Gender Roles and Learned Helplessness

I have wanted to write this post for an incredibly long time. I even told my mother-in-law about it two weeks ago, but somehow never made it to the computer. It doesn't help that our laptop bit the dust, or the water, I guess I should say! One late market night we were listening to music as we unpacked, playing our computer outside. Pandora sometimes stops playing, asking that age old questions "Are you still listening?" Well, we must have not noticed the music stopped, so we went inside and forgot about the computer.

The next morning we woke up to the sweet sound of rain. The way this summer is going, hearing rain is always exciting and peaceful - a break from the heat. I jumped in the shower, prepared to have a great day, and all of a sudden Luke yells "Shit Mel, we left the computer outside last night." Let the chaos ensue! Thankfully I have some great tech guys at school who talked me through how to save our jumpdrive, which contains the important files. The computer didn't make it though, so now we are doing our work on an old-fashioned desktop! It works though, and maybe this winter we will get ourselves a new little computer!

Anyway, that aside, lately I find myself thinking about gender roles and learned helplessness. Luke already dreaded this post, he said it was going to make him sound like a moron, but I don't think he knows where I'm headed with it. See, both Luke and I have fallen into our gender habits, and are relishing in this notion of learned helplessness.

It all started with a simple comment, one little line that Luke muttered when he wasn't even thinking. You see, one Thursday, after CSA pick-up at Kavarna, I decided to stop by my friend Stef's house to go jogging. It felt great and I felt great. But I didn't get home until 8:00. Luke was just walking in from the field, and it was obvious from the get-go that he was in one of his hunger-induced temper tantrums. He was as crabby as can be, and he went tearing into the fridge. I immediately became frustrated, having given him plenty of notice that I would not be home to make dinner. He said "It's 8:00, I'm starving and there's nothing to eat." I replied with something along the lines of "Your a big boy, you could have made dinner," and he pulled out this next comment that nearly made me vomit in my mouth: "I have a wife, so I don't need to make dinner." Every muscle inside of me clenched, this historic principle from the 1950's could not be making a revival in my house.

The night went on, things were fine after we ate, but the comment stayed with me. And then Friday happened. I wanted to get a bunch done in my house, and three times Luke walked into the house asking me the dreaded question "Can you do me a favor?" It is usually some sort of chore - a delivery, a bank deposit, feeding the pigs. But I hate that question, because it pulls me away from my intended activity of cleaning, or reading, or making dinner. Well, by the third "favor" on Friday, I was stressed and frustrated. I was delivering a last-minute order to Chives, and I was literally yelling in the car, thinking to myself how Luke never does me favors. I will admit I was pretty negative about Luke at that moment in time.

And then I got home. And I went back to cooking dinner, and I noticed something I hadn't seen in over a year and a half! A dead mouse, in the mouse trap. If you are someone who gets mice in your house, you know it is very unusual to get them in the summer. I immediately called Luke in, asked him to do me a favor, and bring the dead mouse out. And he did, immediately. And then I stopped, and I smiled, and I knew that it was God's little way of saying, "Slow down Melissa, lose the anger, Luke does a lot for you too." It felt good.

But anyway, those two scenarios really have me thinking about gender roles and learned helplessness. Luke and I have fallen into these roles that we aren't breaking out of - I cook all the time and clean the house, and he does the 'man' stuff, taking out the dead mice, bringing in the veggies from the fields, cutting the lawn. And it confuses me, because Luke used to make gourmet meals when we weren't married and he lived on his own. And it used to be that a dead mouse wouldn't bother me at all - heck I would grab a mouse at the Wildlife Sanctuary, put it in a container, and then feed it to a snake. So how did I suddenly find them so "icky?" The fact of the matter is I started depending on Luke to do those man jobs, and he started depending on me to do the women's.

But, now that it's been called to our attention, we are deciding to shake things up a little bit. We caught another dead mouse, and I'm pretty sure this was just God's little test to make sure I still knew I could handle it. And I did. I put on a glove, carried it out, and that was that. No cringing, no begging Luke to do it. And ironically, right now the house smells of fish and grilled veggies - and that's all Luke. He's cooking for me tonight, while I walked to the field to get some extra dill for dinner. I guess all it took was for us to identify the rut we fell into, and then all we needed was a little effort to start digging our way out of it. Now, I'm not saying he is going to cook every night, or that I'll carry the 50 pounds boxes of tomatoes in, but at least it's a start. See ya later, 1950's gender roles!

I'm not a slob???

