Oh, ok… Really?

As I was in the throes of planning my recent wedding I was always receiving questions about the preparations, the wedding day itself, and our future plans. But as I began to break the news that the future plans did NOT include continuing work at my current job, people became extra-inquisitive. They’d ask if we were moving or what I was going to be doing. When I explained I was going to transition to stay-at-home life, or possibly part-time work, their expression grew slightly puzzled and they would say “Oh, ok.” A moment later they’d often follow up with “Really?”  Sometimes they’d ask “Is that what YOU want to do?” –implying that perhaps I was marrying an archaic, domineering slave-driver instead of a loving husband. I would try to add the explanation that I didn’t feel I was prepared to adequately care for a home while working full-time so we wanted to scale back my other responsibilities to focus on the home after the wedding. We would then evaluate the future as it came.

Eventually they would regain their composure and slip into the traditional, politically correct response that went something like “Well that’s great. You have to do what is good for you and if you can make that work then that’s great.”

I often felt as they walked away that they thought either :

1. I was marrying someone rich
2. I clearly planned to start having children ASAP,
3. I was lazy and getting out of work, which all adults have to do and therefore I needed to grow up, or
4. I was simply young and naïve and no idea what we were getting into.

This perception I had was reinforced by the occasional comments like 

• “Oh well, you just figure it out. I worked for years with a family.”
• Or “yes, that’s a nice idea, but most folks just can’t afford that.”
• “I can’t see you doing that, you are going to be bored real quick” (indicating there’s nothing to do at home.)
• Or sometimes they would just reiterate their question.. “So like, you aren’t working at all? Just staying at home? What will you do all day?” 

I had to bite my tongue so many times. I wanted to explain what we were doing, that it was a careful, reasoned decision and while it wasn’t going to be easy to make ends meet, it looked like we could and therefore this change was the best choice to make. I am proud and don’t like people to look down on me, but it’s probably good to have your pride challenged occasionally. And since the passing exchange of polite conversation doesn’t allow a 15 minute discussion on deeply-rooted philosophies of life, I had to get over what people thought. However, it is clearly a question in many people’s minds, so I would like to take on the task of answering it more thoroughly here.  

In the coming week or two I will post a short series explaining different talking points related to my job as a housewife and why we chose it. These posts are not written to convince people they are wrong for doing things differently. It is merely meant to explain our choices based on the goals we have set and to show where we drew our philosophy from. I hope that by writing about this I can

1.  Encourage others to examine their own family goals and strive to be proactive in establishing them, not reactionary; and 
2. Simply encourage other housewives.

But for today, I will wrap this up by answering the question asked in the title:

Yes I really am. And yes, it is what I want to do. I chose it, and I’m glad I did.

Charity Seeketh Not Her Own

One of the most important building blocks of any home is the relationship between a husband and wife. Since God created this relationship in the Garden of Eden, He's really the one you should look to when you're trying to improve it. He wrote the instruction book on it (The Bible) and normally when you get a new product, reading the instructions is a great place to start.

It's interesting to note that the Bible does not classify Love as a prerequisite for marriage. But it IS commanded to be a part of marriage. Now I certainly would not have married Professor NO if I did not love him, but that is cultural, not Scriptural. Love is a choice and an action and should be a deliberate part of a couple's relationship. This truth extends to the whole family unit as well.

One of the defining passages on love is I Corinthians 13. There are many facets that it mentions, but today I want to reflect on the part of how love seeketh not her own - in other words, love doesn't seek it's own interests and needs, but rather those of others. Here's where I recently observed this in the practical outworkings of life....

The other evening Professor NO and I were getting ready for bed. I'm a bit of a night owl, and tend to putter around tidying up all of the house, planning out the next day's events, activities, and attire, and chattering about everything that comes into my head. The Professor rises at a very early, pre-sunrise hour and does not share my night-time perkiness so much. :-P

As we crawled into bed he admonished me that it was time to sleep and he really couldn't carry on a decent conversation anymore. Kudos to him for directness and honesty. :) So I tried to settle down to sleep, but then one of us mentioned something about his work that day or the next, and he suddenly recalled the story of a customer he'd had. This particular customer apparently was in great error regarding the proper wheel-drive that is best for a vehicle to have when driving in the snow. The Professor is from the frozen tundra (almost) and HAD to help the poor misinformed customer out. Said customer didn't believe him till he cited his native residence, but finally all was corrected. However, this caused me to voice a long-held question that had been brushed into the corner of my mind on numerous occasions, regarding the differences of front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive. This question began the Professor's evening class on vehicles. He began describing the difference between them, how they worked, and how it all pertained to driving in snow. I nodded and learned and became educated in a little more detail than I had, perhaps, bargained for. By now, I was the one ready for sleep. But he was just getting warmed up. Next thing I know, he brings all-wheel drive into the discussion. After learning I didn't know about that either, he defined it for me, which would have sufficed just fine. But then he launched into a discussion about traction and friction and the physics of moving cars and ice/snow and all kinds of thing I don't remember b/c I was fading out fast....

