Unbounded Domesticity

Normally I am a single working girl living in a one bedroom apartment, but for the next few weeks I am leaping head first into domestic life. I am house-sitting for a few week for a member of my Stake Presidency. He is a doctor so they have a very nice home a little out of town with lots of property and a large garden. In addition to caring for the house and land I am looking after their three cats, four dogs, sixteen 5-week-old puppies, and their 13-year-old daughter.

As you may guess, I have my hands full and am spending a lot of my time feeding pets, caring for puppies, cleaning up after puppies, bringing in produce from the garden, preparing meals, cleaning the house, driving the daughter to and from various social engagements and friends homes, grocery shopping, or running out to get the last few things Johanna needs for girls camp next week. Now that I have more of less got the rhythm of everything I find I rather enjoy it. There is something decidedly nice about teaching Johanna how to cook, having a full sized Australian Shepard try to sit on your lap, or waking up to find a purring cat curled up beside you. There is also something satisfying about cleaning up the house each day even when you know the dogs will come tearing through at any minute and it will be messy again.


I very much enjoy my quiet, working girl, one bedroom apartment life, but I am also enjoying this little taste of what a different life would be like and considering the possibility that my own life could be like this sometime in the future. One thing I have already learned from this little experience is that, while I like pets, I will never have this many at one time...