The Evolving Homemaker

*Wow, my computer has been uber wonkey this morning and has given me fits to try to get this post up.  It is late, like WAY late, but nevertheless, it is now up.*

Joining Ginny for the weekly yarn along again this week, motivation is oh so helpful this time of year!

Do you ever get the feeling you just can’t finish anything?  Like the laundry?  The dishes?  Or you can’t finish cleaning the house because you don’t know where to even start?  You can’t finish a book cause your eyeballs won’t stay open any longer at the end of the day?  You can’t finish a sewing project you might have started a year ago because like, there just isn’t time for that?  You don’t seem to have any time to work on your writing because for some reason little people need to eat?  And often?  You can’t handle making dinner from scratch again…cause the mess in the kitchen behind you is just one more thing to add to the list of to-do’s?

Sometimes I just get the nagging sense that I cannot finish anything.  It leaves me with a sense of being completely out of control of all aspects of my life, which leaves me crazy.  This of course, doesn’t bode well for the rest of the family cause how Mama feels…Mama does…crazy is never good.  With this in mind, yesterday I was a mad woman at gymnastics in the morning, in the afternoon at Irish dance class, and after I got home from my beekeeping class just so I could claim victory today.

I. Finished. Something.

In fact, two things!  My daughter’s pink shawl for Christmas is officially done, fringe and all.  The birthday shawl for a little girl who’s birthday is this Saturday, is officially done too!  That is a miracle.  Usually I would be up late the night before the party scrambling trying to finish.  This time, I am done with three days to spare.

I thought after I had finished this one, that I would maybe use bigger needles on the one for my niece for Christmas.  I am a bit sick of looking at the same pattern for two months at a time, but…I like it when it is finished.  I am not sure I want to make the holes any bigger seeing as she is so little, that seems like just more opportunity to snag on something.

Three out of four of the same books as last week.  Left Neglected is OK so far.  I am not raving about it and telling all my friends they have to read it.  I am about halfway through and parts of it seem really ‘forced’.   It irks me when authors who are writing fiction add so much of themselves into a book, i.e. ‘two Harvard coffee cups on the table at breakfast’.  And it seems really unbelievable that the character would be in SO much denial at the moment where I am at.  I mean, not telling your kids for two weeks that you have been in a massive car accident, might die, and have significant brain damage…that doesn’t fly with me.

Yes, I am fiction picky…that is why I gave it up.  BUT, this book may redeem itself in a gazillion of ways since I am only halfway through.  I will let you know!

I also got It Is All Too Much from the library.  Already out of the gate in the introduction I am in love with Peter Walsh and he just might be my hero by the time I have finished the book.  I am heading right now to renew it from the library since changing my life, starting with the house, in three weeks is probably not completely possible.

So that is it, computer problems, house disasters, children who need to eat…but I actually finished SOMETHING…

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My husband said yesterday, “a good book worth reading is full of lots of different chapters.”

When did he get so smart?  I am giving him the credit, even if he read it somewhere else because, the man mostly reads techie geek blogs and listens to podcasts, he didn’t get it from reading Emerson or Thoreau.  So if some famous person said it before him, just for today let him be brilliant.

We were talking about what constitutes a good life.  For some reason at my beekeeping class last week, I wrote that down on a piece of paper.  I did it because sometimes I have a hard time making commitments cause the grass just might be greener on the other side.  For instance, I have big dreams of traveling to exotic places, experiencing life through the colors, scents, and scenery of far off lands, while writing books along the way.  I also have big dreams of having a homestead, growing our own food, having a horse or two, a house built in the 1800′s, a few beehives, and writing books along the way.

The problem is these dreams don’t really fit well together.  One can travel or one can lay down deep roots into the soil, with the seasons, the needs of the bee’s, and the horses taking center stage.   Yes, you could do a little of one with the other, but you could not make a deep commitment to both.  How to reconcile such apposing hopes?

I don’t know.

