Category Archive

housekeeping

Partner bashing: Are you venting about your partner too much?

Partner bashing: Are you venting about your partner too much?

Partner bashing (in my case, husband bashing, though it’s not limited to heterosexual couples by any means) is one of my biggest pet peeves. I notice it happens a lot in mom groups; women get together and complain loudly about their husbands.

I recognize the importance of venting, but is it ever too much?

A crusty ex-radical's guide to cleaning and minimalism

A crusty ex-radical’s guide to cleaning and minimalism

My parents were hoarders and I lived in activist and or hippie/punk collective situations for about seven years, and now I even have a kid creating extra filth to clean up after. You can recover from being a huge mess and keep your rad politics if you want. Or you can just be a bitter crusty ex-radical like I am, but you can change. If I can do it, you can do it.

Here’s my advice for other broke-ass radical types who think that maybe it might be possible not to live in filth…

Why my feminism includes traditional gender roles

When you hear the word “feminist,” you likely don’t picture is me: a housewife who does all the cooking and housekeeping, who makes dinner from scratch, and a solid effort to look pretty for her husband everyday when he comes home from work. I’m “mom” to my two rescued mutts. I’m a published writer. I’m a wife. And my feminism includes my right to want to be the best wife and partner that I can possibly be to my husband. The keyword there being “partner.”

How I learned to stop worrying and love the domestic arts

I am a shit housekeeper. My culinary background is in microwave dinners and take-out. I didn’t think anything of it until it came time to move in with my now husband. We moved into a lovely house (check), I bought some lovely lipstick (check), I found a strand of pearls at a garage sale (check). So why the hell is the laundry always in a pile, the dishes never done, the floor all dirty and most of the things I cook are gross, mushy approximations of food?

Doing your laundry with a Japanese Hillbilly twist

You know, our grand-parents and great grandparents didn’t necessarily have high efficiency washers and dryers. They had time, the sun, the wind, and Borax. So, taking a few pages from their books, I came up with my brilliant new laundry plan that, believe it or not, will only end up costing me $30 a year.

Kill your darlings: what being a writer taught me about homemaking

Kill your darlings is one of the writing terms which has become a mantra to me over the last year of homemaking.

You’ll hear in writing courses and author’s workshops across the nation: Kill your darlings. Supposedly advice from Faulkner, “kill your darlings” means letting go of your work — even when it is beautiful, hard-won work — in order to make progress in a piece of writing. That beautiful landscape description your readers will simply skip? That character you spent months developing but turns out to be unimportant to the plot? Off with their heads. On with your work.

Housekeeping realization: put your toiletries in baskets to keep your bathroom organized

My housemate Darby and I — we’re very similar — seem to be constantly figuring out really simple things, like what people use baskets for. Sometimes we feel like our brains just don’t work, especially when it comes to putting things away. If that makes sense to you, this is the thread in which to share the incredibly dumb things you’re incredibly proud of having figured out.

Seeking agnostic, feminist homemaking blogs

I’ve been trying to find homemaking blogs that are more feminist or agnostic or atheist. Or basically, blogs that don’t talk about submitting to God as a step to becoming a good homemaker. I just want more spaces where I can read and comment without feeling as if I don’t really belong. I’m having difficulty finding many, and I was hoping for some recommendations.