I don’t understand it.

It’s such a friendly-looking appliance with it’s red, shiny exterior and big black knobs. It looks like it’s saying “hello, please put your food in me and I will make it toasty.” Only what it’s really saying is “please put your food in me, and I will transform into a flaming inferno, incinerate your food and make your house smell.” This is what my toaster oven is good for.

So, somewhere between my mom’s Christmas roast, my aunt’s pumpkin bread, my coworker Lauren’s amazing chocolate chip cookies and the eggnog (ohhhhh, the eggnog,) I might have put on a little holiday weight.

Dear Neighbor,

One of the Southern traditions I’ve always wanted to adopt is that of having black-eyed pea soup on New Year’s Day –but since no one I know does this, I don’t have a recipe!

Does anyone out there have a great Black-Eyed Pea Soup recipe they could share?

Both start with "Baking." And that is exactly what is wrong with them.

Of all the intimidating housewifey tasks that loom in my future, the one I fear the most is preparing a holiday turkey.

I don’t know if it’s the general air of confusion that seems to hang around the process (there are about a million Web sites that address this one task) or if it’s the pressure of making golden-brown succulence out of a slimy, disjointed animal with no head. Whatever it is, I get the willies just thinking about it.

While I don’t plan to change my title from “Helpless Housewife” to “Puzzled Parent” for a while, my niece, Callie, offers plenty of excuses to practice in the meantime.

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to make her a costume so she could dress up as her very favorite thing in the whole world (for this week,) Barbie Island Princess. 

As with most of my projects, I didn’t know a thing about how to do this. But I did have a pretty good idea who to go to for help: Linda Medina, our neighborsgo Super Mom.

I’ve never been able to keep plants alive. I’ve killed quite an assortment: strawberries, tomatoes and pickles (well, they would have been pickles if they had lived.)

To my great relief, Anne McMahon, my latest neighborhood helper, seems to think that’s not such a bad thing.

While browsing through a craft mall about 10 years ago, I happened upon a plaque that read, "Martha Stewart Doesn't Live Here."

The witty saying was my first exposure to Martha, whom my mom explained was an expert on household tasks.

Since then, as I have learned more about Martha, and more about my own homemaking abilities, I have begun to think that I need a similar wall hanging. Mine, however, would read, "Martha Stewart Doesn't Live Here, But Ruth, Her Antithesis, Does."