But I try to think, as I lay on my deathbed one day, what kind of life will I look back upon and think, “Now THAT was a life well lived?”  I know I will be grateful I took the time to spend with my children, because it is really such a short time.  Beyond that?  I am not really sure.  Learning to be present and mindful?  Traveling to India, Nepal, and Ireland?  Keeping horses, and bee’s, and otherwise trying to live a simple life?  Lots of giving and gratitude?

That is why I like what my husband said so much, I can live this chapter now, as it is, and start another chapter in a year, two, five.  In twenty years, God willing, I can start a completely different chapter that has nothing to do with what I wish for today. Whatever the chapters entail, I can do it with presence, all the while knowing that it isn’t forever…it is for now.  It seems important to also not forget to live each day well, throughout the up’s and down’s, so that all the well lived days together will add up to a lifetime of bestsellers.

I rarely claim to have any answers, but I am thinking part of the journey is just that.  Figuring out for ourselves what it means to live life well.  This is your friendly reminder to be mindful of that this week, or at least this moment.  Do you think about what you will want to look back on at deaths door often?  Or do you rarely give it a thought?  Are you just too bogged down by daily to-do’s and the tasks at hand?  Do you have a plan? Or are you barely managing to get through each day sane? Does notoriety matter?  Or are you thinking more nun-hood in a monastery?  Getting to the top of your career or kissing your babies booboo’s? Working for change in the world?  Learning to breathe in the moment?  All of it?  None of it?

What will constitute for you, a life well lived?

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A few weeks ago I got contacted by Emily Matchar for a book she is working on based on what she calls “The New Domesticity”.  You can read all of her blog posts on the subject and chime in with your views on her blog here.  At first I thought she would eat me alive, for the lifestyle I have chosen for the moment, but the more I read her blog the more genuinely interested she sounded in what is causing women to sort of reclaim lost domestic skills over the past few years.  A trend that doesn’t look like it is fading, but actually may be growing.

Why do we want to homestead, grow our own food, learn to knit, can, stay home with the kids, and even home school?

Since she first approached me, I really started to think about WHY.  Why had I chosen this life over one outside the home rocketing to the top of a career in the non-profit world?  Why had I chosen differently than my own Mom?  Why DO I want to learn to knit?  Why DO I want to grow my own food?  What has led me to these choices.

It has been fascinating to think about.  From the fact that I was a latch key kid, to not having any financial independence of my own if I ever needed it.  From how I didn’t really want to get married and have kids, to having kids and homeschooling to boot!  From being an outspoken activist, to returning home with my activism instead.

How did I get here?

Emily asked about my Mom and her feelings of my choices and whether they reflected on her.  I asked her, her response was, “Of course, and we were the generation who discovered that we actually can’t have it all.”  After all, the home was still her realm when she was in it. I often think about that too, some of my friends seem to balance it fine, I think I would be a nut case.  But then again, many of us who stay home and are reclaiming domesticity also have careers we are creating from that.  There are bloggers, published writers, crafters who make side money on Etsy, women who work part time at nights, women who are trying to create a ‘job’ that works more with their chosen lifestyles and not having their lifestyles be dictated by their jobs.

As I said to Emily, whenever we make one choice, another choice is not being made.  That is all.  I chose to stay home with my kids, so  I am not rising up the corporate ladder.  I am trying to create a job of my own as the kids grow with writing, but if I have knit something…a load of laundry hasn’t gotten done.  If I have planted seeds, the kids have played on their own for a few hours.  If I have gotten a blog post up successfully in the morning, the kids have made a mess out of my living room and the dishes from breakfast are still in the sink. I have chosen to home school, so I don’t get a plethora of ‘mommy time’.  These are just choices.  If I decide to go to work, it just means I will lose some time with my children.  We all make choices based on our own experiences, and our own values as to what we deem most important at the moment.

We all choose.  We all choose differently.

I love this new wave of domesticity.  Whether it is for environmental reasons, political statement reasons, reclaiming our finances away form a purely corporate sustained society, just for fun, hobbies to remain sane, to creating jobs that fit more into the life we want to live, I find it fascinating and will be looking forward to reading Emily’s book to see what she finds.

