House Spouse

(My new office)

How does one go away for a year and a half and then make her return? For the past several weeks, I’ve been wondering how to start blogging again. Should I just start writing as if I’d never stopped? Should I just go back to sharing recipes that had already been shared across the internet by better and more accomplished home cooks with slicker blog templates and nicer camera equipment? Or start with a new approach or new topics, still unannounced and unassuming?

I’ve tried returning before with a brief acknowledgement of my absence and pledge to keep blogging. My intentions would dissolve within days. What was the point? I posed the question to first myself then to my ever-positive, encouraging, supportive Spouse who insisted my friends enjoyed reading and that I did indeed have something to say.

But you’ve seen the proliferation of food blogs in the past five years. How could I possibly have anything to add? The mom of two girls I used to babysit for in high school has one. And she’s learned some digital editing techniques, such as running Photoshop actions that blow out pictures of handmade pasta, giving them a glossy sheen devoid of detail but sure to be repinned 37 times on Pinterest. All because she found a recipe on the internet that gave her a way to use all that basil that had been growing leisurely in her garden all summer.

When I start blogging again, should I hide how cynical I feel about blogging?

I’ve decided to lay it out for you: The past three months. The past three years. Where I’ve been and where I’m hoping to go. I’ll try to be brief.

My job made me unhappy (and caused chronic physical pain). Prospects for improvement had been dimming over the past year. So I quit in October, but stayed on until the end of December. We left town for the holidays. Today is the second day I’ve worked at home, though my work is still working itself out.

I can’t even answer well-meaning inquisitors who want to know about my plan. I barely have one. I know that I’m going to write at least. To start, that will mean features and reviews for the magazine I’d been editing as well as some other small outlets. I’ve been fortunate to line up a fair amount of writing work, but hope I’ll have more time for the fictional stories I’ve been penning here and there. I’ve also been doing some serious baking in the past year or so and look forward to achieving perfectly flaky croissants and Scandinavian pastries.

It’s a luxury to be able to leave gainful employment. Embarrassingly so, even, and unexpected. But thanks to some savings, Spouse’s job, our wedding photography business, and a tighter budget, we think it will work.

House Spouse was started as an adventure. Newly married and just starting grad school, I had more time to myself at home than ever before. I didn’t want to start feeling like a housewife. I just wanted to learn to cook. Really cook. This is just the next chapter in that humble journey.