a domestic day in the neighborhood

I am not a super domestic person. The total lack of home decor posts on la blog is not an accident and I have had one thing which I think maybe perhaps resembled a garden and I always complained whenever I had to do any maintenance on it and then most of it died. I do cook because otherwise 4 other people would starve (I could get by on cereal and string cheese, easily). It was with much whining and gnashing of teeth that I figured out how to make a meal that did not induce a gag reflex in our first year of marriage. Now I cycle the same 5-7 meals every week and Mike is a simple man who doesn't complain and so far the girls' memories or at least their sense of time is off enough that they always say something like "oh! this is the meal you made last month!" (uh, yeah. Or 4 days ago, but whose counting?).

I learned to sew by accident in high school when I decided to take a sewing class hoping that it would be a blow off, little did I know it would actually be a more challenging class than my other ones and actually leave me with a little life long skill. I am NOT very good or experienced, but I can navigate a sewing machine, which is all I really need.

The problem with putting what little domestic skill I have acquired to use is all these kids. If I want to sew something, I have to count on the possibility at least 6 fingers getting chopped off by my insanely sharp sewing shears which I haphazardly place next to my sewing machine for convenience. Or those same 6 fingers getting poked by all the needles involved, or eyes or any body parts really.

And if I want to cook something, you know something more involved than my brown-some-ground-beef-and-mix-it-with-a-pre-made-jar-of-spaghetti-sauce-and-call-it-pasta-primavera sorry excuse for spaghetti, I have to count on the entire house being trashed during the process while focusing my attentions on not ruining the one tasty thing I will cook this month. And making sure the baby doesn't swallow the entirety of the empty paper towel roll that I gave her to entertain herself while I cook just isn't in the cards. She may eat the whole thing and all I can do is hope that there is some nutritional value there or at least nothing toxic.

But sometimes being a housewife calls for sucking it up, busting out the big domestic guns and dealing with the chaotic repercussions.  I am co-hosting a friend's baby shower this weekend and I may have mentioned it a time or ten before on ye old blog that I love me some cinnamon roll making (and eating, but that's neither here nor there). So obviously I have offered to make multiple pans, because that's not difficult at all to do with 3 small children under foot.

And in addition to that, this morning, after the cinny roll process had already commenced and I was heaving away to a muted Jillian while the dough was rising, I got the idea to make the girls some pretend wedding veils to add to their dress-up repertoire. How would I do this? Well naturally I would cut up an old, never before worn (I'm not that creepy) piece of way too long and way to flowy, lingerie (not pictured. You're welcome). Naturally. I told the girls that if they were good for the rest of my "jumping jacks" I would fashion them their custom veils and since they mostly came through for me, I had to come through for them.

One trashed basement and very scarred baby who sat at my feet and screamed 75% of the time, and we have 2 semi-professionally (ha!) made wedding veils that the girls just love too much to even wear.

I can't even find the other one, that's how much they love them. Whatever, we'll see how much I help them out when their real weddings come around.

After they played for 3 minutes with the veils that I slaved over, they ran circles around me while I rolled out an insane amount of dough and poured a crap load of butter all over it and the surface on which it was sitting.

^^^ All going on at once, immediately prior to one massive bomb of a diaper and an equally as explosive Naomi tantrum over one of those markers, followed by a screaming match between me and her, which I feel sure that I won. I am definitely cut out to be a mother. 

And I think Lucy only had 3 emotional breaks downs during the process of me cutting the rolls and putting them in their pans to freeze. Yes, I saved a few to be eaten today, but not actually enough for all of us, so the girls enjoyed and enjoyed and enjoyed. I had to repay them for all the neglect.

All-in-all, I still love making cinnamon rolls, and like to occasionally act like a legit stay-at-home mom. And the rolls are phenom.

If you're wondering whether I feel inferior from having so many married sisters, one who grows the vast majority of what she eats and makes her Christmas tree ornaments out of nature, the other who starts shopping for everyone's Christmas presents a year before hand and whose holiday decor resembles Martha Stewart's, and another whose every day home decor is a Pinterest board in itself, wonder not, I do. And that's only mentioning 3 of them