Life as Betty Crocker

I would just like to alert the masses that I’m turning into a regular 1950s housewife. I now wash dishes by hand, hang clothes outside to dry, and cook on a daily basis. Or at least make a valiant effort to do all of these things. Next thing you know, I’ll be churning my own butter. The cooking is fine; I don’t mind cooking. However, cooking takes on a different meaning when you know everything you use is going to have to be washed, and by you, not this fancy new invention they call dishwashers.

I don’t really know why there aren’t as many dishwashers here. Paolo says that they’re in most houses, but they aren't always in apartments. But I would guess over half the population lives in apartments, so I guess dishwashers are just not a big deal to people here. They’re really big on saving energy here, so that may have something to do with it. Apparently, each house/apartment has a certain amount of energy that can be used at once, and if you exceed this amount, everything shuts off. I found this out the hard way my first week, after trying to iron and run the washing machine at the same time. I was left to sweat in the July heat until Paolo came in and flipped a tiny, stupid switch that was apparently the key to fixing all my troubles.

So this may also explain why they don’t have dryers. This one doesn’t really inconvenience me quite as much. It just means I have to be more strategic with laundry. As in, if I want to wash sheets, I better make sure I have backups, because they won’t be dry by night. It will be far more inconvenient when the baby comes, I’m sure, because we’re starting out with cloth diapering (I swear it’s not as disgusting as it sounds). Then I will probably really miss the convenience of the dryer. Now however, I mostly just miss the fresh out of the dryer feeling, especially now that it’s getting cooler. I actually woke up cold this morning; it went from summer to fall almost overnight here. But this year the cold is welcome to me! The only thing missing is some Auburn football.. it was really strange waking up Sunday morning and having to check the highlights and score of the game.  There has to be a place where I can watch live stream of the games, if anyone knows, let me know please!

Now it’s time for more cleaning! We just got back from the beach, and then we’re heading to Budapest this weekend, so I really need to clean and get life organized this week in between vacations ( I know, life is tough).

Ciao for now!

Kathleen