Work girl returning to homemaker

It was 7:00 am on the dot. I am in the parking lot of the local grocery store with the group of other older women and a few men. My face mask is tightly fitted over my nose and mouth. I feel like I can’t breath but I will keep it on. I have a long list of food items to pick up and two weeks of meals planned in my “to do” notebook at home.

Once I have entered and gotten my freshly cleaned cart I head right to the paper products where I find four rolls of TP (there are more but I am only allow one package), two boxes of Kleenex, and dishwasher soap. Score of the morning. We have happy feet here – doing a little jig!

From here I return to the front of the store and gather veggies, then meats and juice. The can goods have lots of organic brands left so my beans are there (yeah I don’t have to soak beans over night). I pick up coffee, no tea (it is gone – odd), The veggie burgers, links and bacon are all there. It is good to eat things others do not, I have discovered. I get a jar of pesto just for the fun of it.

A few hundred dollars later I am on my way to the car. I have way to many plastic bags but don’t want veggies and fruit being handled but check out and bagging people. They are all very nice but to many hands on the food right now. I have used my reusable bags for herbs but not allowed to use my cloth bags to pack food in so lots of paper bags as well.

In the car the mask comes off carefully but quickly so I can breath again. I use the hand sanitizer in my pocket before I start the car. So many extra steps but I keep seeing germs everywhere. They never seemed to be there before but now – they filter through my brain at every turn.

At home there is the sorting in the car -what must come in and go in the refrigerator and what will remain for the next 24 hours in the car. Inside I wash hands, I sort, get things out of plastic, wipe things down, put it all away. All the time realizing I will need to clean and rearrange my shelves for the food still in the car.

Once the fresh stuff is away the kitchen, the floor where bags were and the door knobs where I entered the house are all wiped down.

I wash my hands again before clearing out shelves of Christmas mugs tucked in back, two many boxes of lasagna noodles (why do I have four half used boxes – we will be having lasagna tonight if I have enough cheese even though we don’t eat pasta any more.)

I have pulled last summers salsa from the freezer to cook down in the crock pot, there are chicken thighs defrosting in the refrigerator and the dried out “fresh” thyme I have shredded off the stems and stored for later cooking.

The Grandson has had a bottle and a half and is finally napping so my next task is to return to my office, now sewing room, to finish the six and a half faces masks for my family. (The half is for “Little Man” if I can remake the pattern I have to fit his face.)

It is only 9:00 am.

I have pulled up all the skills I was taught long ago by my mother and the home economics teachers in jr. high. I can do this cooking, sewing, mothering, gardening and cleaning. It is just that it was never something I was interested in except the gardening. Who would not want to play in the mud?

I have worked outside of the home since I  – well always! The homemaker skills have been used when needed but always as a side gig. I did it because we needed me to not because I wanted to. I never wanted to stay home. It is just not me. Even now in my late 60’s – retired I find things to do out of the house.

Now there is no where to go and the needs are at home. So have dusted off the apron, pulled out the sewing machine and have turned into the happy little homemaker until …    I guess we will have to wait to answer that one.