Homemaking

[Aroha]

Quite a few people here seem to find a fair bit of fulfilment in your homemaking. Do you have any favourite sites that inspire you?

[awakenedsoul]

I love homemaking. I already mentioned the Down To Earth blog to you. That one helped me immensely. I usually just google a subject, and follow that. If you search on some of the old threads here, there used to be a really neat lady who was a moderator here named Mr. M. She was very into the home. You could find some inspiring, upbeat material there...

[Tussiemussies]

Yes, Mrs. M. was a great homemaker. I also like it too....

[Aroha]

Thanks awakened soul for recommending that site, it is both inspiring and a good source of other links.

Yesterday I took down curtains, stitched the tape back on where it was coming off and rehung with some extra hooks and they are looking a lot fresher even though I didn't actually wash them this time. Then I put a fresh pot of chrysanthemums on the table and I like the effect. Baby steps here ladies, I've never been one for doing much more than the basics.

[awakenedsoul]

Oh, I love it! It's an art. My mom is super talented when it comes to the home. I grew up in a neighborhood where all of the homes were beautifully cared for...it was wonderful. That was a different era. Women really took pride in cooking, cleaning, taking care of houseplants, etc. All the details make such a difference. I've got to get out in the garden now and do some more weeding...

[Blackdog Lin]

What awakenedsoul said: it's an art. Unfortunately, I'm not very artistic. :)

So I pick and choose and do the best I am willing to do. Cooking (truly I would classify it as just frugal homestyle cooking): oh yeah. It's my hobby and relaxation and source of creativity. Cleaning: ummm, nope. Enough to allow other people into the house, and keep the health dept. away, but that's it. Hate it. Interior decorating: I suck. (see "I'm not very artistic" above). Yard and garden: the same, there's nothing very artistic about it but I do keep everything trimmed and weeded (well, in July and August, you couldn't tell it looking at the veggie garden); but the trees and shrubs are all trimmed and the beds around the house are weeded and the lawn is kept mowed and weedeated, and there are pretty well-tended annuals in pots all around.

BUT: a large part of being a homemaker is.....how do I want to say this.....making a happy family and being a welcoming host. And (in spite of my failures with raising my son) I feel overall that I AM a good homemaker. One that makes (well, tries hard to make) a happy home.

[awakenedsoul]

I think you're very artistic, Blacdkdog Lin. You're a great writer and so funny! So true what you said about making a happy family and being a welcoming host. (or hostess.) I'm sure that you are a good homemaker overall. Your positive attitude shines through in your writing.

[Blackdog Lin]

Well you just made my evening! Thank you for the kind words!

[awakenedsoul]

You're welcome. I'm glad to hear it. I can't think of any other homemaking sites offhand, Aroha. Oh, Flylady is popular. I don't follow her, but a lot of people do...

I mopped my floors today. It sure makes a difference!

[Aroha]

Flylady is a great site for decluttering and organising, but I wouldn't have thought of it for the feminine sort of immersion in homemaking that I was thinking about when I started this thread. It's more about doing as little as possible as efficiently as possible to keep your household clean and running smoothly (and I'm all for that!!!!)

[Blackdog Lin]

Aroha - I kinda see what you mean. True homemaking. I always thought I was born and bred to be a homemaker.....but life and lack of finances got in the way. You know, not enough hours in the day, not enough money in the pot.

I truly cannot imagine anyone these days having the time and energy to be a "homemaker", in the sense of the word I'm imagining. Homemade cooking, frugal decorating, time-intensive (and necessary) childrearing, keeping up with friends.....it's all so 50's. And it seems all so impossible today with families having to keep up with 2 or 3 or 4 jobs just to keep the lights on and food in the fridge.

I had it easier, 30 years ago, and it was hard enough then.

[awakenedsoul]

Aroha, I don't follow her. I just have heard a lot of women mention the site on other forums. She's not my style, either.

Blackdog Lin, I kind of live that way, without the husband and kids. I've always liked that stuff, though. The routines are comforting to me.

I was talking with my neighbor today about it. She stays home with her daughter, who's a toddler. They have one car, (her car died,) and rent a very small house. They don't use credit cards and they just bought a car for cash with a couple thousand dollars. She used to be a nanny, and she really wanted to raise her daughter herself. She said they don't do extra curricular activities. She walks her daughter to the horses across the street from me and the little girl feeds them carrots. I give them half of my bag of carrots from Costco. Somehow they're doing it. She's a really sweet person, and I love talking with her. I told her I'd use zipcar if we had it here. For some people, (depending on their debt,) it's actually cheaper if the wife stays home. When I was growing up, my mom didn't have a car and she had four kids. We just took the bus, and lived on a very disciplined budget. We liked staying home. We didn't go out to dinner and we didn't go on vacations. That's all we knew, and we thought it was great.

I hope I don't sound like I'm challenging you. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just happy for my neighbor that she can swing it. She told me she doesn't care about the SUVs, electronics, etc. She just wants to raise her daughter. They seem really happy and genuine.

