I'm a little late in writing about this. Both Chapters 4 and 5 kind of ran together for me. They both have Clothing as their theme and since I am reading this on my Kindle, I seem to ignore chapter divisions for some reason. I have a hard time figuring out where I am in the book and it is hard to keep flipping back to see what I've read.
This book is becoming a little difficult for me to read. It truly is serving as an examination of conscious, which as you may know, are very useful things but not particularly pleasant to read! Going through the list that Peterson has about what clothing means to us, and she does lay out every little nuance, just makes guilt begin to mount in my heart! I have a double-edged and seemingly contradictory relationship with clothing. I always seem to have too much of it, yet I don't take care of it well at all, so I don't appreciate it, but I seldom like what I have. I think I am a very poor shopper because I have no patience shopping for clothes. I can feel the impatience start when I am entering the store. I start thumbing through clothes on the racks and all sorts of thoughts crowd my head. How I hate the fashion industry that tries to dress us in such ignoble ways. I hate the idea that the clothes are made in China or some such place where human rights are violated. I hate the big name companies that exploit everyone in the name of materialism. I hate the awful music blaring over the speakers. I hate the videos playing on TV screens either with advertisements trying to brainwash me or my children into wanting more, more, MORE! Or showing some horrible video that is full of contorting over-sexualized dancers doing almost pornographic things in full view of me and my kids.
In order to avoid this as much as possible, I tend to order things on line. I like Lands End. Except that my youngest two kids are weird sizes. My son is chubby and my daughter is petite for her age. So lately, whenever I order, the things that arrive often don't fit well. Also, what might look nice in the catalog turns out not to be comfortable for my overly sensitive children. So often half the clothes ordered are rejected or wind up not getting worn. If I were a conscientious person, I'd immediately ship them back. All that money! But instead they get pushed into a corner, into a 'to do' pile that never gets done. Eventually, they are given away to my church. Later the kids complain they don't have enough shirts or whatever. But because I've already gone through this ordeal so fraught with emotional hang ups on my part, I feel like I've already done my work. So I shut them out and they make do. Then I wonder why my kids don't look as nice as other kids do. Going to church is awful. I used to try to make sure the kids had clean polo shirts and nice looking khaki slacks to wear, and the girls had nice dresses. Now my standard is no t-shirts with slogans and no pants with holes in them. Except I stop dictating even this when they get to be about 16 years old. I'm just delighted they still want to go to church!
Lately though I've discovered I'm better at shopping if I do things a little differently:
I've been buying vintage clothing from Etsy type companies. I like buying things from these little mom and pop internet places. I also like the way they are very detailed about what will fit you. I've mostly been buying these things for my oldest daughter as gifts, because she is into vintage. She has a perfect 1940-1950's shaped body, meaning she's curvaceous. Those older styled clothes fit her beautifully. And she loves the look. Vintage is very in at UD, so she's lucky.
I also really like shopping at second hand stores. I go to one in particular about once a year. I do this mostly for my youngest daughter. You can buy really nice, modest clothing, not too pricey, either. I'd like to do more of that kind of shopping.
I also noticed that when I go to places like Marshall's I have a better time. I feel like I'm getting a bargain and because the clothes are all cast offs but brand names, it is like a hunt to find something good. But when you do, you feel you've really scored! And the clothing is better quality.
But really, I don't shop that often. Perhaps two or three times a year.
Clothing is also a problem for me in particular because I have gained weight and I don't like how I look. In fact, I try not to look at myself. I used to take care with how I dressed but at some point I gave up and became frumpy. And I've been frumpy for a while. This is mightily discouraging. Recently, I've been trying to dress a little better because I've been teaching at Aquinas Learning. I bought a couple of nice shirts that people complimented me on (I got them from Target!). The other day I was eating pasta and splattered sauce all over the front of one and I swear I almost started crying! No! I said to myself, this is one of my good shirts! The spots mostly came out, but I can still see a tiny one or two. Now that shirt won't ever be a 'good' shirt in my mind again.
So this whole book is proving to show me just how emotionally charged, petty, and insecure I really am! All this stuff, for some reason, is just fraught with little emotional irritations that are like little bombs going off in my mind. So most of the time, I just push things aside and don't think about them too much.
I'm terrible with laundry. I do manage to most of the time get every day clothing washed weekly. However, my oldest kids all learned to do their own laundry at an early age. This was because when I had Becky 10 years ago, my husband came across me in the laundry room with tears streaming down my face. I had a new baby, and as with all new babies, I had lots of laundry to do. Not just baby clothes but my own clothes that were continually getting spit up on or pooped or peed on or my milk would leak, etc. So I was actually depressed and literally sobbing over laundry. My husband took one look, called the older kids to the room and immediately instructed them on how to do their own laundry. Isn't he a good man? Ever since they've done that. Also at the time I had three bed wetters. So I was constantly washing sheets. On top of that I had a crazy cat who regressed from being litter box trained. What would happen is that I would bring a load of laundry out of the dryer and put it on a certain chair in the family room, thinking I'd take it up to my bedroom and sort (I always sort on my big bed). But I'd get distracted or what not and the clothing would be sitting in a pile there. And the cat would decide it was a perfect litter box. It was HORRIBLE! Laundry was a nightmare!
Now it isn't so much anymore. I managed to get through it and we all survived, LOL! Sean and Becky don't do their own laundry though. Josh just does both his and Sean's because they use the same hamper. And Becky is my youngest and if I can't do one child's laundry after all this time, then I'm pretty pathetic. I could go on and on about my poor laundrying skills but this post is already too long.
