1950's Housewi--what? No.

I've said before that if air conditioning was available in every home and building I went to, I think it'd be fun to live in the 1950's.

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't.

I came up with the brilliant plan to have a large dinner for my mother and siblings last night. Not only did I want to cook them a nice dinner, I wanted to: try new recipes I had never had before and make the meal entirely from scratch. As far as timing goes, I really can't do anything but pat myself on the back for my good work. The main dish was coming out of the oven just a few minutes before Travis got home. I was a failure because I hadn't set the table in it's entirety, but at least I got the place mats and napkins washed and dried in time for everyone to get here.

The menu was oven-barbecued chicken, scalloped potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls with cinnamon butter, and cheesecake for dessert. The plan was to make the cheesecake before I went to bed on Tuesday night, (this is what I almost always do if I'm making cheesecake, I bake it the night before and let it chill overnight. It seems to set better if it has an entire day in the refrigerator) but when I opened the first cream cheese block, though not expired, it had gone bad. Probably because some jerk at the grocery store set it down on a shelf when they decided they didn't want it, and an idiot employee decided to put it back, because, you know, warmed dairy products are fine and all.

So, I woke up bright and early yesterday to run to the store and buy more cream cheese as well as chicken, since the grocery store I went to on Tuesday night didn't have any chicken. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I got in and out of the store pretty quickly, and immediate got to work on the cheesecake. It only takes a matter of minutes to get it ready, especially since I decided to make the crust the night before, and enjoyed what I would find to be my last minutes of sitting lazily on the couch while it baked.

Once it was baked, I figured I may as well do the scalloped potatoes, and then just warm them before it was time for dinner, since I only have one oven, and almost everything required using the oven at different temperatures. It was an easy dish to make, and once that was in the oven, it was time to get the cheesecake out of the pan, put it in the refrigerator and clean the kitchen up from everything so I would be able to cook everything else.

There's a chain of restaurants called Texas Roadhouse, owned by Willie Nelson. If you've ever been there, you've experienced their amazing rolls and cinnamon butter, and if not, you're missing out. A girl I met in college posted a recipe on her blog that was supposed to be the same as these rolls, and I decided to put it to the test. While the potatoes were baking, I embarked on my first-ever attempt at any type of homemade bread. The dough had to sit in the oven, (while it was off) for an hour to the yeast could do its job, and while that was happening, I realized it was just getting later, so it was time to my apartment in order before everyone arrived. My older brother and his girlfriend hadn't had the opportunity to see our apartment yet, so I wanted to make sure that everything was to my satisfaction.

Once the rolls had been baked properly, I was done cleaning the house, but it was time to work on the chicken, and in that process is when everyone started to call to let me know they were en route to my apartment and that I should be expecting them shortly, which led me to prepare chicken and clean up the counters as much as possible.

When everyone got here, they all said it smelled really good in the house, which is always a good sign. I started making the green beans, put the potatoes in the oven to keep them warm, took the chicken off the bone and started putting everything into serving dishes. By the time Travis got home, it was time to eat and if I must say, it was all absolutely delicious. The rolls were just as good as I expected. The texture was slightly different, but the taste was the same. My only disappointment with the whole meal was that the chicken wasn't quite what I was expecting in flavor, and that's always frustrating, but I think that the name of the recipe is what threw me off. It tasted almost like something you'd find at an Asian restaurant, not like barbecue, but it was still good.

I tell you all of this because by the time it was all said and done, my back was killing me and my feet were aching. I am not cut out to be a 1950's housewife, dressed in heels and pearls waiting for my husband to get home with a martini in hand. While it's a picturesque moment, I wonder if that ever happened as often as we see in the movies. Did Lucy always greet Ricky with such a smile when he got home each day? Probably not. She probably told him if he wanted a drink, he better make it himself, and that he better make her one while he's at it.

Moral of the story? I'm a 1950's housewife failure.