[Aroha]

....it's all so 50's.
lol. It feels kinda crazy to be hankering for that now, after all that the women of the 70s went through to get us out of the home and back into the workforce so we could feel more "fulfilled".

Seeing your list though makes me wonder if it is all maybe too much for one person, and perhaps some of us can only do one or two of the aspects well at the expense of other areas.

For example, I chose to stay home with my children, for the most part, but even so I did not manage through all those years to do the decorating, gardening and maintaining of outside friendships as well. It was pretty much cooking and childcare, with a bit of cleaning thrown in when things got bad enough. No regrets, but now it's time to pick up some of those other balls.

[Aroha]

I'm just happy for my neighbor that she can swing it. Good for her, she has placed the highest priority on what is most important to her, willingly forgoing other things. She is so brave and I'm sure she won't regret it.

[catherine]

It feels kinda crazy to be hankering for that now, after all that the women of the 70s went through to get us out of the home

Even though I came of age in the Women's Lib era and everyone celebrates the Sally Rides and the Hillary Clintons and Gloria Steinems, I have to say that my female heroes are largely some of the women I recall from when I was young who were great housekeepers. My own mother was not one of them, so I would marvel going to some of my friends' houses where everything just had an aura of calm and peace, simply because of how things were kept.

My MIL and I had a mutual admiration society--she admired me because she considered me "clever" because I went to college and had a good job, and I admired her because her house was so well-kept, and even though it looked effortless, she was dedicated to doing what needed to be done to maintain her home the way she wanted it.

I am more like my mother, unfortunately, and was quite disorganized when my kids were growing up. I'm better now--I suspect I have some kind of ADD, because I get very easily overwhelmed by stimuli. With less stuff going on with my empty nest, I feel so much more in control of my environment.

Homemaking is definitely an art, and an important one. And a very underrated one.

[rosarugosa]

I've always worked full time plus, but DH & I have been a good homemaking team. DH cooks, washes dishes, does errands, tends the lawn. I clean the house, garden, decorate, do laundry.
I've always thought a bouquet of fresh flowers was the ultimate magic trick for making a room feel instantly wonderful.

[Aqua Blue]

This discussion reminds me of my 3 yr old niece. She walked into my house the other day and said "Ah, you have a lovely home." She must have heard that comment somewhere and was just waiting to use it. I managed to keep a straight face and say, Why thank you what a nice thing to say.

I like a lot of the things that go into making a home. I used to have a large garden, but can no longer do that. But I do enjoy getting a piece of furniture from the thrift store and turning it into something useful. Right now I am thinking about finding a coffee table and turning it into a hassock. I bookmarked how someone did that on pintrest. I also have been thinking about painting a dresser I have in the spare bedroom. I have been looking for ideas to do that.

The homemaking thing I find hard is cooking for one person. The past couple of weeks one of my brother's has been working on a pavilion at my house after work, and I have been making supper for us. I have enjoyed having someone else to cook for, altho I do remember getting tired of cooking all the time when I had too, lol

[pinkytoe]

I work full time but find my greatest serenity when at home in a tidy environment. It never amazes me how much time just doing weekly chores takes let alone the extras. It often feels like two full-time jobs. Just last night, I was hand-watering some garden beds and wanting so badly to spend some time weeding and cleaning it up but had to get ready for work the next day instead. Most of my neighbors hire out all their household duties so I feel like such an odd duck sometimes actually wanting to keep my own house in order.

[iris lily]

This discussion reminds me of my 3 yr old niece. She walked into my house the other day and said "Ah, you have a lovely home." She must have heard that comment somewhere and was just waiting to use it. I managed to keep a straight face and say, Why thank you what a nice thing to say. .. l

That's so funny! And way cute. 3 years old and setting out to be Miss Manners, cute.

[Float On]

Arohr, though of you this morning when I was flipping thru the AARP magazine that came in yesterday's mail. It had a great article on de-cluttering.
One of my favorite sites was frugal-families.com the forums (pre facebook) were so active (a lot of my facebook friends are from that site actually). Homemaking is a big deal there. So many tips I've picked up over the years of it's transformation from frugalmoms to frugal-families.

Probably one of the biggest tips was in making a yearly house calendar. I still put big house goals on the calendar - changing filters, washing windows, washing all window coverings, reminders to crawl around the walls of the house with my tiny broom to sweep and polish the baseboards, reminders to open/close the vents under the house, flipping mattresses that need flipping, moving/re-arrange furniture (so the space under those furniture items gets cleaned), cleaning the stove, etc... Some things you just never think of until you realize it hasn't been done for several years but if it's on my yearly calendar then I get it done.

[Aroha]

Thanks, Float on, another site for me to check out :) I admire your ability to stick to that kind of calendar, I expect it would help prevent that problem of everything being left undone for so long that it all ends up needing to be done at once.