It has been hard for me to incorporate "blogging" into my lifestyle, hence few entries.
Lately I have been so encouraged by the e-mail list Making It Home http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MakingItHomeMagazine/. This week we are decluttering our laundry rooms and trying to make them more pretty (or less ugly, in my case). Our laundry area is in the garage, which isn't so terrible, but since it *is* in the garage, that is technically my hubby's space, which means it is not quite a visual masterpiece! I can go out there and get rid of some unused cleaning supplies and even freecycle http://www.freecycle.org/ some items (like the thousand or so green scrubbies from Costco). I haven't started yet because I am constantly reading my MIH e-mails (don't tell Mrs. Catherine!).
Homemaking has been my main hobby for probably my whole conscious life. When I was little, I "noticed" things, as my mother put it. When I was about eight, my mother told my girlfriend, after I had vacuumed the front of the wall air conditioner (dust in the little holes, remember those types of air conditioners...are they stilll around?), "She is really starting to notice dirt." Well, if it hadn't been my idea to "notice dirt," that praise from my mom would have surely encouraged me to notice it!!
When I was single, and this might seem like maybe not so emotionally healthy to some of you (the others of you, well, we are kindred spirits, aren't we?), I would rush home from work on Fridays (I got off at noon Fridays) to CLEAN my apartment. I loved it that I could get home to do the cleaning before my roommate got home later. I know, I know...sort of weird, but I really just LOVED to clean. There are reasons that I had such an obsession, and I acknowledge that there are "better" things to do than clean house, but I really did enjoy it immensely.
I don't really "get" to clean much nowadays, because my children do much of the cleaning, by necessity. First necessity is that I literally don't have time to clean all that needs cleaning, and second necessity is that my children need to know how to run a household, be part of a family/team that is in the business of accomplishing joint goals (the running of the household so we can be off to bigger and better things, but the house stuff must be done or we can't function, can we?).
Today is a "stay home" day, I hope, apart from the library trip and the chiropractor trip. Oh, and my poor 11 yo son has been begging for a haircut (OK...I admit it, sometimes things get out of hand around here).
My goals for today are to finish my morning routine, do SWR with four of my students (http://home.mindspring.com/~teachingkids/ is a good website to get acquainted with this superior language arts program), help dd with her quilt for the quilt show on Saturday, get dinner on, spend 30 minutes in my laundry room, and read aloud. I know there are other things to do, but they are written on my formal list.
Onward and and homeward!! |
