HOMEMAKER OF THE YEAR

     My family will tell you (in unison and at the top of their lungs) that I am not a domestic person. I despise housework...I am not married to a house, thank you very much; I do not enjoy cooking; floors do not look dirty to me unless there is actually mud on them and dishes piled to the rafters look sort of artistic if they are piled neatly on all available counters.
     It is ironic that the only award I ever won when I attended high school was when I entered and won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of the Year award for 1956.  Actually the only reason I won was that it was a written competition and not one that involved cooking, sewing or anything physical. All I had to do was memorize a few lines, write them down and then throw them out, never to be remembered anymore.
     What I was good at was reading, writing and painting.
     In short, I'm a lazy cuss.
     When my kids were little, each Sunday we would load up the car and grace one or the other of our parents' home with our presence for dinner. Since we were each the oldest of several children, we were welcomed. It seemed the natural thing to do and the babies were heartily hugged by each grandma and grandpa and lugged around by aunts and uncles not much older than themselves. It never occurred to me that actual cooking might be involved and I got by with drying the dishes after dinner each week. I would jokingly tell my children to enjoy themselves because, I assured them, I was never planning to cook Sunday dinners for them when they were grown.
      And I've carried through with my promise. I do not cook Sunday dinners. I don't even cook holiday dinners if I can get out of it. Nor not often birthday dinners.
     I hate cooking. I would go out to eat in a restaurant or a fast-food joint three times a day if I could get by with it.
     It isn't that I'm not a good cook. I can cook well if I put my mind and my back to it. Of course it takes me days to recover and I moan and groan for weeks afterward.
     Anyway, to make a long long story a bit shorter, I will admit that now and then I do cook. On Thanksgiving. On Christmas (in fact I have an e-nor-mous dinner at Christmas time with all of my very very large family as guests spread all over my very very large house over a very very loooonnnnng day), on Easter, and sometimes around Independence Day. Not often but now and then. The food is wonderful, the camaraderie is better, I feel virtuous for three days and I hurt for a week but by golly I've earned my Betty Crocker Homemaker of the Year Award all over again.
     My family heads toward home, bearing gifts of leftover homemade hot rolls, hams and salads, sliced berries and pies, shaking their collective heads in relief that it is all over (its hard on them all too).
     And so, since I couldn't very well weasel out of it (and really, I didn't want to after all) we came together in the dining room of the old home place. Several extras were gathered there also with only three missing and one of those came in later. Two were about 6000 miles away but, thanks to Skype, and holding hands by holding onto the computer, they were included in the blessing on this rainy Easter afternoon.
     We had a wonderful day, even if I did have to cook.
     And I didn't burn a single roll.