to get up and do anything about it. I was sail boat stuck in a lull at sea, unable to go forward.

I felt a sense of deep panic and began to wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake. What if all the days stretched out in front of me as grey and shapeless as this?

Luckily after a couple of days I managed to pick myself up and get on with it. I realised that my timetable wasn't going to cut it, I needed a to do list, just like I had in the days of yore when I was a waged worker.

So I set myself a short list of goals and got some stuff done. The living room - which was looking pretty rough is now neat and tidy and I could actually welcome a guest into it without dying of shame. I've also managed to tidy up the office a bit and my other half can find things much more easily. I invested some little baskets from Clas Ohlson to sort out bits of wire and cables, so this are now looks lovely and neat. I also threw out shocking amount of rubbish.

I've found some moments of calm. Now I'm not rushing back and forth from work, I've found time to sit for a while and just appreciate life. The other day I sat for five minutes and watched the snow fall out of the window. Another day I watched seagulls flying over the house, circling around each other like a tranquil tornado. I've seen the clouds change and noticed the weather as something beautiful, not just something to be dressed for or endured. I probably had time for this sort of thing when I was a waged worker, but I just didn't because I was exhausted. It's amazing how much more grounded you can feel just by spending a few minutes of calm reflection.

My other half has also reported a positive change. He feels calmer and less stressed and more supported. We've had more time for each other and enjoyed each others company more, however he is still worried about our financial prospects. We are going to be discussing budgets this week.

So this week I have learned

1. I need to improve my self motivation. A to do list is a must.
2. It's nice to look out of the window once in a while.  

I made a chocolate cheesecake

I'm trying to make things rather then buying them. I have visions of hosting dinner parties and being a wonderful hostess. I have got these visions because I watch too many life style programmes and too much 'Come Dine with Me'. I'm starting to think lifestyle programmes are dangerous, they raise my expectations so high. I'd probably do myself less damage if I just watched trashy reality TV.

Anyways I've been trying to perfect a chocolate cheesecake recipe that I got from the Good Food website. By the way, I'd recommend that you use their recipe - don't try and copy mine. It has not gone well and the long term health effects of semi melted smarties/minstrels have not been studied.

Malt Chocolate Cheesecake

I've made it a few times now with my own variations each time. There was the infamous smarties cake. Nice but unfortunately the colour ran off the smarties and on to the cake, mostly off the blue ones. When you cut into it, it looked a bit like you'd slaughtered a smurf. I tried a version with white chocolate buttons. This time I decided to use Galaxy Minstrels, because for some reason I'd forgotten about the shell issue.

As you can see it also ran, but I don't think it's quite as bad as the smarties cake. At least it's brown on brown. I could almost pass it off as deliberate.

Professional looking isn't it. Isn't it?

Unfortunately I don't think I used enough butter for the biscuit base. It was somewhat crumbly and had to be prised off with a pallet knife. Which incidentally I had to be over 18 to buy which I think is ridiculous. It's not even a proper knife, it's not even sharp, it's just a thin metal spatula really. Anyway . . .

Crumbled base which foiled the pallet knife's attempt to lift it off the cake tin

 This left a small cavern at one side of the cake. Luckily it hasn't caused the cake to fall over and there is enough base left for it to stand on it's own.

Cake cavern

I'm not too displeased with this latest offering. It's not as bad as my recent cookie disaster in which my cookies spread out on the baking tray so far that they formed one giant mega cookie, mostly over the base of my oven.

Like much of my food, the chocolate cheese cake looks a bit funny but it tastes nice. Which they could put on my tomb stone to be honest - it sums me up pretty well.

How did I get here?

This is a long story and a topic with many different layers so I'll probably come back to this subject more then once. However here is the essence of it. When I say essence that's somewhat misleading. This is a bloody long post in fact but once I started writing it, I felt I had to lay it all out there properly in one go. You don't have to read it all in one go however. You should probably stop to make a cup of tea or to go to the loo. I will post handy photographs of cups of tea part way through to indicate when you might like to go for a break. You don't have to however and I'm not suggesting it improves the reading experience. I'm generally of the view that tea improves everything - but I'm not bossy - do what you like, but as a general rule you should keep yourself reasonably hydrated.

Anyway . . .

There wasn't one moment or one major life event that led me to becoming a housebod, rather a series of moments of reflection, chain reactions and life circumstances.

