Hello again friends, and thanks for dropping by today! I know I said I’m not sure which direction entirely this blog is going to take, but I am feeling as though I need to dip my toe in with some ideas that are floating around in my mind and in my heart. And since in the last blog post I talked about how am becoming more of a homemaker, I figured this might be a good place to start, with five simple things a homemaker should do.
Now, I’m not an expert homemaker, but I was raised one. My mom is the real deal when it comes to homemaking–she cooks, cleans, manages the household income, she raised us, and ran most of the errands. Those of you who are familiar with the Bible will understand when I say she was a real Martha. My mother did so much for us that we had to do very little well into our adult years. And while I wasn’t the kind of child who wanted to follow in those homemaking footsteps (I was too much of a creative) being around someone who was a Martha bled into me and I do know the things a homemaker should be doing.
But before I begin, I want to state again, that homemaking is love. That’s at the heart of it. And all that hard work my mom did, things that took such priority in her life, was because at the heart of it was love.
Create a Vision For Your Home
In this modern world, our home is often a stop over place for sleep and a quick meal or two. So many people spend hours and hours out of the home, working, commuting, driving their kids to activities and the home is a place where we stop for only a few hours to chill before we go to sleep for the night. In fact, so many people I know don’t even enjoy spending time at home. They would rather be out and about.
While there is nothing wrong with socializing or being outside of your home, this can mean that your home sometimes doesn’t feel like a place of comfort and rest, which is what your home is supposed to be. I love my home and I have always wanted my home to be a place of comfort and rest, but in order to create that feeling, we first have to have a vision for our homes.
If you want your home to functional and simple, that’s a vision. If you want your home to be cozy and welcoming, that’s a vision. Ask yourself what do you want to feel when you are at home, and what you want others to feel when they enter your home. Then, set about making your home exactly that. Part of this might come with paint colours, decor choices, or it might come more with the function of a room. Maybe one room is a quiet library or reading and meditation room, maybe another is the space where you entertain and cook meals and another room is for socializing. Bringing that vision to life, however slowly, makes your home a place you love and as well as a place of comfort and rest.
Cook from Scratch
One thing homemaker should be doing is cooking from scratch. Part of making a home a home is the meals we have with our family, and with our friends when we have guests. Food is nourishment. It fuels our bodies. But we all know that the food today is highly processed and full of ingredients that our bodies don’t need. Those ingredients are harming us instead of nourishing us a lot of the time. They are full of things that mess with our nervous system and endocrine system. Those processed foods are making us sick. And this is why it’s really important to cook everything from scratch. While I’m not as good at this as my mother was, I do try and cook using real ingredients rather than stuff from a jar, bottle or box.
I know some of us are busy–we have full time jobs, young kids, events we have to get to. But there are simple ways to create great meals that aren’t hugely time consuming. Bread your chicken cutlets and keep the in the fridge overnight, make your own dressing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar or lemon juice and your favourite herbs and salt. Find one pan meals that include protein and healthy veggies. And for those of you who are full time stay at home homemakers, I know you can pop other suggestions into the comments for us on tips to make cooking from scratch easy. The truth of the matter is, our mothers and grandmothers cooked from scratch using real ingredients they could identify and point to in nature, and they were every bit as busy and tired as we are today.
Have a Budget
Everyone should have a budget, and this one seems like a no brainer, but managing money isn’t always easy and isn’t always something we are good at. I’m certainly not the best with working with finances, but I’m lucky enough that my husband can look at the numbers and create a budget and then we live within that budget. This is really important because living outside of your means, not having enough for a rainy day, is going to one day bite you in the butt. There are a lot of budgeting apps and courses out there that will help you make a list or spreadsheet or create a system where you can see how much money is coming in and then allocate for every expense–from your mortgage and tax bills to how much toilet paper is costing you. Seeing all of this will help you realize where you’re paying your money out to, and suggest to you ways you can save money. When you really steward that money, you’ll not only have enough for a rainy day, but also can work towards bigger dreams like the house in the nicer neighbourhood or private school for your kids.
Have a Cleaning Routine
I know a lot of us really hate cleaning. When I shifted my mindset about cleaning, it totally changed the way I perceived cleaning and how I felt about it. And now cleaning isn’t something I dread and resent and grumble over. But having something of a routine certainly does help as well. There are lots of different ways to develop a routine, but do whatever works for you. Some people have a laundry day, others do a load of laundry a day, for example. Some people clean all weekend to really get to stuff they haven’t gotten to during the week, while others do a little every day. Again, there are a lot of systems and schedules out there you can find to help you figure out what routine is best for you.
Right now for example, I do most of my cleaning and chores Thrusdays-Sundays because I work Monday-Wednesday. I’m able to really space out the cleaning tasks so that I don’t feel like I need to clean my whole house in one day, or one weekend. But when I return to work full time, I know that I will have to figure out some other system because I won’t be able to do all or most of my laundry on Thursday anymore as I currently do.
I’ll pass along a little secret from my Martha mom: Don’t let the housework pile up. When I lived on my own, I used to mostly shrug this off because I didn’t make much of a mess and it was easy to get all my cleaning done in a relatively short period of time. But now that I have a family, I see the wisdom in this. In one day my house goes from being perfectly clean to a whirlwind of plates and pots and pans and toys and crumbs. So whatever schedule/system/routine you adopt, keep that piece of wisdom in your mind as well because honestly, my mom was right.
Be Present for Your Children
We live in a very distracted world. Chances are, you are reading this on your phone. And we all know that our phones, social media, all of this digital stuff, is very addictive. It’s designed to be addictive. So in today’s modern world, it’s very hard to be present. Especially for our kids. But children need so much from their parents–time, attention, care, understanding, and the more we study child development the more we understand how important those early years from 0-5 years are. The years that are hardest for us as parents, that go by in the blink of an eye, are the most important for our kids. So do give your little ones all of that love and patience and attention. Don’t pay more attention to your phone, or even, to housework.
There is a time for everything, a season for all things, so be sure to take the time out of your day to really nurture your kids with hugs, kisses, wholesome foods, story time, outside play time. All of this requires you take time out of your busy day and put your own wants (like to just read a book) on the back burner, but all of this is more important than that book or that sink full of dishes. Both will be waiting for you later, but your children only have one childhood, and that childhood only lasts so long. It’s likely easy to get caught up in doing all the things–cooking, cleaning, running errands, paying bills and such (and even working a full time job in a lot of cases) but taking that hour out of your day, ten minutes here and here to love on your kids is the greatest gift you could give them and is definitely the work of every homemaker.
Final Thoughts
Thanks for hanging in right till the end! I hope some of this resonates with you and perhaps inspires you in your own life’s journey. There are many other things homemakers should be doing, but I thought these five were really important and this topic has been swirling around in my head for a while now, and it’s nice to be able to finally share them with you.
Do you have any homemaking tips? Share them in the comments below.