What do you do?

My husband has a newish job that he started in June of this year. It's a "real" job as  opposed to the contract work that he's been doing for the last five or six years. He's attached to a company now and with that attachment will come some social obligations on my part. Holiday parties, company picnics and the like. I always enjoy these "getting to know you and the spouse" gatherings except for one minor detail. The inevitable moment over cocktails when the, "what do you do?" question is directed at me. It's not that I feel...insecure or embarrassed about what I do, it's just that, really, it's nearly impossible to define. As I stood wiping the counters this morning and thinking about this question and all that is really being asked of me; what do you do? Who ARE you? What is your worth? How do you contribute? What do you value? Where on the Earners Hierarchy, do you fall?, I realized that the answers change each and every day. I think this might be true for most of us. Oh yes, some of us go to jobs that fill our days with meaningless drivel and I have some of those days as well. Specifically, the days that are spent in the car are the days I find the most frustrating because of their loss. I've lost that time to the rolling wheels of the car and, even though I'm ferrying my most precious cargo to their activities, the action itself has little meaning for me. Still, other days are filled with the most mundane seeming tasks that, over time, build up into what I have come to see as my Self Actualization. I am at the top of Maslow's hierarchy on those days. The days that I am up with the sun, baking bread, making beef stew from scratch, hanging the laundry in the sun, feeding the woodstove, watching the chickens pecking in the compost, and guiding my children through their hours, are the days in which I am most fulfilled. The days when I am active but not crazed. Busy but not frantic. When I have time to write a little, read a little, box up orders for my book venture, cook, clean, listen to music and watch the animals; those are the days and moments that define me. But isn't it impossible to narrow those moments down to one succinct sentence; the answer that my questioner is looking for? How can I say, "Oh, each day I seek to achieve my most lofty spiritual goals in order to consider myself worthy for entrance into heaven" or "Every day is filled with the most minute details of the care and feeding of many sentient beings who are, in their turn, seeking to be worthy of God' approval"? Well, I can't say those things. Especially not at a party full of software engineers who think in alpha-numeric code. The silence would be deafening...
I am thinking carefully about my answer to this question. I don't want to brush people off, but I fear I may have to do that. It's okay, for my part, because I don't generally care what people think of me, but I do need to have some care and concern for my husband in this setting. I won't be saying, "Well, it's really none of your damn business how I spend my days" nor will I try to be witty and say, "Why, I'm engaged in the oldest profession in the world, would you like my card?" I could continue to say, "I am homeschooling the children" but that is growing ever less true. I could just say, "I'm a stay-at-home mom", which is absolutely true. Apparently, however, I am growing increasingly weary of that label, or any label, really. I find them too confining a space for the richness of my day-to-day life. What other people think a stay-at-home mom does is probably not what she actually does do. Unless those other people stay at home themselves.
Ultimately, I think that the answer to the question must fit the time and space in which it is asked. The appropriateness of the answer will be dependent upon the set and setting. And maybe that's the beauty of what I do...what we all do, really. There is actually so much to it, that we cannot be defined by that question. We can choose to answer it however we like and not be confined by the rules of the past where the answer must always be a way of assuring your entrance into the Club of Earners. I think, in the end, I will answer with the barest of truths. "I am incredibly busy; it changes from day to day." If they are terribly curious and insist on pressing me for details, I will gladly give them an example of a Day In The Life. But I don't really expect to have to.