I've never really been much of a questioner or a radical. I always, well most of the time, did what I was told. When I was young I went to school and passed my exams and got a place at University while planning to have a career. I did all of these things because I was never presented with any other option. For my generation of women from my social and economic background this is what you did. It's what everyone did. I did it uncomplainingly, willingly and with excitement and enthusiasm. I looked forward to my glittering future without a moments doubt up until around my last year of University.

Up until this point, you see, I'd had a career plan and had mapped out what I wanted to become. Unfortunately through work experience I'd encountered my chosen profession and realised that it wasn't for me. I could have pursued it, I had the talent but the drive to do it was missing. I realised a career in that field would require a huge amount of sacrifice and I began to wonder, what will happen to the rest of my life? The path would have required me to live in the big city amongst the hustle bustle and noise. I yearned to return to my provincial routes. I wanted quiet and simplicity and the charms of the sophisticated metropolis weren't enough to hold my interest. Furthermore I realised I just didn't have the depth of interest that my friends on my degree programme had. My interest was there, but it was a shallow one, not enough to sustain the huge amount of time and effort it would have required for me to be a success.

Biology also played it's role. Around the age of 21 I found myself cooing over babies in prams. As a child I rarely played with dolls, had sworn motherhood didn't interest me and hadn't envisioned myself as a parent but suddenly a switch was flicked in my head and then it was all I wanted. I began to see myself shaping my life in such a way that I could be a wife and mother.

However at that stage in my life I was single, was rapidly coming to the end of my degree programme and had  to find some way to support my chocolate habit.

Cup of tea/loo break. Or simply carry on as you wish. 

I settled on moving back to my home town and working as an administrator and I envisioned myself working my way up in that field. I did this for a few years and it was fun - but somehow unsatisfying. I'd sit through pointless meeting after pointless meeting thinking to myself - is this it? Is this what my life is going to be about?The worst moments were when someone left their post. Each person seemed like such a key part of our world ; as though without them we couldn't possibly go on. However the next day we just went on as normal. It was like they'd never been there, they were not remembered, rarely talked of and nothing they had done seemed to matter any more. I realised that one day this would happen to me. I would leave and it wouldn't matter. I could work in a job for the next 40 years but then I would retire and after a few days none of it would have mattered and no one would remember me.

I turned to volunteer work to try and find something worthwhile and this helped enormously, but it was restricted to the few hours a week I could fit it in. I considered doing this sort of work full time but it was too emotionally draining and I couldn't imagine being able to do it as a full time option.

In the meantime things had shifted dramatically on the personal front - I was now engaged and living with my partner. Going through the process of merging our lives was making me question my priorities. My other half has a more high powered, better paid and more time consuming career. His job could mean that we'd have to move to another city to follow his work. At the same time economic pressures caused by the recession were making my job increasingly difficult and my job security had plummeted to zero. I'd only held one job since graduating and as a result my C.V was distinctly unimpressive. I decided to quit that post and become a temp so that I could gain more experience of working in different places and roles. I'd also began to feel very stressed and unhappy - for reasons I didn't quite understand and I felt a change of work scene would do me good.



Despite these doubts I limped on, doing well in my admin posts but still feeling a bit flat and unhappy. The stress I had thought I would eliminate by taking on a simpler work role had not gone away. I felt just as bad as I ever had. Similarly there were troubles in my relationship. We loved each other very much and were happy together but there were domestic problems. The house was a mess and neither of us had the energy to clean it up. This made the house feel very depressing and I tended to bury my head in a book or online to avoid it. I loved cooking but rarely felt I had the time to plan healthy cheap meals. I tended to use expensive short cuts or just eat takeaway. We also didn't have the time we needed to dedicate to each other. On an evening we'd gobble down a meal while watching TV then, exhausted, watch more TV before crawling into bed. Our quality time together was almost none existent. I gained weight, felt unhealthy and we both felt
somewhat unhappy with our lot. I envisioned the years of our lives speeding by as we'd sit in front of the TV unhappy but too tired to do anything about it. I wanted a better life but I didn't know how to get there.

And another one. Go on go on go on go on.

