Potpourri Thoughts

Ugh! I am a TERRIBLE homemaker. Truly, I am. I think I am a great mom, and a great wife, but I am an awful homemaker. It's something I set a goal for 2008 to work on - I actually phrased it "embrace being a homemaker". One of the reasons I fail so miserably at it is because I just despise doing most homemaking duties. You know, dishes, toilets, vacuuming, laundry, etc. I never have liked it, but I always had the excuse that I was working all the time and didn't have enough of it to keep the house orderly. Plus, I was never home, and never being home means never being around to make a mess to begin with. But now I stay at home, and all Shaelyn and I do is make messes (Shaelyn especially). Except now homemaking IS my job - and I don't have any more excuses as to why I don't do it.

Oh wait...

I'm working on a quiet book that is completely consuming my every free moment! Yeah, that'll be my excuse for this month anyway.

Our entire downstairs has been taken over. Taken over by my quiet book/crafting supplies, by my entire gospel library that I use each week to prepare my Sunday School lessons, by every square inch of surface area that is at least 3 1/2 feet off the ground covered with things I don't want Shaelyn to touch but need to be easily accessible for me, by paperwork I never seem to go through... Ugh!

While Michael was out of town for so long, the problem just compounded. I had absolutely no energy to clean, to maintain, to pick up, anything. And things just got worse. My heart goes out to every single mother out there. How do they do it? How do they have the energy to work, take care of the kids, take care of themselves, take care of the house, and still keep a smile on their face? And they usually have more than one kid, too. Amazing women!

So I decided that the main reason (well, actually the main reason for the mess is my laziness, so a major contributing factor) for the mess was the fact that I needed all of these things to be easily accessible, and I just don't have enough practical storage space for this stuff. My hall coat closet is completely crammed full of all our miscellaneous items, and our under the stairs closet is strictly ark items - and pretty full I might add. So I decided to clean out some cupboard space in the kitchen and make room for all my craft items, my church books, Shaelyn's outside toys that can't stay outside but that she can't play with inside (so they therefore cannot be within her reach or eyesight for her to whine for them), all my lesson creation supplies, and everything else that has been taking over our space. The result is a very organized looking cabinet. And a clean house. I guarantee it won't look this way next week.

Now I just have to finish this quiet book, and this all-consuming project can finally be put to rest. Why is it taking me so long? Partially because it's elaborate, partially because I'm a novice (read: very novice) seamstress, so everything takes a million years to get right, and partially because I am SUCH A PERFECTIONIST!!!!! Top that off with the fact that I can only work on it when Shaelyn's sleeping (which gives me 2 hours during her nap and 2 hours after she goes to bed before I'm ready to crash, and that's if I devote all the time to the book, and not to cleaning, blogging, paying bills, or anything else), and this is a year long project.

Last night I really got on a roll with a page and decided to stay up until completing it. I stayed up until 2 am working on it, but finished it. It looked great, and I was so proud of my work! Then I put it in it's proper place in the book, only to discover I had sewn it in the wrong place. I did this once before and just let the pages be out of order. But this page is part one of a two page spread and has to be in the right place, or the spread doesn't even make any sense. I went to bed dejected, totally deflated from my high I was on just 5 minutes before, basking in the pride of my work. Today during Shaelyn's nap, I ripped out the entire page and started over. Tonight maybe I'll finish it, again.

But at least the house is clean.

For now...