The reason I post this is I am curious, as I am in a circle of people that have mostly made similar choices, what are your reasoning’s? Why do you knit, can, plant a garden with some semblance of success each year, are interested in beekeeping, sustainable living, homeschooling, blogging, etc. etc. etc.?  What on your path led you to this sort of living?  Or, what on your path led you to abhor this sort of homemaking?  What on your path said, “No way I can have it all” and led you to keeping your position in the workforce while raising your children? And does your husband do equal housework while you both work?

Let’s open this dialogue cause one thing that drives me absolutely nutty in the mothering community is why one choice is better than another.  They aren’t.  Organic vs. non/Vaccinate vs. non/Homeschool vs. public/Stay at hom vs. go to work/Co-bed vs. cry it out…blah, blah, blah.  They are just different choices, and I wish we could just support each other more and think we have the answers a little less.

What are your two cents here?

And afterthought: And what is with that, “having it all” we need to drop that like a ton of bricks as mothers.  I think I have it all by staying home, others think they are having it all by doing both, I think this term needs to be put to rest.

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Another week has passed, another yarn along is here with Ginny at Small Things.  Wow, how time flies when you are havin’ fun!

I finished The Help.  It must have been stupendous cause I finished it in a week, while getting all of my other stuff done and not hunkering down in bed for two days as many of my Mama friends joke they did when they read it.  I am not actually sure how I got through it so fast, but I did stay up until 12:39 on Monday night since I so desperately wanted to finish and see how it ended!

This is BIG for me.  I haven’t read a fiction book since Edgar Sawtelle.  No joke.  That was actually the only book I have ever ‘given’ away too.  I was THAT disappointed in the ending.  It made me physically ill…I ain’t lyin’.  But The Help redeemed fiction and I went out and bough five fiction books at the bookstore to celebrate and rediscover a few new gems.

OK, so duh not a lot of knitting got done since I was reading MOST spare moments, but not all.  I only have a few rows left to finish the blue shawl, I did 3/4 of the fringe on my daughters shawl last night, and will easily be beginning the purple one for my niece before next week…I hope.  I am feeling optimistic today! (I can’t show you the pink one cause my little gal is up and running around at the moment)

My reading this week includes The Beekeeper’s Handbook as I just began my beekeeping class last night and am so excited and intrigued, but we have to read two chapters by next week.  Left Neglected is a fiction book I picked up last week that sounded interesting about finding out what is important in life.  I am always searching for that reminder too so I thought it would be up my alley.  And of course How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk, you are supposed to read but one chapter a week so you can practice.   Which actually is working out well, it did give me time to practice the first chapter more instead of plowing on through the book and forgetting everything I read at the begining.

There you have it.  My work is cut out for me for the week, but as I am learning to prioritize my time these days, spending heaps of less time on Facebook for starters, I think I am leaning into more productivity and enjoyment out of the quality of my life.

Happy knitting and reading all, if you have any fiction you just LOVED you should leave me a note telling me which ones so I can check them out!

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I try not to be too narcissistic.  I am on Facebook a lot and I blog.  Maybe I am not trying that hard actually, but something occurred to me last week as I was progressing through organizing our lives, our house, and our schedule.

It is really important, as a mother, and whether a working outside the home or inside the home mother, to make sure that the things you decide to spend your time doing leave you feeling enriched and not only mildly amused or down right stressed or disappointed.  This is not to say that doing laundry should feel enriching, I am not suggesting that, although sometimes when I look at it as providing a service to those I love it actually can be.  Truthfully, I just don’t think about it like that most of the times I do laundry…

What I am talking about is when you leave the house to have time to yourself, going to church, a class you might take, a coffee shop break, the bookstore, out with a friend, thrift-ing, exercising, etc. are you really mindful about which ones make you really feel glorious and which ones are sorta ho’ hum?

I wasn’t.

I noticed as I was working away on a schedule that there were things that I do that were not really serving my greatest good at the moment, but sort of like I was doing them out of habit, or guilt, or a sense of should.  As I became more mindful about the fact that not everything could fit into the schedule well, it made me think long and hard about what I really wanted to be doing with my time anyway. A Mom’s time away is limited, it should be deeply rejuvenating.