It all came to a head in the winter. My stress levels were rising and I was dealing with obsessive thoughts and compulsions. I'd had this problem for years and had always been too afraid to confront it. Now it was beginning to dominate my life. I changed my world so that I wouldn't have to face up to these problems and avoided situations that would make me feel uncomfortable. My ignorance about mental health issues made me afraid to seek help and I was convinced that I was the only one who had the difficulties that I had. I began to realise that my issues were getting out of hand and I went to the doctors. To cut a long story short I was diagnosed with OCD which I am currently undergoing treatment for.

I crumbled at work. Luckily everyone was supportive but getting through those weeks post diagnosis was so hard, one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My medication was helping but it was zapping the little remaining energy I had. After work I'd crawl into bed too tired to even watch TV or listen to the radio. My volunteer work had to be abandoned. I was doing nothing and the situation at home was not improving.

My other half was also struggling. Though he was very supportive and kind, his working life was more taxing then ever. He couldn't pick up the slack on the domestic front, he didn't have the time. If anything he needed my help, my administrative skills were just what he was lacking and I knew that if I invested the time with him, I could improve his situation dramatically.

Suddenly after years of not knowing what to do it became clear what I could do. I could abandon work and instead take the decidedly retro decision to devote my life to my home and husband. It was possible we could afford to live on just one salary as much of my salary was eaten up by transport costs and stuff I'd eaten (mmmm chocolate milk, the happy companion of my working life. At £1 plus a bottle you were not cheap but you were worth it baby). Surely two could live as cheaply as one, particularly if one of the two was dedicating their time to budget home cooking.

So we took the mutual decision that I would hand in my notice and take up the position of full time housebod. To quote Kosh 'And so it begins'.

What this is and what it isn't

Also known as my frequently asked questions.

On a previous short lived blog I was writing I wrote some FAQ before I was even asked any questions. It was entirely an exercise in guessing and therefore is highly likely that it won't answer your questions at all. Therefore please leave a comment if there is indeed a question you would like me to answer. Also technically speaking some of these are not questions but just statements of fact. I don't like to let content get in the way of a good acronym.

Are you a fashion model?
No. Goodness no. I'm as far from being a model as it is possible to be as I'm both short and somewhat rotund.

Are you suggesting that you are a model, or perfect housewife?
No. A short peruse of this blog will assure that I'm far from perfect. Nor am I suggesting that you should model your life on my life because that will surely lead to ruin.

So why do you describe yourself as a 'model' then?
I use the word model in the car model sense. I think I'm a little bit different to the model of housewife we associate with the 1950s. I think I'm a bit like 1950's 2.0. Or something along those lines anyway. Not necessarily better either, just different in the way different versions of Windows haven't necessarily represented any real improvement. Also I love history and I'm hoping that I will be as professional and organised as the New Model Army eventually became. I'm not a puritan however and have no plans to take over the country and ban Christmas.

You call yourself a housewife, but refer on your blog to 'housebods'. What is a 'housebod'?
I don't think that the occupation of 'housewife' just belongs to women. I don't believe a woman's place is in the home, that woman shouldn't work or that only women have the skills and talent to look after the home. I believe this can role can be fulfilled by someone of any gender. I also don't think that it has to be done by someone who is a wife. This job can belong to anyone whether they are married, cohabiting, polyamorous, living alone, a single parent, childless, living with friends or in any other circumstances. I use the term 'housebod' to remove the gender/marital status part from the word. Bod in the sense stands for body, which stands for person. A bit naff but I couldn't think of anything else.


So why refer to yourself as a 'housewife' if you dislike the term so?
I don't dislike the term housewife when it's applied to me because that is what I am. I just don't use it more widely because it excludes a lot of people in the Housebod role. Calling everyone who runs a home a housewife would be like substituting the word human for short-n-fats. It applies to me but it would exclude a lot of the population. I use the word housewife to refer to myself because I want to help the fight to reclaim it from it's traditionally negative connotations. I want to say it proudly and bravely and wear it as a badge of honour. To put it more simply I think of myself as being part of the Housebod Movement, Housewife division.

Do you think all women should abandon work for the home instead
Absolutely not. I believe that women should be free to choose how they shape their lives and what they choose to do with them. I don't believe there is anything inherently more moral or superior to being a housebod then there is to having a career or any of the other options out there. I do believe however that because staying at home has been traditionally associated with women, it has been devalued and seen as inferior when it shouldn't be.