did I mention?

Did I mention I'm a lousy housewife. I don't like cleaning. In fact, it takes the realization that visitors are coming to the house before I get serious about cleaning (and even then it's usually just surface cleaning). I do like baking and apparently I use A LOT of dishes and utensils during my forays into the kitchen, but I hate cleaning up. So when I make a nice, home-made meal (from scratch) - well there's lots of dishes piled in the sink that I leave to get done later (hopefully by someone else). I can tolerate a lot of clutter, I can find ways to avoid unclean areas of the house, I can survive without washing clothes until I hit the bottom of the underwear drawer, I am a messy person. Yet, somehow I have been put in charge of managing a "household". Is it any wonder I can't find satisfaction with this job? In a semi-annual performance appraisal, even I would have to rate myself as "needs improvement" and put myself on the hit list for termination. Luckily, I am married to a man who is willing to overlook this gross incompetence.

Filed in: thoughts

quicksilver

I am reading Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. I have recently become Stephenson fan, reading Snow Crash and The Diamond Age earlier this year. I don’t know how historically accurate the QuickSilver novel is, but it seems to get the feel of the time right (lots more info on this book can be found @ http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml). I like how Stephenson reflects and involves the religious views of the day, either past or future, into his novels. In Quicksilver, it is the rise of the Natural Philosopher contrasted with the Puritan and Anglican religious movements (at least up to page 209).

Here is an idea from the novel that I really like. The thinking is attributed to Isaac Newton and his ideas about light. “The secrets of God’s creation are all told by those rays, but told in a language we do not understand or even hear… We interrupt that light and we are warmed and illuminated by it. By stopping the light, we destroy part of the message without understanding it.”

Of course, Newton figured out many of the messages in the light, but not without a lot of controversy. How many other glimpses of God are we warmed and illuminated by, but because we can only use our human senses and prejudices to interpret, we interrupt or skew the message without understanding it?

Filed in: quotes

my first entry

In a man’s world, I am a housewife – “a woman who manages her own household as her main occupation” per dictionary.com. Oh, there have been attempts to make this sound more palatable – homemaker, stay at home mom, but really it’s housewife. And I can tell you in a man’s world, my current title of mom and wife do not earn the same respect, admiration, or money as my former title of manager. I did well in a man’s world. I climbed the corporate ladder. I was a workaholic. I thought I was helping pave the way for the women after me to be treated as equals. But it turns out that only happens if you play by their rules. So here I am trying to play by my rules, juggling momhood and wifehood with activities that provide meaning and purpose to my life and others. I am mostly satisfied and fulfilled with this position, but there are days I long for a clear-cut mission, for the respect I received in the corporate world, for performance evaluations that stroked my ego.

Happy Thanksgiving!