Happy 4th of July from Twin Elm Gardens! Did we spend the holiday relaxing and enjoying our day? No - not exactly. We plan on doing that later this week - we are heading up to Crandon for a much-needed day on the lake. But today we had a big day of work on our hands! My parents and I are helping us put in a gorgeous brick patio under our pergola, and even though it was upwards of 100 degrees today, we were outside working on it from 7 am until 6 pm! It was quite the exhausting day! Laying brick is not an easy task - I can't imagine my dad's part of the job because he had all the rough work. I just had to haul bricks or pound stakes - he had to do the hardest parts. We were all pretty sweaty, and I hadn't showered from yesterday's workout at the farmer's market. Needless to say it was obvious I was the most smelly because the flies would only land on me, not my parents. Except when Luke came around - then they migrated to him. We had a good laugh about that.

So this week has afforded me a little more down time that most weeks. Summer school has not yet started, so beyond CSA and market, I had a little time to pluck away at my to-do list. Yesterday morning Luke gave me the morning entirely to myself. It was his "thank you" because last night I did the farmer's market by myself, from start to finish. Anyway, the morning to myself was very refreshing. I took the time to do an extreme cleaning session on our kitchen. I washed all the dishes, scrubbed the counters, cleaned out the fridge, and even scrubbed the floors by hand. If you wanted to stop over right now, I would gladly show you my kitchen. The rest of my house doesn't look nearly as nice.

Anyway, the entire time I was cleaning, I thought about our lifestyle a little bit. Our house isn't all that cleanly -  I have blogged about that before. I have always justified it - we are too busy to clean and whatnot. By the end of the day, I'm too tired for dishes and laundry. I would tell myself I'm not a slob, and we just are too busy to keep a super clean house. And it is true, we are busy. But that is just an excuse. A little time management and organization and we would be all set. The thing is Luke and I don't take the time for those tasks - we always find something else to work on.

The truth is Luke and I still have boxes from when we first moved in...over two years ago! My mom would tell me that if we haven't unpacked them yet, then they are probably just junk, but I will most likely find something of sentimental value in there. Since school has not yet started, now truly is the time for us to get organized! We have made a lot of progress in the past two days, and hopefully we continue to do so. Don't get me wrong - it is not a disaster or anything - you can see all the floors and have plenty of spots to sit - but it isn't as orderly as I or Luke would like. So we are going to change that - otherwise I just might have to stop adamantly telling myself that I'm not a slob. On that note, I'm going to fold a little laundry while we watch our movie.

I would like a half-share, please.

Well, this summer is very different than last summer. Last summer we looked at the cloudy sky and hoped it wouldn't rain because the fields were too wet. This summer, we are avidly looking to the sky, hoping for a cloud formation that will bring us some much needed rain. It was the same way a few weeks back, and when it did finally rain, Luke and I literally danced in it - jumping around and cheering. And yet the drought is upon us again!

The situation is much worse in the southern part of the state. Luke and I were down there on Sunday, and Luke taught me how to tell how dry things are. He pointed out the corn to me. The corn was short - only knee height. And looking at the corn, it looked more like a pineapple farm than a corn field. Luke explained that when corn is stressed and lacking water, the leaves curl up on themselves and point straight out - a more cacti-like arrangement. It was very interesting to stare out the window, watching the terrain, and see the difference between corn that was irrigated and corn that wasn't.

Beyond that side note, I want to talk about healthy eating. People probably think Luke and I eat awesome all the time! That we gorge on veggies and are always enjoying our farm produce. The truth is, we don't utilize the great resources that we have here as much as we should. When I am going through the fridge and cupboards, planning my meal for the evening, I make note of what we have and then I use those items. The issue is that I don't think of the gigantic fridge outside that contains all of our delicious vegetables. Because of that, those items frequently go unused.

But, I'm trying to change that. I am putting in a big initiative to start depending more heavily on Luke's delicious vegetables. I make a smoothie most mornings, and my goal is to always include some sort of greens, even if it means walking across the dewy grass to get some greens from the raised beds. I want to incorporate more veggies into my diet, and be more sustainable by eating seasonally. If any person has the chance of being a seasonal eater, it is me! We do a pretty good job of that (we really never buy vegetables in the winter, but depend more on frozen foods), but we could make a bigger push. Eating sustainable also means more preserving in the summer, but Luke and I figure if we slowly pluck away at it, then it won't be so daunting.  (With that in mind, we do have a batch of salsa simmering away right now!)

So with that is my push to become a seasonal eater. I started yesterday where we had spring rolls with cabbage, carrots, red pepper, and a cilantro peanut butter sauce. Today, I made guacamole and a fresh salsa to enjoy with a raw walnut "taco" meat. It is important to practice what you preach, and here I am every week, writing these recipe sheets that utilize all of our farm vegetables, but then I don't use them myself. It seems pretty silly honestly, so I guess what I really mean is "Can I get a half-share, please?" Luke makes about 50 CSA half-shares every week. I'm asking Luke to bring in a box of goodies every week that contains all the produce we have available on the farm, sort of like we are our own customers. With that, hopefully my seasonal eating push will be more successful.