I Am a Housewife (With a Doctorate)

(For Alyssa's I am a...)

When I was a kid, I wore polka-dot dresses with white collars to school.  Then I put on pants when I got home and dug in the mud.  I had my own microscope and my own set of tools.  I loved to make pancakes with my dad, bread with my mom, and huge messes with my sisters. 

When I was a teenager, I ran three miles a day.  I took physics classes at the local college and photography at the high school.  I worked at my synagogue's Sunday School and dated boys. My girlfriends and I went out for ice cream every Friday night.

When I was in college, I already knew I wanted to be a scientist, but I also spent a year in France, eating pastries and drinking wine and consuming my body weight in Swiss chocolate and skipping class to travel (Venice, Auvergne, Wales, Scotland, London, Geneva, Lausanne, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Prague, Orange, Nice, Lyon, London again...).  I did research and baked cookies. 

When I was in grad school, I went rock-climbing and kayaking with my friends, ran a journal, worked as an interpreter, and taught myself fancy baking.  I picked blueberries and went hiking.  I got married.  I graduated.  We had a child and bought a house.  I worked in industry and bossed people around.  I wrote code.  I quit my job.  My spouse and I renovated the entire house (and had another child).  I learned to knit, started taking sewing commissions, and put in a garden.   

I am still a skeptic who says "where's the evidence?".  I still love to analyze problems and find innovative solutions.  And right now?  I'm a housewife sitting next to five loads of laundry.  And I'm a scientist.