What is there really to be said about being a house wife. In it's way there are lots of benefits such as keeping almost any hours I want to being able to go about my daily life mostly as I wish to but there are also down sides of it such as knowing that I MUST do certain things by a certain time such as dishes and cleaning. That there are going to be tough days just as there are going to be very easy days. There are going to be times where my wonderful husband is not always that wonderful just as there are going to be times where I'm in such a bad mood that any one best keep a 4 block distance from me.
Would I change the life I have? I will honestly say yes... but not really in ways I think you would expect. The first of these changes is that I don't want to simply be *just* a house wife. I changed this at the end of 2011 and now work for a wonderful Mom & Pop run business (even though they are only about my age to be honest!) as someone they can rely on when they need someone to come in at a drop of a hat (a lot of people don't have this luxury in their real lives) when someone falls ill or the business is just so busy they need an extra hand not to mention some more stable hours that I will receive well soon I would suspect... as soon as the weather becomes a bit more stable.
What else do I want to change? I want to move and we're working on that too. Well I'm not the only one that wants to move, my husband wants to as well but it's me that really has to work on this one as it'll be some where between 4000 and 5000 euros to move with. We want to move into a house, villa or bungalow. Something NOT attached to another building or other apartments as we are now. Some where perhaps just on the outside of the city where rent is a better deal and the area is quiet. We moved where we are now almost 10years ago but at that time the area besides the street was quiet. There was a baker next door, a fish monger in the shop that is part of this apartment building (not to mention they were the owners of the building!), there were no apartments next door and my mother-in-law, even as annoying as she was, lived under us. Now a days there is a dance cafe next door where the baker use to be, there have been at least 5 different shops that have come in and out of the shop in this building, mostly turkish, from butchers to bakers and to now a what seems to have died cleaning business.
I want to move into a place that has a backyard where there is a place for me to dig up and make a veggie garden out of. I want to plant and grown my own carrots, zucchinis, radishes, tomatoes and more if I can. I don't know if I have a green thumb or not as I never have had a chance but if I have one at all, I want at least that chance to find out. If it doesn't work, I will simply re-plant the area with grass seeds or put down sow... but I want at least the chance to do that!
And really the last thing I wish to change is to have a car again. I loved driving when I was in the states, just for the sake of driving but now a days I simply need a car. I should say I feel I need a car. My husband would gladly disagree because it's another expense but he isn't home experiencing my every day life where a car would save a LOT of time that goes wasted right now on waiting for buses or other transportation and it would allow me to go out to places farther away that I don't go now because I don't like long bus rides. Such as the fact that my laptop needs to be repaired because the hard drive is failing but the place I would like to get it done is a 30min bus ride away both directions... by car I can do it 30mins total and at my own pace/direction.
Among all of this... they are not things like wanting better/bigger things. They are simply changes that I wish to make. I hope along with the move though that I end up with a bigger kitchen. Right now it's so small that hubby and I can't work in it together unless it is 100% clean, dishes are totally put away and there is nothing at all on the counters. Otherwise it's him looking on from a chair in the living room. I also want some more well luxury items to me at least, perhaps some would see them as needed items, but simply I want a dish washer, a washing machine and dryer and this seems odd but I want a kitchen sink with a sprayer and garbage disposal! Yea odd I know but still, they are things I feel would make my life easier in the kitchen that I must spend my time in for even the sake of my health.
So here is a photo of one of the small corners of my kitchen. You might get to understand why I believe that it would be nice to have a bigger kitchen. The photo below is just the left side of the counter space I have. It is between a wall, recessed into a storage room area and has my stove/over on the right of it. The rest of the kitchen is kind of like this as well. The right hand side of my stove is the home of my microwave (cabinets are too low to hook the micro on it to open the counter I'm sad to say) and just next to that going to the other wall houses other counter top things like a couple of rolling pins and a mini deep fryer (used by the hubby for those few little items that aren't gluten free that he still likes to have). It then turns a corner where I have a bit of a bigger open area of counter top then it goes into my sink. I love my sink because it's a big double sided sink with an additional metal sheet to the right to put a dish drainer on. Then a bit more of an open counter where we do most of our prep work. All in all, it's not a 'bad' kitchen but it is rather small and lacking in counter space.
My dream kitchen is to have one of those new flat stove tops built into an island counter in the middle of my kitchen with enough room around it for say my husband to sit with a news paper to keep me company or even to help with some prep work like slicing apples or peeling potatoes. That to be had with an oven built into the cabinets some where at body height rather then having to bend over all the time to get to the floor style ones. Will this happen? I doubt it but a women can dream can't she??
Anyhow, this is my life right now. These are the things I wish I could change. Some will change, some will always be dreams. What does YOUR most used spot in your kitchen look like??
The left side of my kitchen. It recesses into the wall, cabinets line the top, wall to the left with places to hand my aprons, oven mitts and kitchen towels (trash can is some where against that wall too) while as you can just make out a frying pan on the stove top to the right of the photos.
In this corner 99.9% of the time houses a basket that has an assortment of tea along with misc frying pan/kettle lids (back far corner), in some shape or form there are eggs (in this case it was from a 30 count cause I was baking/cooking so much), next to that just almost hidden will be a load of (ewwww) gluten filled bread for my husband (you can just see the peek of a white plastic bag which holds fresh baked bread along with a multi coloured plastic of a pre-made bread for back up times). From the middle to the right house my most used cooking items... spices (almost all grinders of some sort... black pepper (2 kinds in this photo), rock salt and sea salt, seaweed mix, 3 or 4 pepper mix, garlic pepper, lime pepper (really good on fish!), normal table salt, olive oil, garlic oil (yes I LOVE garlic!), box of corn starch and last but certainly not least a bottle of Tamari sauce (gluten free style soy sauce... remember normal soy sauce DOES have gluten in it!). There is also from time to time a bottle of Sherry sitting there (the dark wine bottle looking thing) because I use it in egg foo young (will post a recipe sometime I'm sure) along with the gravy to go with it.
Oh and lets not forget the big huge 1 litre plastic containers that line the middle of this photo. These are my top 5 most used spices! Oregano, Basil, Garlic, Chicken Seasoning Mix and Cinnamon. There also happens to be another of these litre container in the left most cabinet (just barely seen in this image) that contains parsley as well as I add it to a lot of soups. Never mind the apples in this corner though, these are not a regular here, I just happen to be preparing for some sort of dessert so that was the best place to put them for storing for the moment!
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