"honey?" I asked.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"I thought you had to sleep b/c you had to get up in the morning..."
He sighed. "Oookay. I'm sorry... I'll be quiet now..."
"Well, I didn't completely mean that, but it IS late, you already said you need sleep, and I'm getting pretty sleepy too." I answered.

We settled into a truce for the evening of no more rambling on things that put the other one to sleep and all was well in the NO household. But the whole event set me to thinking...

Simply put, we do the things that we want to. And what we want to do is based on our personal want-to priority list. This priority list is not always equivalent to our I-know-I-need-to-and-I-plan-to priority list. At the beginning, the Professor's priority list involved sleep so he could work. Conversation was a luxury not to be afforded, even though I wanted to talk. But suddenly, he had the opportunity to explain something (which he loves to do) and conversation became a greater priority than sleep. I have been guilty of the same on countless occasions.

When you boil it all down, these are the actions of people who are seeking their own interests. We find it very very hard to seek the interests of others when those things have no natural interest to us. But if we're to obey the command to love, for the sake of our homes and our family relationships we must deliberately practice doing just that.

I Corinthians 13:4-7
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Learning About Starch

The other day I walked down the laundry aisle in Wal-Mart to pick up dryer sheets, and two items caught my eye and stopped me. The first was this...



This was interesting to me because I had never seen it before in my life. Yet, I had just recently read an article here http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2011/02/make-it-homemade-liquid-laundry-soap-1/ that tells you how to make your own laundry soap -and this soap was a key ingredient. The recipe looks cool. One day I want to try it, when I have space to store the batch that it makes.

The second thing I saw was this:



I have never used starch. I have never seen it used. But Professor NO wears dress shirts every day and some of them could use some help in the stiffness department. After reading the directions on the back, I decided to pick it up and try it out.

Of course, one should never embark upon new adventures (especially with the husband's dress shirts) without surrounding themself with wise counsel, so I turned to Facebook. After all, I have 500 friends there... surely some of them know about starch! And they didn't let me down. Numerous people weighed in with pros and cons and tips of the trade. I also learned about alot of people who don't iron at all. :) I found out that opinions vary quite a bit and there is no one consensus about the worth of ironing with starch. However, I DID learn one valuable detail.... it can flake. Now, mind you, the majority of Professor NO's shirts are white, so this information is somewhat irrelevant. But I do iron other things at times, so I filed it away for a time when I needed it.

 Well, within a few days, that time came as I pulled out..... dark pants! However, by this time I'd already figured out how to outsmart the system and I promptly turned the pants inside out. If any flakes showed up, no one would see them. The plan worked great. I finished ironing, all was crisp and smooth AND I didn't see any flaking anyway.

Then I turned the pants right side out and discovered one teensy weensy little problem.... See, when you try to press creases into the front of pant legs while they're inside out, they turn into nice crisp inward-pointing dents when they are right-side out. And they are very difficult to re-iron. So much for outsmarting the system. Apparently I don't always connect all the logic dots in life.. But the Professor and I got a good share of laughs out of it all and I am now one more step down the road to being a seasoned housewife. Live and learn. :)

A Peek Inside

Oh, hello there. Welcome to the home of Professor NO. So glad you could drop by. On this page, I plan to jot about some of the adventures of our new home, as well as pass on various tips that might be useful to my fellow housewives.

Allow me to introduce the characters of this page... I'll give you two guesses to see if you can get them right. If you do, you can pat yourself on the back. :)

First, we have Professor NO. At the moment, the Professor's life is consumed with... um... less than scholarly activities - namely, paying bills and taking care of our family. He is my knight in shining armor. :) Right now his days are occupied with the rather mundane world of management and sales, while keeping an ear to the ground in hopes that something a little more academic in nature will come his way. He's also taking classes here and there to finish another degree, which will add to his professorly-ness. :) He does find an outlet for his teaching tendencies through educating Mrs. NO on a variety of historical topics that she did not make time to study voluntarily, and through involvement in several church ministries.

The second character is me, Mrs. NO...the ever-cheerful, always-serving, energetic and supportive housewife of Professor NO. -Okay, so maybe that character is the fictional one in this post, but the real one is also named Mrs. NO. I was formerly known as Miss School Secretary. People thought I was quitting work after marriage, but I really just decided to change career fields, with the full support of the Professor. But I'll explain more about that another day.

Together, Professor NO and I have joined our lives and become one with the purpose of more effectively fulfilling our calling in life as Christians to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all of the world. By establishing a family and setting goals for our family, instead of our individual lives, we want to work as a team and enable each other to minister in the ways where we have been most gifted. For me, a large part of that calling is holding down the home front and freeing him up to pursue teaching opportunities. His work to provide for our family gives me flexibility to be involved in ministry to others that requires advance preparation. In the future, it will also allow me to care for our children. This arrangement will also give us more time for each other, so that we can continue to develop our relationship and give it a strong foundation. Today's commonly hectic lifestyle is not family-friendly so we are seeking to deliberately carve out a place for our own to thrive. I hope you will enjoy the occasional notes that you will find here -serious, informative, silly, and philisophical.

Come visit again!

Testing

OK, so I'm testing out the features of this blog and trying to determine how the formatting looks so that I can tweak it to my liking. Real posts to come in the future. :-)