Obviously there are things we have to do that we don’t want to do.  I am not talking about those things, yes life requires we show up places we don’t necessarily want to be, but what of the time we are choosing?  How mindful are we of how it makes us feel after we are done?

Once the realization hit that I don’t have all the time in the world, I began to think more about what I wanted the time I do have to achieve.  Peace?  Tranquility? Exercise?  Zone out?  Quiet?  Loud?  Spirit nurturing?  Physical nurturing? Healthy? Unhealthy?  Feeding my passions?  Catching up with friends?  Being alone?

Which ones fill me up?  Which ones drain me? Which ones send me home ready to step into my life renewed?  Which ones stress me out, sending me home more worn than when I left?

I don’t have any perfect answers.  There never are any, and I am learning the hard way.  But if we stop and become mindful about where our energies are going it might completely change the look and feel of our lives, that is if we actually change based on what we discover.

Here is a photo of a painting I did a few weekends back at a class a Mom acquaintance of mine teaches.  I am not Van Gogh, however there was something in the process of painting this that was so…meditative, yet frustrating because I somehow wanted some sort of perfection, relaxing, and soul nourishing in the end when I decided it turned out just beautiful anyway.  It was the first time I had ever painted anything like it, but there was something refreshing about trying an activity that was completely outside of my normal domain.  I enjoyed it so I will be doing it again… it will be making it onto my schedule once in awhile!

Anyway, try something new, try something old, do something invigorating, do something peaceful, whatever you do pay attention to how you feel afterwards.  You may be surprised by what you find out about yourself and about the things you have made a priority in your life. I know I was, and continue to be, because this is a journey.

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Joining Ginny at her weekly Yarn Along again this week.  I missed last week, I was taking it easy on myself and trying to regain some normalcy, whatever that is, in our daily comings and goings.

I am still finishing the blue shawl for our little friend who turns 6 in two weeks.  I am not sure how these other gals at the yarn along finish much more complicated projects in way less time than me, but it is as it is.  I really only have time to knit when we are at the kids activities, an hour here, an hour there, and then no more hours till the next week comes around again.

I am reading How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk and The Help.  I am LOVING The Help, and see why it was such a phenomenon.  I am halfway through and only started a few days ago, which with all the stuff on my plate, that means it is really good.  I am enjoying the other book as well, I am not going to type the entire name out again, it is just too long.  My parenting needed help and this seems pretty much up my alley as far as style.

So there it is.  My less than stellar knitting achievements along with some juicy books.  Maybe the lesson here is: The less juicier the book, the more knitting gets done.  The more juicier the book, the less knitting gets done.

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For the past few weeks my children have been getting whiny.  And they have been fighting.  And they have been throwing temper tantrums when they don’t get their way.  They completely ignore me without threats.  My daughter has been a…difficult one to deal with…to put it nicely.  I have been increasingly stressed out about it and wondering where on earth I have been going so wrong as to have a 7 year old and a 5 year old that seem to be going completely off their rockers.

For twenty minutes last week my daughter screamed at the top of her lungs because I wouldn’t take her to the bathroom at bedtime.  We were all tucked into bed, she is across the hall from the damn thing, she gets set on something and won’t give.  Funny, I was reading How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen And Listen So Your Kids Will Talk as she is doing this.  I breathed a lot.  And didn’t give in.  She finally fell asleep, but it broke my heart.

I was afraid.  What had I done wrong.  Was she going to be this difficult forever.  Was something wrong with her physically?

My son?  Every time you say, “No, we are not going to watch T.V. right now”, “No, you can’t have a treat”, “No, Mommie is not going to do such and such right now” it was like his body was writhing in pain.  He would start whining and contorting himself like Houdini in a straightjacket. Those moments, I was ready to strap myself into a straightjacket of my own.

“What the hell?” I asked myself over and over, “Where on earth did these people come from and what is my part in this?”  I like to blame myself first most of the time.

