Stress-free homemaking. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds impossible? I would post a picture of my messy house, but I am way too embarrassed to go that far; instead I will paint you a picture.
Imagine a large kitchen with lots of counters, a kitchen that a young wife was so excited to build with her husband because it would be a wonderful gathering place and would had the perfect area for future children to sit on barstools and help make cookies and art projects. It had two large openings to the living room so even when the young wife was cooking she could be a part of what was happening in the house.
Now, fast-forward 11 years and 3 children later and imagine this: the dishes have long sense piled up out of the sink, Easter baskets with remaining candy are consuming a corner of the countertops, and a computer and printer have moved into space on one side of the counters. But, the worst part is the large area by the barstools is cluttered with school papers, work, and broken toys waiting to be sewed or glued back together. There is no open area to enjoy cookie cutters and art projects.
Imagine a walk-in closet in the master bedroom with a washer and dryer in a separate room off to the side. The young wife was so excited when her husband built her this nice closet and was able to move the washer and dryer out of the main bathroom for her. There was so much room for storage and you could walk right in and find what you needed.
Fast-forward 11 years, extra people, busier days and you find not only a pile of dirty clothes waiting to be washed, but clean clothes that have not been folded or put away. Some days you can barely walk through the closet because of the amount of clothes spilling out of baskets calling out to be folded. You will see 5 people dig through the pile each morning trying to find that matching sock or favorite shirt.
Jump back to the kitchen. There used to be dreams of wonderful dinners being cooked each night with wonderful smells pouring into the rest of the house. There were counters prepared for chopping veggies and kneading dough.
Fast-forward again and you see a frazzled wife and mom trying to figure out what to eat at 5:00. The meat is still frozen and nothing is ready. Her family is hungry and it looks like it is pizza again (or on occasion a bowl of cereal).
Stress-free homemaking sounds like a fantasy, right? Last week I was able to preview a free 4 part mini-course on taking the stress out of homemaking. It addressed each of the areas talked about above. And, it amazed me! I am not lazy. I don’t like a mess. I used to be extremely organized, to the point that I drove my husband crazy with my lists. The ideas in this course are simple. They are easy to implement. They take huge problems and make them seem so simple.
The truth is, everyone can have a clean house and dinner ready. But, we get so busy. I used to work 40 hours a week and I thought if I could just be at home things would be different. I would have more time to enjoy the day. The house would be cleaner and dinners would be ready earlier.
But, then I got to quit my job and started working on a cleaning business with my husband. In the beginning I was home quite a bit, but the days got busier. I was working at other locations more and more, and when I was home I was usually preparing for the next work day. Being a work from home mom resulted in less time and a messier house. It’s funny that my job was keeping other people’s houses clean while my own home suffered.
For a short time, several months, I was able to just be at home. I was working on some future plans, but nothing that required me to leave the house. During this time my house was the cleanest, but I had the most amount of time to work on it.
When I was working full time I thought it must be so easy for stay-at-home moms to have a clean house and dinner ready, and then I became one. At that time I found out it was actually a lot easier to keep a house clean when the parents are at work and the children are at school or daycare, no one is home to make a mess. But, when you are all home during the day you have to be very strategic to try to keep the house clean. It definitely isn’t easy, so if you are playing the “grass is greener” game for working or staying at home, just stop because neither way is easy.
I read a book once that talked about having a system for things in your life to keep your life running smoothly and efficiently, if you have a system for your daily tasks then you don’t have to try to figure it out each day. The systems that this course teaches are fantastic and can help whether you work 60 hours a week or 0 hours a week.
There are 4 videos that are around 8 minutes each. I am not one to watch things online. I just don’t enjoy it, but I loved these. They were quick and to the point and I could totally relate.
I started to put into practice the things that the courses taught and immediately started to notice a difference. The past two days I have been extra busy and ignored the suggestions and my house was quickly moving back to the picture I painted earlier. The tips work… if you are willing to try. I hope you enjoy!
Leave a Reply