Liza's Home Page

I am a mother, wife, writer, seamstress, costume designer, gardener, and freelance philosopher. I subscribe to an internet mailing list for feminist stay-at-home mothers.

I am the wife of Dave and the mother of Samantha, Nathan, Rebecca, Maxx and Alexander. Being Dave's wife is fun and interesting and keeps me on my toes. I like him because he has so far in seventeen and a half years never been boring. He makes me laugh. He makes me dinner. He makes pretty babies.

Speaking of pretty babies, my five babies are getting older and more fun to hang around with every day. Their existence is responsible for 98% of the work I do each day. They are involved in numerous activities. I have a bulletin board, a chalk board, a wall calendar, and four posted schedules to keep track of their comings and goings. They wet towels, eat tons of food, filthify dishes and clothes, track mud onto the floor, beg for money, leave their belongings where I can trip over them, and bombard me with horrendous puns. I love them more than anything on Earth.

Admittedly, most of my time for the last decade and a half has been taken up by child care duties, but I have found time between the diapers and skinned knees to pursue other interests. I read voraciously. I have been known to read while stirring the soup for dinner. This explains the erratic quality of my culinary talents. Luckily, Dave is a good cook. I, however, am a good eater.

I like to sew and I don't get to do it nearly as often as I'd like. I enjoy costume design and construction. I've never done it professionally, although I have been involved in amateur productions, school productions, and synagogue productions, not to mention having sewn countless Halloween costumes. My kids have the best dress-up box in the country. At this point I'm interested in millinery (hat construction). Dave is planning to do The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling as a puppet show for the local kindergarten in the Fall and I will be making the puppets. I've not done puppets before so this should be fun.

For the past few years we have had a vegetable garden and an herb garden out back and a flower garden in front of the house. I'm still playing with the front garden patch, experimenting with bulbs, perennials, and the occasional annual if it's interesting. The vegetable and herb gardens are in their third year and Dave is mostly responsible for them. I am responsible for maintaining the neatness of the back garden. I make sure the compost isn't overflowing and the grass is cut and the edging is straight. We are also still feeling our way around there, seeing what does well and what is just silly to plant. We've also got to find a way to make the garden look nice in Winter since we live in a town house and the neighbors don't want to see a dirt yard November through April. I don't either. Any suggestions?

The philosopher part of me is just the part that sorts life out while I'm doing dishes or running the vacuum. I probe issues and try theories out and tear my opinions apart to see if they can stand up to it. I usually come out with more questions than answers. I have a lot of opinions and a lot of theories. When I say, "I have this theory..." people run for cover.

The writer in me is still blossoming and trying to find her place. So far, the only thing I write with semi-regularity are personal letters and shopping lists. Dave and I take turns writing a family newsletter that seems to have grown too big for its britches. We originally sent this missive out to family and friends so they could keep up with us while we traveled around the world. The newsletter now gets mailed to about 75 people and they pass it on to their friends, families, and co-workers. We estimate from what people have told us they do with this newsletter that 500 to 750 people read this thing. Either that or 750 budgies read this thing. If you'd like to read this thing, then you can. We put some of our more recent tomes and our Ireland travelogue on our page so you can sample them. If you'd like, you can apply to be put on the exclusive mailing list. Or you could just ask around your neighborhood to see if anyone you know knows someone who is related to someone who knows us. And then you can get it from them. Get it?

The other writing I (don't) do is fiction. I start....I start again....I restart.....I start all over. Someday, I might finish a story, but for now it's a start. At the moment, my writing itself is fiction. Actually, I write all day. I write letters to friends and relatives. I write email. I write posts about parenting issues to a parents' Usenet group. I write posts about chocolate to a writer's Usenet group. I write feminist email to my list sisters on SAH-femlist. I write and write and write, but I just can't get down to writing.

Well, that's me. Busy, lazy, crazy, going in too many directions at once. Trying to do it all, failing, succeeding. Trying to pay attention and have fun along the way.

You have fun along your way, too.

Liza