Blog of a Newly Minted Housewife

Routines

My new housewifey routine goes something like this: Get up after my husband, but in time to sit with him and have some coffee before he goes to work. Sometimes I also eat with him, but more often I hold off on food for another hour. Make the bed (sort-of - we just have a sheet and a queen-sized comforter on our new king-sized bed, so I just straighten everything to make it look neat). Do the dishes, which is mostly just putting the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, but is sometimes also emptying the dishwasher or washing something by hand. Clean out the coffee pot. Watch the morning news shows. Spend way too much time reading my friends' blogs and checking the few writing-industry blogs I frequent. Somewhere in there I go to the gym and shower.

How I spend the rest of my day depends on the to-do list and the calendar. Do I have an appointment? Something particular that needs to be done today? Is there a contractor coming for something? Yesterday, it was the pest control guy, which meant I had to leave the house for two hours. Luckily, I had a list of errands to run. UPS store, post office, bank, oil change.

I did all of that and still had time left over. Driving up the highway from the oil change, I saw a sign for a park. I remember reading about this park on the county website, and checking it out on Google Maps. It seemed big on the satellite photo, so I decided to check it out. It wasn't hard to get to, but you'd never know it was there if there weren't signs. The big circle road I'd seen on satellite was closed for construction of some sort, and most of what I could see were reservation-only group picnic areas. I was kind of disappointed, but since I had the dog with me (and I'd been in the car for over an hour, thanks to drive-through everything), I chose to get out and walk around. Lo and behold, beyond the trees - a dog park! Or, as it was labeled, the "dog exercise area."

My pup is getting too old to do too much running around, but she had a great time trotting around the edges of the large (40x100 feet?) area and sniffing and marking. There were a couple of other dogs there, and she sniffed around them, too, and then ignored them. One pretty little pit bull kept coming back, hoping my pup would play, I guess. In years past, she would have, but yesterday she just returned the butt-sniff and went on her way.

As did we, once I realized it was OK to go home. I spent a couple of hours reading my book after lunch, and then met James at the gym. We had leftovers for dinner and watched "The New World" on DVD.

It's all very exciting, isn't it?

Posted by Karen at June 8, 2006 08:08 AM