I'm Scared to Death!

I'm selling and buying a house in the same 30 days. For those of you who do not know, there are lots of little details and major stress that goes on when buying or selling a house. We are doing both at the same time. I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Going to see Mom makes me stop for a minute.

The other day Mom tilted her head to one side and asked "What exactly is it that you do?" I enthusiastically started explaining executive search, software developers, RF Engineers, what they do, how I find the one's who are hard to find, then assist in negotiations regarding their salary, bonus , vacations, relo costs and so on. She listened quietly and then replied, "so you just talk a lot." (I have never heard a better or more simple explaination of my job.)

Still worried and stressed about the inspector, the septic tank, the roof, the carpenter ants, I kissed her goodbye and hurried down the hall to leave. An elderly man I love who visits his wife everyday stopped me to talk. He had a very sad look in his eyes. His wife had stopped eating for the last 2 days and she was sleeping all the time. He looked at me with fear in the eyes and as I hugged him, he said. "I'm scared to death!"

You know, that old man just put my pest control worries to shame.

Of course, then my car broke down on the way home :) Oh well.

'The Good Wife's Guide" Bible Times, 1950s and Now.

(This is a recent picture of Mom in the Rose garden at the Wesleyan.)


Below is a quote from the 1950 Good Housekeeping article "The Good Wife's Guide"


"Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.  After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction. - Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him."  


(Doesn't that just make you wanna gag?!!) It's awful.




Let's go back to the "Good Wife's Guide" Bible Times. 


Perhaps the differences in what is considered a "Good Wife"  was on my mind when in 7th grade I wrote an article about Proverbs 31:10-31. "The virtuous woman."  My father put it in the Church bulletin!  I decided I wanted to be a business woman like her, not a poor dominated house wife! This proverb says, "Who can find a virtuous woman for she is more valuable than rubies"  This virtuous woman of Bible times didn't clean her house and take care of her children all by herself.   She was the boss of their business.  It seems as if she did everything!  She had the best of both worlds. That Bible times " Virtuous Woman" was a workhorse! Poor thing!  
 I don't want to be her!   That's awful too.


 It's time for the "Good Wife's guide" 2011.


My husband and I have been going through the process of selling our home and buying a new one. I work full time, so does he. It's always been like that. Ordinarily in our marriage, when an important purchase or sale like this is made, I'm the one who deals with it. (Negotiation is one of my strong points.) Everyday I go in and tell Mom all the different things we are deciding with, explaining how we decided the starting listing price, how we reacted to the first offer, how we counter- offered and so on.


Mom doesn't seem to understand what I am talking about!  She just shakes her head and looks at me like I'm silly.  Finally I asked her , "Didn't you and Dad have to go through all these stresssful dealings  when you sold your houses? Don't you remember?" She answered , "why of course not! I didn't even ask what we sold them for? Your dad took care of all that."  No stress, no mess! 


You know, those 1950's house wives had it pretty good!  All those appliances were invented to make house hold chores easier, they could do other things after they cleaned their house,  they had more time to enjoy their children, hobbies,  family and Church.  They didn't even worry about whether they got enough "quality time". ( Yes, there was all that macho stuff but in my Mom's case, my dad was a nice man.) Besides that, those 1950's guys were the work horses working long hours and they got so stressed out trying to take care of everything, they had heart attacks and died way before their unstressed wives. Those women were taken care of and didn't have to work or deal with it. They were put on a pedistal. They had those men working for them. 


What have we done? What did we get? We turned ourself back into female equal to men work horses! Goofy Feminists!  Thanks a lot, for the freedom to work hard and have an opinion. She doesn't have to say it! It rings out loud and clear. 
Thanks Mom for pointing things like that out to me every once in awhile...putting things in a different perspective... in your own little way! :)