My grandmother was the quintessential 50s housewife. Born and raised in Chicago, she can still recount stories of going with her mother to the market daily and buying fresh meat and produce to be taken home and cooked. She was one of four children, the 3rd child and 2nd daughter, which surely meant she took on some of the household chores.

She and my grandfather met each other in 1955 and were married a year later in Chicago. The next day after they were married they drove across the country to Southern California where they have lived for the past 55 years (except for a brief time in London).

 

In that time my grandparents had 2.5 children –okay, they really had three children– and my grandmother raised her children as a stay at home mother until they were adults. She made them their lunches, she baked cookies, she sewed their clothes, and she went to (and still does go to) her regular hair appointments to keep her hair looking picture perfect. She baked and decorated cakes, she was in the local newspaper for her pumpkin pie recipe, she was part of multiple clubs including a sorority she is still a part of. My grandparents still live in the same tract home they bought 55 years ago.

 

My East Coast husband and I met at a Belgium beer tasting event in Boston and a year later we were moving across the country to Northern California. A year after that (and with our first dog who has since passed away) we bought our first house without ever being married. Scandalous, living in sin, I know. However, a year after buying a house, two years since moving across the country and three years after we had met, I became an honest woman and was married to my Prince Charming.

My story starts a little differently than my grandmother’s does, and I certainly have a long way to go before we know how it measures up, but I am inspired by her and am now a modern wife. For me it means I still cook, sew and be the hostess with the most-est but it also means DIY projects around the house, holding down a successful job in corporate America and foraging a new identity as a wife in these modern times.

Welcome to my blog!