On Friday my daughter threw a fit in pubic.  I was mortified.  I was tough on her.  I didn’t know what to do really.  By the time we got to the car and buckled in she was asleep.  I started to wonder.  By the next morning I was ready to call Nanny 911, so I posted a question on the Get Born Facebook page on what on earth I was going to do.  Lots of feedback on varying different advice, from the Starbucks drive-thru, which y’all know I appreciate, to making them do chores, to questions asking if she/they have been going through a transition lately…

Transition?  Holy cow…my kids had been through the ringer with me the last two and a half months, and not once had I stopped to think what it had done to them.  Not once.  I was ready to run away to Moab, Utah last week to become a waitress/yoga instructor, yes this is always my fantasy when things get hard, but what on earth where my kids thinking, feeling, needing?  I was too wrapped up in my own stresses to consider the possibility that they might be feeling like they had lost complete control over their lives too.

I got mindful.  Fast.  I looked at our schedules and what we could take out.  I rearranged things so that our days would look more like the days before and the days after.  I told my husband I would be taking time to do my blogs on the weekends in no uncertain terms so as not to take time during the week to be so distracted.  My attitude changed in an instant, and my daughters sorta did too.  We spent most of Sunday perusing a local farm with friends of ours.  I had a lot of TIME with them.  Quality time, and snuggles on a swing with my little girl.

It isn’t going to be easy bringing them back to a feeling that they can count on things, it will certainly be a bigger struggle with my little gal, but wow what a bit of mindfulness can do.  In an instant I was mindful about my kids emotions, and I will be forever grateful for that moment of insight.  They need me in ways that is sometimes hard for me to show up in, but I am willing, God am I willing, to at least try.

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For the last two weeks I have said I wasn’t really sure about The Well-Trained Mind.  I promised that I would finish it, but was sure we were not going to use it in our family.

Well I changed my mind.

Once I got passed the prologue/introduction stage, and read the actual schedules and sections on Reading, Math, History, etc., I actually fell in love with it.  For someone who is completely unorganized and wants to be more organized, this book laid out the way to teach each day, books to use/check out from the library, and how to organize the kids work once it is completed. And I loved how much emphasis it has on reading, checking out lots, and lots, and lots of books from the library, and incorporating interesting reading into almost every subject.

So up my alley. My brain doesn’t work so well organically.  It needs some structure.  This is why I think I get so overwhelmed so easily with things, my brain works best A, B, C.  This book lays my homeschooling out A, B, C.  And that makes me happy. And a whole bunch less stressed out.

I decided to start at the first grade level with all of the classical education books except with math.  My daughter who is in kindergarten and my son who is second grade can do things like history together.  The kindergarten curriculum is pretty easy, read a lot, write some, ask questions, and teach as you go through your day.  For my son, it is a little more complicated.  He is way fine in math, so we are just continuing the Singapore Math we use already and he is at the second grade level.  For reading, it has been an uphill battle.  I am going back and starting 100 Easy Lessons for both kids just to begin again for him and new for her, while also keeping up our work with sight words for him.  For everything else we are starting at the first level of grammar, spelling, working from there.

I am excited.  It feels organized, and it feels like a much higher quality of instruction than the books we get from the enrichment program the kids are in.  From them, we get mostly the books used by public schools and wow, the social studies stuff vs. The Story of the World books in the classical education method is like night and day.

So yes, I am sold.  Where once I was annoyed with what seemed like a method to raise brilliant children who would all be doctors or something, I am now totally excited to be homeschooling this year.

What a difference a week makes!

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As I spent last week with my anxiety slowly but surely creeping up, too much energy spent in my head trying to ‘figure it all out’, not eating well due to time constraints, stressing about all that I couldn’t get done, too much energy spent on all the things that had to be done that weren’t getting done at that precise moment, etc. etc. etc,  I was realizing that something soon would have to give.

And that something was probably going to be me.

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend an event that really put it all in perspective.  Every September a fabulous gal puts on a Yoga for Congo Women event locally.  Her passion for others suffering is clear, her willingness to do something about it, even more profound.

