THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512100036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
It's that time of year again.
Time to return to the hearth. Deck the halls with bay-leaf wreaths. Needle-point napkins for the relatives.
Time to create time out of nothing because there's no way to do all that unless I stay up 24 hours a day, ignore my children, forget my job and suddenly, miraculously, regain the homemaking skills my mother taught me decades ago.
The problem is this: I spent my first 18 years expecting to become June Cleaver, the next 12 years rebelling against every traditional, staid and sexist value June stood for, and the next seven years - how did it happen? - doing a modified June. Working, mothering. Commuting, cleaning. Teleconferencing, bunk-bed coordinating.
I have mix-and-match lawn furniture at my dining table. I make Halloween costumes with a glue gun instead of a sewing machine. I throw children's parties by saying, ``Come in, tear up the house. We'll have cake after.''
I don't mind doing this dance of the modern mother 11 months out of the year, but come December, my aspirations change.
Now I want to be Martha Stewart.
You know Martha. If you don't, you've been asleep under the raspberry trellis she recommends for the backyard of the '90s.
Martha is the woman who is turning homemaking into an art. The woman who is raising gardening to new heights. The domestic diva we adore and revile, admire and castigate, all in the same breath.
Suddenly, Martha is everywhere.
``It's a good thing,'' she chirps each time she completes another televised feat of domesticity.
Let's take a peek at her December calendar in Martha Stewart Living magazine, shall we?
Last week she made her own Christmas cards. Cleaned her gutters. Made skirts for her Christmas trees. Built a new greenhouse. And strung her boxwood hedges with tiny blue lights. This week she plans to hang wreaths, make stockings for gifts. Bake gingerbread to make gift tags for presents.
Well, you might be thinking about now, no way this woman has a full-time job.
Wrong. She has a nationally syndicated TV show. A monthly magazine. And she just started writing a weekly newspaper column.
There goes the ``But I have to work'' excuse that usually comes out as a whine.
And here's what else distinguishes Martha from the usual homemaker icons, the June Cleavers, the Harriet Nelsons, the Betty Crockers: She's real. She's ALIVE! So you ought to be able to pull off her homemaking exploits, right?
Wrong. At least I can't.
She sprinkles autumn leaves on her tablecloth; it looks chic. I do it and it looks like I dumped lawn trimmings on the table. She hollows out pumpkins to serve soup; guests sigh in admiration. I do it and people ask why pumpkin seeds are floating in their Campbell's soup. Martha makes gift tags out of gingerbread; at my house the kids eat the gingerbread before it's cooled.
It's too late to be Martha this year anyway. I'll put her at the top of my New Year's resolutions. Next year I'll sow grass seed in Easter baskets in time to have turf for colored eggs. I'll have that lobster bake at the beach. I'll make a Christmas wreath out of cranberries and toothpicks.
I have a whole year to practice. As Martha would say, ``It's a good thing.'' by CNB