Birth of a domesticated 21st century woman

I never thought this would happen. Not to me. But it has.. and here is the re-telling of how it happened:

The alarm went off at 8:30 am; I had the morning off, why was I waking up so "early"? I shrugged and pulled my covers off.. stumbled into the bathroom to go through my routine and get myself all prissed and prodded up. I soon realized I could put that off since I didn't have to leave the house for a couple of hours. The pajamas stayed on, and I went back into the bedroom. I opened the blinds of the windows to let in the streaks of sunshine - dull in general, but bright enough for a crisp, winter morning. The computer was next.. my day couldn't start without its awakening. Today I felt like listening to music - so the tv stayed in a slumber. 106.7 lite fm has been playing Christmas music since Thanksgiving, so I tuned into their website, connected my speakers, and filled my room with the sounds of Christmas.

I paused then - just for a moment, before I decided to change the bedsheets. First the pillowcases got stripped off of the pillows, and those put aside on my chair. As I was about to rip off the sheet, I realized I should clean the bed. So, the lemon pledge came out, and a roll of kitchen towels. My dark wood would be shiny by the time I finished with it. I started at the top of the sleigh bed, did the sides, and finished at the foot. I was about to continue with the sheets when I realized the bookshelfs needed some pledge love too! I figured I would keep the old bedsheet on, empty the artifacts in front of the books on to the bed, clean the shelves, clean the artifacts and then proceed with the original task of changing the sheets.

Ten minutes later my room smelled of lemony goodness, and my shelves were shiny and happy. I continued with the sheets and brought out a special Christmas set I had bought a few weeks earlier for a very good price at Target. As I splayed the snowmen and snowwomen all over my bed and ironed out the sheet on top of the bed with my hands.. I realized I was having fun! The Christmas jingles played from my crystal clear speakers.. the scent of lemon and clean filled the air.. the sun shone through the window, and now new sheets adorned my bed. As I stuffed the pillows into brand new pillow cases I found myself smiling. The lemon pledge came back as I decided to clean the rest of the furniture the room held - the desk, dresser, and tv. It was a satisfying job to complete. I looked at the clock and it was only 10 am. By mid morning I had done so much.

My laptop called out to me as I realized I hadn't yet checked my e-mail. I did the daily rounds of facebook and twitter; checked the e-mail, my to do list, any pending work I would have to complete during the week. My stomach growled at me so I turned up the volume of the music and headed into the kitchen. The original plan was to heat up a frozen pizza - simple and quick. But it was only 10:45 and I had until 12:30 before I would have to leave the house. So I perused the fridge and found some fresh vegetables - carrots, asparagus, baby portabella mushrooms, and an orange pepper. I placed everything on the counter and went into the cabinet for my ready-in-7-minutes-already-seasoned-with-teriyaki-noodles. A couple of packets of these always sit in there for days when I feel like having quick pasta or noodles with sauce already in there. I washed and chopped all the veggies, but something was missing - I am such a meat eater! I opened the fridge once more to discover some left over dry chicken my mom had cooked a couple days prior. I pulled a few pieces out, wiped off the spices she had used, and set them in a bowl on the counter. I set my noodles to simmer in a shallow pot on the stove; placed a small wok on the other side, and poured a generous amount of olive oil into it. Next went in some garlic and ginger paste.. I then turned on the heat - last time's splatter experience had made me learn my lesson. Once the oil was moderately warm I placed the already cooked chicken into the pan, followed by chinese hot sauce. I raised the flames and started tossing everything around.. the fun part!! When the chicken was warm enough I added all my vegetables, less the asparagus, and kept tossing; the noodles had another 2 minutes to go, so I added my asparagus and a heaping portion of General Tso sauce into my stir fry. Within two minutes, both my noodles and stir fry were ready. It was 11:30 by this point and I was felt like rushing - but then I stopped, smiled, and decided to savor what I had spent an hour prepping and cooking!

The meal was satisfying - having cooked it myself, from scratch, with fresh ingredients, made it even more savory; and of course the general tso sauce I had decided to try came out delicious! I looked at my empty plate and decided I had enough time to wash the dishes. I pulled up my sleeves and headed back into the kitchen - emptied the leftovers into a container and proceeded to wash everything I had used - including the kitchen counter! I glanced at the clock, it was noon. I headed to my room for the prissing and prodding I had put off earlier, got dressed in my super-cool-cutie-on-the-go-to-college look, smiled and got my stuff to go. My laptop found its way into the hep Nine West bag it belonged in, my Coach bag slung onto my arms, and I grabbed a bottle of water as I locked up and headed out.

I drove to work - as was the norm - spent my several hours working for money that I saved and saved. A class was cancelled that afternoon, so I would find a lounge with a computer, maybe my book, and spend time studying or working on other important things. The night class would roll around, I would take notes as a good student on my laptop of course - to save paper and trees. I was proud of who I had become. One day I woke up "early" and could see so many changes.

I was no longer the child, the young girl, the lazy one. I was a woman, a 21st century one at that - I had a job, I was a student, I was even an environmentalist trying to use less paper! But on that one day I became domesticated.. I cleaned, changed sheets, cooked lunch, washed dishes. Was it possible? Could I be both?? I didn't think so earlier, but on this one day, I discovered I held all the potential possible to be both. This was who I was meant to be - I had struck that balance! It was as good as striking gold..