I've been a homemaker for most of my adult life, along with homeschooling all of our six children. I'm in the last years of that 'career,' but I'll never stop being a 'maker of my home.'
Everyone has the power to be a homemaker.(I'm not saying that a homemaker is one who is home full time without a job.) It just takes seeing the importance of the work of making a home. Long before I married at age 24, I was homemaking in the space I called my own, my bedroom.
As a young girl, I was always rearranging my furniture in that small 10x10 bedroom. I always loved the way it felt to make a space feel new and refreshed, and I still do!
I realized as a young married woman that I had power to set the tone in my home. Were we going to live in peace or chaos? I came to despise clutter, waging a war on it for many years. I feel more peaceful when things are tidy - beds made, floors and rugs swept and vacuumed.
I am not obsessive - with six kids that was impossible - but I found a routine that worked for me, actually two routines. First when I had a lot of littles, I had a daily jobs list for every day except for Sunday.
I'd written the jobs for each day on an index card, so on Monday I'd pull the card out and see that the jobs for that day were to vacuum, dust, tidy the play area in the basement. So each person, including me got a job to do and we did it all at the same time, so that within a half hour all the chores for that day were done. It brought tidiness and organization to our lives in busy years.
These days, I clean as I go. The kitchen gets cleaned every day, counters wiped, the sink clean, dishes either drying on the mat on the counter or in the dishwasher. My bathrooms are tidied every day. I wipe down the counters, dust the back of the toilet. Once a week or as needed, I clean the toilet. I've found taking just a few minutes everyday makes a huge difference in the cleanliness of my home. These routines, or ways of cleaning in my home, have worked well for me over the years.
I love bringing coziness and warm to our home in my own style. I'm a firm believer in not copying other peoples style and to find what makes you feel at 'home.'
I'll be talking more about this in the weeks to come. It's a huge passion of mine, and I believe that with all this fear around the coronavirus, more people are spending tons of time at home and looking for ways to be happy in their homes.
How about you? Have you enjoyed being a homemaker? What is your favorite thing about homemaking?
7 comments:
I have been a working Mom and Homemaker and enjoyed both. I love being a Homemaker most of all. My kids and grandkids are all grown now and I miss that. I love and still do baking. I am not a good cook, but I love to bake and share with all the family and friends and I love a clean house. I never judge anyone for not having a perfectly clean one since I worked outside the home for years and it was hard having a clean one while working and raising kids.
Those bowls are beautiful! Where did you get them? 😊
Being at home is a joy to me. I love to have something good coming out of the oven and cooling on the counter. Right now at this moment it is a sort of homemade pizza. The dough came from a mix packet. I love it here. I have to say, I think modern women lose something if they choose not to do this.
I love scenes of domesticity such as your dishes drying with a towel hanging above...it is soothing somehow. My father sometimes described a happiness he felt when he heard clattering dishes. I think this may have had something to do with anticipation of meal preparations or perhaps things being cleaned up. (My mother was not as much into cleaning as he was.)
I have my methods gleaned largely from FlyLady. I am still combatting clutter. I was just in my sewing room this morning and I am beginning to think that most of that stuff could go.
I totally relate. You mention long before you married, you were homemaking in the space you called your own, your bedroom. Same here! I didn't meet my husband till I was 41, so I lived as a single woman till then, but through all those years I loved making my space a comfy and lovely place in which to live and host dinners or tea parties with friends and family.
I love all things that say HOME! I suppose homemaking is my personal passion as is music is Louis Dean's. And I love the way we can express ourselves in the way we decorate. Tonight we are having dinner down at Sherry's on their deck. She has it strung up with lights! Looks like a party. She's making deviled eggs and pulled pork for sandwiches and I am taking a cheese and cracker tray, cotton candy grapes, veggies and dip and cakes with strawberries. Dean made some mead (honey wine) from the bitterweed honey we harvested last year so we are going to try some of that. This year we have kept the bitterweed mowed down until now. The bees can make honey from that in the top supers we just put on each hive and eat on that during the winter! I think our homes are a reflection of who we are. Andnot everyone loves homemaking. That's okay. I know Sherry would rather be out on her tractor than scrubbing floors and hanging up debris. Some people live to eat and others eat to live. I think homemaking is a little like that. It's important to be genuine whatever you do and a clean house is not everyone's cup of tea. I know my own Amber lives in a home of organized chaos. She's not had all her laundry washed, dried and put away in YEARS! IF she did, there's no place to even PUT all of it. I cannot live that way but it works for them. I was over there last Friday and the sink was piled high with dishes and the dishwasher was full of clean ones and the counters were covered. She remembered she had told a neighbor just recovering from surgery that she would bring dinner down. She wasn't the least bit fazed. I unloaded her dishwasher and watched her put together a gourmet meal. Greek grilled chicken, brown rice and roasted broccoli with Hawaiian dinner rolls. We all have strengths and weaknesses and it's a good idea to celebrate what you do best. I am a homemaker ny nature. It comes natural to me and to you but perhaps not for everyone.
From as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a homemaker. It is an important job, and enjoyable if you catch the vision of just how far reaching it can be!! I look forward to reading more of your posts about this role of homemaker.
It's been my greatest delight as a wife and Mother Deanna....homekeeping and creating a soft place to land....great post!
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