The Art of Housekeeping (or something like that).

I have said it before, and I know I will say it again (maybe many times) - I am not one of those women who knew she was destined to be a housewife., Who dreamed of nothing else but taking care of her children and home day in and out for years on end.

 I don't glow every morning and serve a four course breakfast to 4 cherubs sitting at the kitchen table with perfect manners. I don't love every minute of parenting. I don't make my clothes from scratch, or knit, or home school, or worship the Lord so perfectly that he just bestows a grace like no other on my heart to help me get all of the work done with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

 I do not have an awesome cleaning schedule down where every Monday I scrub the floors and wipe down the base boards all while baking bread from scratch. My children do not obediently wash the windows until they are streak free every Tuesday. I do not walk out back to the chicken coop on Wednesday to wring a chickens neck, boil it, and pluck its feathers to eat it for dinner that night. I do not sit by a fire on Thursday night knitting and sewing amazing things from the yarn of the sheep I keep in the side yard on my property. And on Friday, I do not do a weeks worth of laundry by hand on a wash board and hang them out to "dry" in the freezing December temps.

 Nope. That is definitely not me - not even a little itty bitty  bit. So often I WISH I was that woman. I see her regularly on the blogs that I follow. These Wonder Women are inspiring to me, and I so wish I had their skills and talents.Oh, I have definitely tried to be like them. I have tried writing down different cleaning schedules, and menus, and laundry schedules, and grocery shopping days. All of which have EPICALLY failed.



Image Source Page: http://stmtz.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-didnt-anyone-tell-me.html

I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to keep some sort of schedule since my kids have gone to school to try and maintain the kind of home that I think I should have. I want to be able to create a clean, spotless home. With the laundry always done. Meals always planned out. Healthy, locally, sustainably grown food always in the refrigerator.

It is no wonder that I almost always feel like I am going upriver without a paddle! I think I need to be more realistic with myself in a lot of different areas of my life. Last week when I hit rock bottom I started to REALLY look at a lot of things in my life. Some things I really liked, and others - not so much. But hitting rock bottom for me was a good thing because as the saying goes "It is always darkest before the dawn."  I still have the same feelings that I did in last weeks posts, BUT I am doing everything I can to change my PERSPECTIVE on some of those things, and it is making all of the difference in the world.

One of the biggest things that I need to start looking at is the fact that who I am inside, and the qualities I possess may be different from my current ideals.  I would love to have the Pottery Barn home that is so immaculate that you could eat off of the floor.  I admire the woman who can pull off that type of home environment. But I think I need to decide if it is REALLY worth the effort to try and have that type of home. Maybe, the stress I have been putting on myself to be this type of perfect housekeeper is just a load of crap. I mean, when I die will it REALLY matter if there was a cobweb that sat in the corner of my home for a bit?

Yes, I want the "stuff" in my home put away. Yes, I want my counters wiped down, and my floors swept and mopped. But do I really need to wipe down the base boards every week? Do I really need to take a Q-Tip in the hard to reach crevice's of my home to try and get the dirt out? Do I really need to pull the stove out from the wall every week to wipe down the wall behind it?

There are some women out there who are fabulous housekeepers who get their homes cleaned in minimal time and they look wonderful. It takes me DAYS to get my house this clean, and that is when it is already picked up to begin with.

Maybe I am just not cut out to have a perfectly spotless home. Maybe I need to learn to be okay with that.