What a Way to Make a Living --The Road to M.R.S.

I was born to retire. As a lefty who enjoys painting, cooking, art exhibits, and pursued a Master's in English Creative Writing, it's like God may as well have stamped my baby bottom with 'future house wife' on it that fateful day in 1983. (It would have said 'trophy wife' but I'm neither platinum blond, born into money, 5'5" and 98 lbs, tactful or graceful, like a gazelle. My weak wrists could never hold a tennis racket, and try as I might, I have arm fat.)

So, I'm definitely not going to be a trophy wife, but everything I've done thus far in my life is building momentum like a steam engine for me to stay at home and birth babies. Fiddle-dee-dee. The thing is though, in this time in America's history, both the husband and wife need to work in order to effectively support a household.

Here's how I'm perfect for being a working stay at home mom (thanks, internet): I can write books and grants from home. I can freelance articles from home. I can paint from home. Are you following me? Here's where this all goes downhill: to do these things, one must be motivated. I am a terrible, terrible self motivator.

Since The Mister and I are well over three years away from having children, this isn't an issue, is it? Yeah, unfortunately. These horrible thoughts --and the need to take a break, came up today while I was trying to edit my book, which in my opinion is a 468 page (blank) show. I finished writing it; I'm trying to come up with a frame for editing it, and it is not going well.

I'm giving myself options:
1-Edit the book and overhaul it...fix what needs fixing, remove what needs removing (~150 pages), and correct the grammar by Sept. 1.
2-Edit grammar, change names, and send it to an editor and wait for the criticisms to pour in.
3-Turn it into a screenplay. Cry self to sleep at night.

There are pros and cons to all of these. I'm going to persevere and go with option 1. I'm giving myself until Sept 1 because my Lord, if not now, then when? Option 2 might work, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Option 3 is just ghastly. I took a screen writing class...twice. I'm terrible at it. I was assigned a part of the script that involved writing a love-making scene. When we did a cold reading of the script in class, it got laughs. Hysterical laughs. People were crying. For several minutes. It was one of those hard, long laughs where you have a throbbing heading afterward as a result. That. Bad.

So, while the dream is to become the kind of wife who can raise da babies, keep things clean, and bring home the bacon, I feel like I'm falling short at the get-go. The Mister is doing his part: he wants to be a pilot. I hear they do well, but if we're going to be able to afford The Mister's Harley, Jeep, dream gun collection, and garage complete with Jay Leno, I'm going to have to step in...because, I want my kitchen, art studio, and vacations....