A Homemaker

My whole entire life I've wanted to be a homemaker. My mom was a homemaker for most of her life while we were kids, my grandmothers have been homemakers while their kids were at home, and all of the women I look up to the most are homemakers. The other day I was reading back through an old journal. I do this from time to time as I love to re-live and remember what has happened in my life. I love to feel how I felt and think about how things are now compared to what they were. I know I'm not the only one who does this... but maybe I do it more then I should.

Anyway, as I was reading I came across an entry from shortly after Brad and I were married in 2005 (has it really been almost 4 years?!). In this entry I was working full time as a self employed preschool teacher and Brad was in college full time while working at a golf course on the side. Money was tight, time was tight...and we were learning how to be married and what that looked like for us. What an adventure! Those were sweet times, however, according to this entry I was struggling. I was anxious for the days when I could stay home and care for our house. I had visions of "sugarplums" - having a clean house, organized closets and warm meals on the table for Brad when he got home. As much as I loved being a teacher, there was just something internal that bugged me about being away so much from the place I was responsible for keeping up. And as the weeknight dishes piled up, the laundry mound grew and the dustbunnies continued to take over our kitchen floor... the more my angst grew. Brad has never been the kind of husband to hint, "hey, the house is looking pretty bad", or anything like that - so this was just all me. But, I got tired of using my entire weekend off to clean up the house. I felt robbed of my time with Brad and I just wondered if things would always be like that. In this journal entry I poured out my heart about my desire to stay home and take care of things...

Fast forward to now...

I love being home. I love taking care of Ava; making sure she's rested, fed and clean. It's a joy that surpasses everything else in my life, aside from my relationship with God and my husband, of course. :) And after all those years of dreaming and waiting to be at home. Would you believe that I am still working on being good at it?! I thought it would come more naturally. That at the sight of a dirty dish I would gracefully walk to the sink and care for it...or that there would never be loads of laundry to do because I would be weeks ahead of all that. And I never imagined my carpets would have as many specks and dots on them as they do now. Where have I gone wrong? The first couple of weeks post baby I was really hard on myself. I couldn't physically keep up with a newborn, have dinner ready and a spotless house (we DO have 3 floors). I felt like a failure which all added to the bad combination of post partum hormones. :) But now, even when I'm rested and able I'm still not in a hurry to dust the furniture or mop the kitchen floor. This bothers me. I so want to be the kind of woman that cares for the upkeep of her home. I want to be able to host and entertain, bless others with our apartment space...and more importantly express my love to Brad and Ava by keeping this place kept up and organized. I'm sure I'm being way to hard on myself. But, after reading through my journal and thinking that I used to be so eager and passionate - I guess I'm just wondering where that passion has gone. I'm praying to get it back. Some days its here, but this week...no where to be found.

I found that cartoon online yesterday and its just funny for me to look at, so I thought I'd share.

Fellow wives and mothers - a day at a time, right?! A day at a time. :)