I spent six years immersing myself in the tragedies of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  To the point that my mind, my spirit, and my body could not take it anymore.  It was as if I didn’t know how to not carry the burdens of my fellow sisters with me.  I didn’t have the capability to separate myself and my life from the horrendous situation that was a reality for so many.

So I stopped.  I had to.  For the sake of personal preservation, I had to pass on my work to new hands.  I stopped reading about horrific circumstances of my fellow human beings around the world.  I stopped reading news articles about the state of the planet.  I stopped spending ever waking moment trying to convince others why they should even give a damn.

Classic burnout.

But Saturday, as we did our yoga poses, breathing deeply as we heard the story of women in the Congo, I found myself being grateful for the reminder.  I needed some perspective on my life at that moment.  Having anxiety means that sometimes your brain takes over and you can’t shut it off.  It wants to run a marathon while you would prefer to just take a nap.

My life has been unexpectedly busy these last few months.  I have a hard time knowing what to do to deal with stress in a healthy way.  My kids need me, my husband needs me, my health needs me, I need me.  I forget to breathe.  I forget to say ‘no’. I forget to eat my veggies and take my vitamins.  I forget that after a time of so much to-do and so much to handle that my body needs a rest.  I forget I need to be mindfully aware about the messages my body is sending.  But after all the worry I have had over the last few months, there is still much I don’t need to worry about…

Today I don’t need to worry about a militia breaking into my house raping me, murdering my husband, cutting my leg off, and force feeding it to my children, killing one of them who refused to eat.  Today I don’t need to worry that as I go about caring for my children, I will need to flee with them to the forest, I won’t slip on the mud as to give time for the Interahamwe to catch up to me, cutting off both of my hands and leaving me to bleed to death.  Today as I educate my little people in the safety of our home, I will not need to worry that my son will be kidnapped and turned into a soldier who will rape and murder too.  I will hug my daughter a bit tighter as I am grateful that at five years old, she will not be gang raped today, as happens to hundreds of thousands of young girls in the Congo.  Girls as young as three months old.

Perspective.  I am grateful this weekend to have been reminded about that.  While my heart will always break for my sisters in the Congo, I think sometimes I forget to be mindfully grateful for all that I do have.  Stress and all.

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Another Wednesday is here, I finished a book FINALLY and am working on two others.  Joining Ginny in our weekly Yarn Along.  If you are looking for my Savor book review, the book I have been reading for the past month, you can find it here.

Ahh…life slows down, a WEE bit, not enough to write home about really and sickness hits.  That is the way it happens isn’t it?  Your body says, “Oh, you have been very stressed lately, and now you are trying to settle down and ease into a routine, so why don’t I just nail you with a sore throat and boogers out the ying yang to help get you started.”  The boogers aren’t coming out the front exit yet either, they are slithering out the back exit and giving me the heebie jeebies.

So this post is late, I slept in.  I had the weirdest stinkin’ dreams last night which made for not a good sleep at all.  Here is my yarning and books this week:

I don’t think I got that much farther on my knitting, but honestly I can’t remember.  It is either my brain or my week that has made recall at the moment hard.  I read The Well-Trained Mind last night before bed, and I think it was one reason I had restless sleep.  I am a bit disappointed in it for sure.  I am wishing I checked it out of the library before buying, considering the cost, I could have bought a bunch of books that were a bit more up my alley for the same price.  I am not regretting reading it, but I am wondering why the author’s sons are left out of talking about how much they LOVED this style of homeschooling and how it benefited them.  Maybe the family wrote another book highlighting such, I will look into it.

In all honesty, I cannot imagine my son sitting down and learning in this way.  My daughter?  Maybe.  We will see.  I will read more and do a full review when I am done.  I am leaning toward at this moment, we will probably not get super excited about classical education, the method, or the practicality, and the reasoning behind it.   See, the title says, “The Well-Trained Mind”, what about the rest of the child?

That is my week of reading and knitting.  Not stupendous, but hey, it is something.

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