Day 1: Not Another Lovely Day in the Suburbs

Yesterday. was. hard. I knew it was my first day and things wouldn't go perfectly smooth, but oh my. There were lots of ways I felt a failure yesterday. I tried getting up at 6:30 hoping it would be early enough, but oh no, not even close. By the time the dogs had eaten and gone for a walk I was running low on time before my husband had to leave for work. I had planned on making some fritatta thing but had to settle for making some type of omelet with the fritatta ingredients. Not only that but with all my prepping I had not gotten a chance to iron my husband's shirt for work so he did himself. Bad housewife. It took him so long he did even have time to eat breakfast - he chugged down the orange juice and took the plate of egg with him. I already felt like a loser, but tried to press on with a positive attitude.
I had been doing a lot of 50's era reading, but also had found this hilarious blog that had a list of how they tried to be a 50's housewife. I decided to follow list, though with quite a few variations such as having three kids, two bichon frise dogs and two cats. So far I haven't found much about being a mother at home with children in the fifties. Most things talk about, 'after you have sent the children off to school...' What about the weekends? What about before they go to school? I also read a couple things about visiting the children in the nursery, so either those children had a nanny or their mother just locked them up in a room all day until dinner time. That's why the houses were so clean. Oh, wait, I also found a quote about how you should keep your children quiet and keep their faces clean because that is how God wants them to be. Thanks for laying on the guilt trip...
You can find the list I am working with here and I highly recommend you check it out...
http://www.jenbutneverjenn.com/2010/05/keeping-of-house-1950s-style.html
Extremely funny blog, though I have to admit I am waiting to read most of the 50's posts after my are done so I can compare.
Most things I couldn't entirely complete and even if I did...

Here is the living room after it was cleaned;

and when I was busy in the kitchen doing dinner dishes;

"But, Mom, I was just pretending to be a fashion designer!"

By 3:00 I was so sore and worn out I didn't know how I would make it through the rest of the day. It was time for my 'deep clean' step. I fell back on my old cleaning schedule and decided I would super clean the master bedroom/upstairs area. I got all our sheets in the dresser...then layed down on the bed for half an hour exhausted and feeling sorry for myself. No deep clean. After that I had a couple cups of tea and felt slightly more refreshed. I hadn't realized the dessert I had planned was supposed to freeze for 12 hours, but I decided to give it go anyways. You have no idea the restraint it took not to dump some booze in there and make it worth my while. Dinner was a success, however. This week I am more worried about a 50's eating schedule (of not eating out at least 3 time a week) than the actual recipes, though I do plan to make some later 'for authenticity.' The recipe called for one of three different types of fish which I asked him to get, but of course he said they didn't have any of those and got Dory fish, which we have never eaten. "You know, you can eat the blue fish from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming." Grr. He knows I hate it when people compare edible food to cute animated characters. Anyway, it was delicious.

That is the three year old's portion. The recipe called for bottled salsa on top. I wasn't sure they would have had that in the fifties, so instead I topped it with a blend of diced tomatoes, cilantro and olive oil.

Dessert was also good. It was some raspberry- lime juice slush thing topped with ginger ale. I even served it in authentic 50's era glasses.

The evening went much smoother which made it slightly more bearable. I probably would have completed evening thing if I had not had to help with homework, get kids ready for bed, etc. Even then I was pretty close. My husband didn't get home until well after 9, so he had to eat then. He was very pleased to come home to me in a dress, food ready and everything else. After he ate it was cocktail time!

Those cocktail tools and shaker we received as a gift quite some time ago (a couple years?) and this was the first time we were using them. Clearly, we needed to get with it. We were going to attempt singapore slings. The recipe I used is here.

http://fiftieswedding.com/1950s-cocktail-culture-1950s-cocktail-recipes/

These are served in circa 1950's Libbey hostess glasses, a gift from my mother-in-law.

The drinks looked very pretty, but those first few sips were something. I left the club soda out to mix more in, but ended up not. After the first few sips you are tipsy enough to only taste a hint of cherry as you drink it down. Here's a raised glass to hoping day two goes a bit better. Cheers!