A friend of mine from over at Home Sweet Home(school) has started a new linky/bloghop thing-a-ma-bobber on learning to calm the chaos of our homes/routines/life, etc. Well, what perfect timing as I’d already snapped a few photos this morning for a blog post that was already simmering in my mind. It’s perfect for this week’s questions I think!
What’s motivating you to do things differently? What’s your pet peeve right now, in terms of your home and schedule, something you have the power to change?
A few years ago we had a friend stay with us for a couple months after an unfortunate situation at the appartment where she’d be living. Her view of life was a little bit different than mine. Perhaps it was because, as a single she had more time for herself. Perhaps she just knew the secret to happiness. I don’t know. She taught me, though, that life was for living and it was important to do little things that make you happy. A special bottle of wine, a piece of rich dark chocolate, a bouquet of flowers, a new handmade soap. The little things that you do for yourself can totally change your outlook. After she left, I tried out her theory and she was right. It felt good to treat myself nice. One of the main ways that I did so was to create beauty in my home. Gathering flowers, arranging center pieces or just little nicknacks on a shelf, baking something with quality ingredients to make the house smell wonderful. I was proud of making my home a nice place to be but mostly, I was doing things that made me happy.
Somewhere along the line I stopped doing it. I think it was moving to a more run down home where, try as I might, I had a hard time seeing the beauty. The place was too small for the amount of things we’d accumulated over the years. Being a 135+ year old house it had one closet in TOTAL. With a home business and homeschooling it was crowded. Throw in a baby and it was chaos. However, I’m beginning to remember how nice it felt to make things beautiful for the family. When Morgaine asked to pick flowers, I told her she could. They are lovely, aren’t they?
It’s just too bad that the rest of the room looks like this……
It’s not terrible, but there is stuff around. Lots and lots of stuff. It is really, really rare that all my dishes get done. The dish rack NEVER leaves my counter. It is usually especially bad on a Monday morning because my husband doesn’t understand my need for order and spends all weekend telling me to sit down and relax when I try to clean. It leaves me playing catch up ALL week only the have the weekend come again, and the place to blow up.
I’m motivated to come up with a solution so that I can feel comfortable creating beauty in my home again. I miss it and it makes me a much happier Mum to be around. I want to be more present to my family and not always feel like I am lost in a never ending maze of chaos. I think the things that gets me the most behind is the fact that I do get behind on the weekend. I think I need to come up with a way to schedule my time so that we can get our errands and projects done, keep up with the basic cleaning things and still have my husband feel like I take time to relax. I’m not exactly sure what I can do, yet, but I’ll work on it. I think it also feels so endless because I take care of pretty much everything related to the house and childcare I need to come up with a way of having people (the big people included) take part in putting away their own things (in the right places) so that when it comes time to the big cleaning I can focus on that instead of spending so much time of the things that I feel like I shouldn’t have to deal with. Any hints for getting people to take part would be greatly appreciated. Right now, it is only the baby and I that seem to thrive on order!
I look forward to participating in this linky on a weekly basis, on Mondays, so that I can stay motivated to make the changes that I think will bring more harmony to our home. I hope that you will visit Home Sweet Home(school) to check it out as well!
Real Life: Unscripted 
Excellent point! I used to buy flowers but got out of the habit. We have some things in our yard that bloom, and sometimes the girls make bouquets, but it’s hit or miss. (Like, I missed the lilies of the valley this year. They bloomed, I saw them briefly near the end of their bloom, and didn’t get to smell their delicious fragrance.) It would be a good thing to be more deliberate about seeking beauty.
Now, getting people to take responsibility around the house… that’s a tough one. I get so tired of nagging. It shouldn’t require nagging, should it?
p.s. Thanks!