I've been very busy. But it isn't as hard if I take time to exercise and relax to get everything done and still feel sane. When I missed my workout, or my TV time, I felt more stressed. I do watch TV while doing laundry, but the mindlessness of both activities is good down time.
I am trying to be more focused on spending quality time with each child. That is hard. Especially with Silas who is rarely home or with a spare minute. I did make an extra effort to attend his cross country meet and I think it did matter, even if he was a little bugged I was there since he felt like he wasn't going to run well (but he beat his best time by 5 seconds!)
I started, finally!, reading "Anne of Green Gables" with Eden, and Chloe is listening too. Anne is such a great character that I've wanted to read this to Eden for some time. Having an upcoming lesson at church on my duty to God in relation to my children made me get to work and finally do what I wanted to do, but didn't make myself do. Religion ain't so bad!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Someone has to do the laundry
I'm not sure if I've used this title yet on one of my posts on my other blog, but I think this would be a great title for a book.
I don't call myself a feminist, but I certainly believe that men and women should be equal partners when they are married and that women should be able to choose what they want to be and do in life. I do harbor some residual belief that men seem to be better at doing things than women, like when my husband stays home he is better at organizing stuff and if he put his mind to it, I think he would run the house better than I do because he would see it as a job and not as his lot in life, although that was more my thinking about 10 years ago. I think I have changed my views (thus this blog) and am learning to run my household better. (And I also wonder why men seem to be better chefs than women. What's up with that?)
Which kind of brings me to my point: because I was raised in the climate of freeing women from the drudgery of housework, I was not taught how to organize or incorporate the concept of caring for the home into my body of knowledge (if I have one of those). But, even if women have been "liberated", someone still has to do the laundry! And when you choose to stay home and create a good quality of life for your family, doing the laundry seems to be a huge part of the process.
Now I'm not trying to minimize the efforts of my mother to teach me how to function in the home, but the counter efforts of my scholastic education made me less than prepared to keep up with all this laundry. At least that's my excuse!
The truth is, I try to ask my sons to do a load (or to "reboot") the laundry every day. Then I fold, in front of the tv. Or I don't and the clean laundry sits in the baskets. Sometimes in the living room, which is where the tv is (I wish we had it somewhere else, but that's where it is) and sometimes in my bedroom, which Dave HATES, but at least it's not messing up other rooms. So, I try to keep the laundry ball rolling every day. And that's how I keep seven people clothed and bedded.
I'm not the only one doing it luckily! Besides the boys, Dave helps (mainly his own, to keep his shirts from being left in the dryer and getting all wrinkled) and Ella loves to help too!!!
I don't call myself a feminist, but I certainly believe that men and women should be equal partners when they are married and that women should be able to choose what they want to be and do in life. I do harbor some residual belief that men seem to be better at doing things than women, like when my husband stays home he is better at organizing stuff and if he put his mind to it, I think he would run the house better than I do because he would see it as a job and not as his lot in life, although that was more my thinking about 10 years ago. I think I have changed my views (thus this blog) and am learning to run my household better. (And I also wonder why men seem to be better chefs than women. What's up with that?)
Which kind of brings me to my point: because I was raised in the climate of freeing women from the drudgery of housework, I was not taught how to organize or incorporate the concept of caring for the home into my body of knowledge (if I have one of those). But, even if women have been "liberated", someone still has to do the laundry! And when you choose to stay home and create a good quality of life for your family, doing the laundry seems to be a huge part of the process.
Now I'm not trying to minimize the efforts of my mother to teach me how to function in the home, but the counter efforts of my scholastic education made me less than prepared to keep up with all this laundry. At least that's my excuse!
The truth is, I try to ask my sons to do a load (or to "reboot") the laundry every day. Then I fold, in front of the tv. Or I don't and the clean laundry sits in the baskets. Sometimes in the living room, which is where the tv is (I wish we had it somewhere else, but that's where it is) and sometimes in my bedroom, which Dave HATES, but at least it's not messing up other rooms. So, I try to keep the laundry ball rolling every day. And that's how I keep seven people clothed and bedded.
I'm not the only one doing it luckily! Besides the boys, Dave helps (mainly his own, to keep his shirts from being left in the dryer and getting all wrinkled) and Ella loves to help too!!!
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