All I really needed to know I learned in Kitchengarten

Paper Carnival
Collage collaboration with Oona Bella



I fell in love with Robert Fulghum's work because of that book. I've been thinking along the same lines. I've come up with something similar and call it:

All I really needed to know I learned in Kitchengarten. My blog, my word.

Kitchengarten is where one learns how to do domestic stuff like cooking and cleaning, among other things. You know. Stuff you learned in Home Economics. Of course there's the children which is central. It's really like kindergarten, just dirtier. And frumpier.

Here are some of the things I learned so far:

~ Clean as you go. Dishes, pots and pans do not get clean by themselves, not even if you leave them on the kitchen sink for three days. Same applies for laundry, floors and kids.

~ Separate colors. When I mix colored clothes and white clothes in the wash, I get clothes with the most unappealing colors you could think of.

~ Be appreciative. Be grateful for help(ers). It is possible to miss one's helpers more than one's family.

~ A good cook is made, not born. It is possible to live on "left-over" food. In fact, it is the only way to exist! Batch cook, batch cook, batch cook. And better make it BIG-batch cook - or you might as well live in your kitchen. Don't worry about bloody chickens and crunchy potatoes. Practice does make perfect.

~ Do not put off for tomorrow what you can do today. Doing household chores is such a pain in the butt, however, bearing the pain of not being able to breathe because of shit lying around- and I'm not only speaking metaphorically here, is so not worth it. Better to go through the housework pain than see, trip on, or breathe shit all day long.

~ Diets don't work. Domestication is an excruciatingly painful process (one of the most painful experiences especially for an ex-diva-spoiled-bratty biatch that was me) and the best way to ease the pain is to drive to the nearest Mc Donald's or Burger King for a big dose of tummy lovin'. Emotional-eating Syndrome my ass...I say, Whatever-Works Syndrome for the moment. There's always kick-boxing when I do get out of my depression. And you know what, you do get off the pissy pot sooner or later.

~ What does not kill you makes you stronger. Just when you think that it can't get any worse, it does. But then just when you think you can't take it anymore, you do. And you are stronger and a better, more beautiful, well-rounded human being for it.

~ Love, for kids especially, is made up of three things: patience, patience, and patience. My kids are not the perfect little creatures I envisioned them to be nor will they ever be but as I learn to accept my own imperfections a bit more everyday, I become a better mother to my perfectly imperfect angels. And I love them anyway. Unconditionally.

~ Love for life-partner is no different from love of kids. My husband can be the strongest ally I can have one day and be my worst enemy the next. I may be head-over-heels totally in love with this perfect man I married one minute and pulling-my-hair-out and screaming like a banshee at the insensitive bastard the next. At the end of the day, I love him just the same. Unconditionally.

~ Yes. Divas can become domesticated.



Domesticated Diva of the Kitchengarten Kingdom, out! (to put little one to bed...then tidy the kitchen sink...then tuck the not-so-little-ones in bed with a story or two...then...get the picture?)

10:13 p.m.


(Adapted from entry Domestication Of A Diva


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peace
love
joy
~iKat
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