Homemaking

Every time I fill out paperwork and they have you check the box by the type of occupation you have, I usually mark "homemaker" if it's available, even though I guess stay at home mom is more to the point since I think everyone should be a homemaker even if they aren't always at home. ;-) But anyway...

In the interest of actually being a homemaker and generally improving my life, I've been watching "Clean House" again. I tried watching "Hoarders," but it really just grosses me out too much and since a shovel is a little more extreme than what my house needs, "Clean House" is great for getting ideas on how to organize, arrange, design, etc. Whenever I'd take personality tests, there was always this mention of how people with my personality type are supposed to have beautiful, functional homes and I just went, "Umm, that's one thing that definitely doesn't fit me." But as time passes I find myself more attracted to that becoming me or to becoming that.

I have the basic skills necessary for keeping things fairly minimal. My mom was really good at this with us and so growing up it just seemed like the most natural thing in the world to go through all my stuff a couple times a year and get rid of anything I didn't really use or need. I didn't know till watching reality TV that not every child has this kind of instruction growing up. :-P

However, one thing I somehow missed even though I'm fairly certain my mom did it and I guess I just wasn't paying attention...

Was replacing the things you don't need with things you do need, will use, will improve your life, etc. I lived as a perpetual poor person. I remember when we first moved to Arkansas, I stacked some of the boxes from our stuff in my closet as a makeshift dresser and for some reason it didn't occur to me that I might "need" a dresser. Not to worry...my parents found one at an auction eventually, so I did actually phase out the cardboard boxes. ;-) But taking what I have and trying to make it work adequately without making significant alterations to how things are has been my M.O. for as long as I can remember. New paint colors? Reconfiguring cabinets? Even rearranging furniture or buying a new pillow or blanket? These are things that do not occur to me....

In fact, yesterday, I was fretting about how we'd fit a cooler in the trunk of our car when my husband pointed out that he could easily remove the helium tank that was in there from his work (presumably to get replaced whenever he had the opportunity). For some reason, it never crossed my mind that I could remove an item that he had put in there. I mean, it would have been quite temporary and I'm sure I should have been able to figure out that, logically, there was no reason I couldn't just put it back after we returned. But no...it just didn't cross my mind at all.

And then when we were in Texas a few months back looking at the displays of office areas in IKEA, Josh asked me which ones I liked, saying how, though we wouldn't necessarily buy the furniture there, he'd try to get the pieces together to make something similar for me. And then he did. Apparently having desk and office space to my liking hadn't ever occurred to me. Also at IKEA, when we were passing by the kitchens, I remember looking at one space and thinking, "That's awfully small," followed by, "Wait, that's not really any different than our kitchen," which I had never thought of as small up to that point. I mean, I guess maybe it's a perspective thing since I've actually seen tiny kitchens and mine isn't that tiny by comparison. I have full-size appliances and counter space and about a foot or two of extra width in there that many similarly configured kitchens don't have. I can open my oven, my dishwasher, and my refrigerator all at the same time (well, maybe not...I think the oven and dishwasher are right across from each other and might not open all the way at the same time - I haven't tried that).

I think the only thing I really considered changing about our house or furniture was getting fabric to cover some window treatments and asking Josh if I could buy a new bedding set to match the colors better. Otherwise, I haven't ever looked for any art or decorations to put on the walls, no furniture. I was surprised one day a couple years ago when Josh walked in and told me he had bought a toddler bed for Felicity. Apparently needing a bed for her hadn't crossed my mind, either...

I'm telling you! It's just pathetic. Part of the problem was my assumption that furniture always costs a fortune. And my definition of fortune is basically just more than we had on hand. Another issue I had was that we did have a significant decrease in our income for a time and we really were just scraping by, using the vast majority of Josh's income just to cover our mortgage payment and then selling random stuff to pay the rest of our bills. I'm still honestly not sure how we survived, but obviously during that time we weren't thinking of buying things like artwork or furniture. And since I was also pregnant and barely managing food and dishes and laundry and basic housework, how to make things prettier or functional was far from my mind...

Now that I have slightly older kids and more energy, I'm taking more of an interest in making things better. And my kids help motivate me, too, since I need space and time to help them stay busy and teach them things. Plus, my younger child is a climber and into everything, so if I want to keep up with her at all, I have to keep stuff in fairly decent order. The days of leaving tons of random junk on the dining room table are over. Mary will pull it all off and investigate it thoroughly. If it can be opened, she will open it and spread the contents all over the place. I'm a fast learner so we didn't have two many disasters, but we did have a few broken dishes at first.

Laundry is a higher priority now that I actually have two kids dirtying clothes almost faster than I can wash them. I think I used to wait till someone needed work clothes and then just throw everything else in with them, but now that doesn't work so well anymore. So basically my work has multiplied and I'm looking for more efficient ways to go about it. Plus I have to be a lot more disciplined!

Okay, I think I ventured way off course...but you get the idea. I'm staying busy lately trying to get the little things under control and slowly work on projects involving minimizing. I'm trying to get one area at a time conquered and keep up with it so that my progress will be real progress and so I'll see tangible results when I am finally done, not just, "Oh, well, back to trying to clean up the first area again." So lately I've been focusing on keeping the dining table cleared and trying to get closer to keeping up with the dishes better (in other words, having more frequent and longer periods of time where the kitchen is actually clean, where the number of dirty dishes around at any one time could be resolved in about twenty minutes or less instead of two hours). I'm also working on trying to tame the laundry pile and come up with a system that doesn't involve me scrounging for the next size up in clothes for the girls to wear because everything else is dirty. ;-)

One thing I'm really aiming to do soon is clean out my own clothes. I have worn so many different sizes over the last few years that I'm a little concerned I might purge things I will need, but watching "Clean House" has reminded me that clothes can be replaced! So I'm going to try to take a more minimalist approach and think more in terms of, "If I really want this eventually, I can always buy it!" After all, if I have so much stuff I don't use burying everything, even the stuff I have that I really could use will be more difficult to find and manage. So functionally it just makes sense to keep everything limited. And, practically, I really don't have that much in the first place...so I imagine if I really just gave it a good half hour or so I could clean out my closet pretty easily. So I guess I just need to do it...

It's just those pesky "other things" that always need doing...

Grocery shopping
Showering
Feeding everyone
Washing dishes

And of course the kids always need a bit of attention as well and so whenever I do anything else I feel like I'm neglecting them (or I feel frazzled since Mary's climbing and getting into stuff is nearly constant and she's not easily distracted by toys). Ha! I do love it, though, overwhelmed though I may feel at times.