On Not Making Lemonade

I wish I were more domestic.

Right now there are a lot of social media posts out there about people picking up new domestic hobbies while they're under quarantine.  There are articles on how to start a garden with plants you can sprout in your kitchen (and more than just "ew, who left these potatoes in here for too long?"), how to sew (and in some cases, not even sew) face masks, how to make pickles and bread - heck, how to make your own yeast and/or bread starter.  There are articles about recipes to use scraps and stretch or substitute foods you don't have large quantities of - some of which date to World War II rationing or the Great Depression.  I'm reading and saving tons of these.
But am I actually putting any of this wealth of domestic knowledge to practical use?  No.  More often than not I'm saving articles and recipes I know I'll never actually get around to making what they spell out; I'm saving them for writing research.

My sewing machine gathers dust in the basement.  I briefly entertained the idea of planting some sprouted potatoes, but then I reminded myself that my previous attempts at gardening were pretty bad.  I've contemplating saving the crumbs from our English muffins that we cut apart every morning.... but then I don't.  And the baking?  I have enough bad baking stories that I've toyed with writing a comedic cook book about my baking disasters.

I also have a baby who will be nine months old in a few days.  You'd think I'd have a better grasp on this parenting thing by now.  What I do have a grasp on is that most days I have to plan what I'm doing around when Elianna is eating or sleeping.  I'm getting things done in 20, or 15, or 5 minute chunks based on "she's gonna wake up soon," or "she's gonna be hungry any minute."  Not a great time in my life to be starting projects that need to have good long hour-plus time slots dedicated to them.

Additionally, a lot of people are posting "Quarantine, Day 25:", etc. - either jokingly, or as serious or semi-serious journaling/blogging.  I've thought about doing that several times.   (For the record, today is day 35 for us, as Jason and I began our self-imposed quarantine on March 15, a day before the President's March 16 statement to the nation, and weeks before Georgia's state-wide shelter-in place order.)  I used to try and keep up with a daily journal habit, and then weekly, and then just try to scribble down important things that happened to me in the last month or six.  I just don't have the time.  (And, yes, I do have this blog, but it's not a personal journal - in theory, it's about writing.)  

I'd like to go all Laura Ingalls Wilder on this - I love the idea of learning how to bake bread, and make my own cheese and my own pickles.  But I also tell myself that's silly.  While the Little House books are written in a generally cheerful voice, I'm reminded that a lot of times the Ingalls/Wilder family was dealing with stuff that was hard as Hell.  Every couple books they're moving 'cause the crops fail.  Their carefully planted corn is eaten by crows.  The girls catch scarlet fever and Mary goes blind.  They spend the majority of The Long Winter twisting hay into sticks to burn in the stove and grinding wheat in their coffee grinder (which, being 1880-something, was of course hand-cranked).  Almanzo comes home one day to find his new wife sitting on the kitchen floor crying because "the jelly won't gel." (And yes that last one is just kind of funny compared to the rest.)

I think it's the idea of making something good that is what has me wanting to be more domestic.  I want to bite into some still-warm bread that I made myself.  I want to save up bread crumbs and vegetable scraps and make some new yummy casserole.  I want to feel like I'm doing something useful.  I want to take the proverbial lemons and make some satisfying lemonade.  

And once again this blog turns into something this isn't quite about writing, like it's supposed to be.  Though, writing is one of the ways we record and share the human experience.  So maybe today's post is exactly what it's supposed to be.