This is what I mean: One thing I've come to learn about myself over the past several months is that I'm lazy. Dreadfully lazy.
One of my new year's resolutions was to stop being lazy. Ha! That sounds funny when I write it out. But I realized that all of this time I've kind of given myself a free pass on a lot of things, like housework being probably the biggest one. I realize that having 3 small kids at home isn't a great time to have a sparkling clean house, and trust me, on my best day it's never sparkling clean. But what I've come to understand is that I'm never going to want to do housework, and if I keep waiting for myself to get organized and figure out a plan for attacking my household chores, it's never going to happen and the boys are going to grow up thinking that a slovenly household is the norm. As much as I may long for one, I will never have a house elf.
To this end I began to think of simple ways that I could become a bit more organized and keep things neater without a ton of daily work that I truly don't have time for. Here were the things that I decided on... these have become the things I have drawn my line in the sand on and I try my best to not compromise (although watching tv or knitting always sounds better than getting these done!!!). Realize that these may sound like housekeeping 101 to most of you, but to me, this has been revolutionary.
1. Laundry: I now try to do a load every day if the pile warrants that. I used to wait until the laundry had piled into mountains before doing any, and then I was buried under an avalanche of clean laundry to fold, and most of it never got folded and put away before just being dug out of the basket and worn. So now I'm trying to not remove any laundry from the laundry room, or at least the basement, without folding it. What I prefer to do is fold the dry laundry as I take it out of the dryer. This then prevents me from having a huge back-up of clean but unfolded laundry. We have been known to have random baskets of clean but unfolded laundry cluttering up our house, particularly our bedroom, and this gets very depressing.
2. Kitchen: I now try to not go to bed until the kitchen is clean and the dishwasher is running. If I leave any dishes it's just a pot or pan or something that can be done very quickly while the kids are eating breakfast. This has also been huge. Those of you who ever came to our apartment during seminary can attest to the fact that dishes have long been my nemesis. But with the Lord's help I am taking the dishes captive!!! Another thing that has helped is working the day to load dishes into the dishwasher as they're dirty, not waiting until after dinner. Again, I realize that most of you have known these things all along, but it's like I just read Housekeeping for Dummies.
3. Papers. Josh and I have long had a paper problem. In an effort to end this paper problem I bought a shredder at Target back when we lived in St Louis, but alas, it was one heck of a cheap shredder, and it died shortly thereafter. So this past weekend I just went to Office Max and bought a mackdaddy shredder, and now there is no paper that is safe in this house. We desperately need a system for organizing papers... this is still a work in progress. But we're aware that we have a problem, and that's at least part of the battle.
4. Vacuuming. I actually like vacuuming so this hasn't been so much of a struggle, but I'm trying to vacuum frequently as the area under our kitchen table often resembles the floor of a barn and our brown shag rug is like a pet.
5. Making the bed. We have never been good about making the bed since we got married, and I'm attempting to do that every day now. It makes a huge difference in my attitude! And our room just looks nicer.
So coming back to Ma Ingalls, out of necessity she was a hard worker. She didn't have any shortcuts like dishwashers and washing machines and grocery stores and refrigerators. I admire how she worked hard without complaint (or at least none recorded by Laura), and she had a system for attacking her myriad housekeeping chores. Here's what Laura writes on page 29 of Little House in the Big Woods:
"After this was done, Ma began the work that belonged to that day. Each day had its own proper work. Ma used to say:
'Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.'"
I love this because it gave Ma and the girls a rhythm to the week and an organized way to complete housework. As I grow into my role as mom and housekeeper that the Lord has placed me in right now, I'm looking to people I admire like Ma Ingalls for help. While I'm grateful I don't need to take a day for ironing (hallelujah), I've learned that doing a little work at different points throughout the day makes for a happier mama, happier kiddos, a happier husband, and a cleaner house. Keep working on me, Ma Ingalls. We've got a lot of books to go.
