Juxtaposition

As I approach my birthday and Jimmy gets close to graduating from college, I've had fodder for considering our life; what I'm happy with and what I need to work on. When thinking about my habits and skils I realized that I've changed a lot even just since Allan was born.
For example, some time in the last year I stopped hating to wash dishes. How did THAT happen? When I wake and the coffee pot is doing it's thing, I scrub some dishes and putter around my kitchen to wake up. It's become my daily wake up routine. *Start coffee, load dishwasher, get dressed for school.* Additionally, I get a real feeling of satisfaction when my craft table is cleaned off, or elated when I find a remnant of fabric that could be sewn into a throw pillow or purse. So these patterns of housewifery (yes I'm making up words now) and my love of the retro aesthetic has me psychoanalyzing myself.
Every couple of weeks, I do a google image search or yahoo image search for 'retro housewives', '50's housewives', 'retro hair' and etcetera. I find new cool images for my blog or myspace. And when I dig in and investigate the websites the images came from, I find all sorts of useful resources for housewives. I find cleaning tips (lemon juice and baking soda will desolve rust), sewing ideas, recipes for Jimmy (he cooks more often than I do) or just fun banter from other wives on the internet. I like the wholesomeness of it all. I love all things vintage, retro, polka dotted, bobby pinned, hand sewn, hand polished or hand painted.
I'm wondering, 'why I am drawn to the retro era when I am a girl who is preparing for a career?' I'm in college getting training for a career as a scenic painter or decorative artist, but I also want to be a good mother and wife. Is my curiosity about the 1950's a reaction to some guilt about leaving my kids when I go to class?? Is it a reaction to coming from a single-parent family? Is it a reaction to being away from my home and family when I was sick in 2005? Did I just watch "A League of Their Own" one too many times?
I remember reading Miss Manor's Guide to Excruitiatingly Correct Behavior from cover-to-cover at least 3 times in high school. I loved all the information about how to seat a dinner party or address an envelope. And I've always been super picky about making my bed and lining up my stuffed animals in a perfect 'parade'. I've always had high standards for my bedroom in general. So I have a history of being picky about my surroundings and enjoying making things look proper. It can't completely be a reaction to motherhood.
Maybe it's just been an underlying idea of how I would be when I grew up and as I age, I've been taking on more of the traits of how a wife should be. That is, my personal feeling that a wife should take care of her children, her husband and her home, while also taking time to maintain her own sanity with hobbies or interests. First I don't mind washing dishes...what's next? I might be going nuts, or going retro or whatever.

Websites of housewifery that I get tips from:
FlyLady.net -Cleaning tips, recipes and Motivation
Retro Housewife -Cleaning tips, Forum, Retro History and Articles about Housewife Pride.
BrocanteHome -I just found this site last night! Cleaning tips, Crochet/Knitting Patterns, links to Vintage stuff on Ebay, Housewife Forum, and lots of Vintage ephemera (much of the same from my myspace; how funny).

p.s. I might get to graduate in a year instead of 18 months. More on that, after I meet with an adviser again.