Suffice it to say that things like ironing and mending don't even enter the picture. And folding? What's that? The other day, my aunt's care taker folded the clothes that had been left in the dryer (my husband's) so she could put my aunt's clothes in. Everything was so beautifully tidy and folded. I put them into Rick's dresser. When he opened up his drawer he was shocked! Thank you, honey! he said. I had to disabuse him of the notion that I had actually folded. Which was a little sad. His mom was very neat and I bet he grew up with nicely folded clothes in his drawers. He might miss that. Sigh.
Anyway, lest you think I'm too gloomy about all this, I do go through phrases where I suddenly have the will and desire to change. Often the changes don't take too well, but sometimes they do! And so for me hope really does spring eternal. I have a feeling on my death bed I'll still be trying to be more organized about things! So for the new year, I am hoping to establish better routines.
For more discussion go here.
Showing posts with label Keeping house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keeping house. Show all posts
Friday, December 23, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Keeping House - Chapter Three
I'm a little late on this! I don't know where the week went! As it is I am typing this in the wee hours of the morning because this is the only time I think I can carve out this weekend! I feel so rattled most of the time with all my busyness. It is hard to sit down and write something reflective.
Anyway, since I read this chapter last Sunday evening, I think I'll just respond to Willa's questions in her post. Maybe this will help me stay on topic.
1) Dream houses:
In many ways the house I live in is a sort of my dream house. We renovated the kitchen and basement and we decorated it with the help of an interior decorator. I always wanted to be able to do that! I'm lacking in the decorating department. And I have a big screen porch; something I've always wanted. We have garage; something I never actually thought about but now that we have one, I find it invaluable. One sad thing I've found, as I have moved closer to my house ideals as I've gotten older, is that nothing is ever perfect! Things always need improvement and the things one dreams about in one's youth, may or may not be satisfactory once you get them. It feels shameful to state that, like I'm very ungrateful. There might be an element of that - lack of gratitude. I think it is my own personal response to all the materialism and the focus on thinking that things like having a HGTV home brings actual happiness. Not!
Even though there are many wonderful things about my house, there are many irritating things as well. I guess familiarity breeds contempt. For instance, after putting the screen porch, we enjoyed one glorious summer with it. Then the bulldozers came and devastated the orchards behind our house. They began to build mcmansions (the most pretentious one's I've ever seen!) behind our house. Not only was the noise of construction off putting enough to make sitting on the screen porch unpleasant, but the red clay dust raised by it all, constantly coated everything, including the pretty porch furniture which became permantently stained by it. I didn't think to run out and get covers for it until too late. That annoyance lasted a good two years, then we got stinkbugs. So even though I've got this lovely porch, it has been problematic. Also screen porches are really another room to clean! I hadn't realized that it takes effort to keep it up looking nicely. Why that wouldn't occur to me. . . well, I don't think along those lines very naturally.
Here's another example. Even though my house is big I don't seem to be very good at figuring out how to store things in a practical way. I've never found a good place to store thick comforters for instance. I sheepishly admit they are stacked in my upstairs hall right now, on a box of stuff filled with. . . I don't know what. I think when Hannah last cleaned her room (a year ago?) she took a big box and put a lot of cast off stuff in it that I don't quite know what to do with. She pushed that big box out into the hallway where is has since become the place where the comforters are stored. The comforters used to be on my closet floor but the cats would always sleep on them. So when you'd go to use one for an especially cold night or when a guest was visiting, there'd be cat hair all over it. That kind of thing stymies me for years. . .
This gets me to longing again for some expert help. I dream that someone who has a gift for organization comes to my house and just gives me directives on how to handle all this sort of thing. I'd love to just follow directions and not have to think about it! I do think the idea of the dream house, and the habit I formed long ago of daydreaming about what the perfect house would be like, does make me discontent. Right now, I am very discontent about where we are located because of the big ugly housing development. Now, I dream I live on a farm. I want to raise chickens but my property is too small. This is completely unrealistic practically speaking, but that is my romantic daydream of country living. So I am a malcontent! It is actually good to realize this, so I can work on changing my attitude.
2) The structure of a house:
The very two examples that Willa points out here from the book are exactly two issues I have with my house! When we were renovating the kitchen/family room, we deliberately combined the two rooms. When we moved in the kitchen was this awkward boxy room. We took down the wall between the kitchen and family room hoping to create a sense of an old fashioned great kitchen. I think we did a pretty good job BUT we do have the big screen TV on the wall. I would not let it go above the fire place though. I wanted a tradition mantle set up. So we put the big TV on the wall opposite the sliding door to the screen porch. My desk is right at the center of the kitchen family room combo. This is good and bad. This room really is the center of our home, but it means that I am working in the midst of lots of chaos and noise. I get so I hate the noise and images pouring out of the TV when I'm trying to focus. It is hard to blog unless I'm up early before anyone else (the case right now!) or if I want to order presents on line (the children seem to be uncanny in their ability to sense this!) or if I want to read a blog that might not be appropriate for a 10 year old girl (last night I was trying to read a blog about gay marriage and she came over and wanted to know what I was reading. I just didn't want to have to address that quite yet!). Sometimes I want to see a video someone has posted but I'm afraid that it will contain language inappropriate or will conflict with the noise from the TV. For instance, I wanted to watch a clip from John Stewart's show yesterday and did so very furtively! So there's a lack of privacy in my work space that annoys me. At the same time, things are very conveniently placed because we do most of our academic stuff here at the kitchen table.
The other thing is our neighborhood. We basically live on a cul de sac off a narrow, windy, very busy road. That means that we can't get anywhere unless we drive. I've never lived anywhere like this before. I grew up in a small city where we could walk or take a bus to anywhere! It was very freeing, now that I look back on it. When I lived on my own, I lived in Baltimore and again could walk or take a bus anywhere. When we first married, we lived in Arlington, which is like a city. From our apartment and then later our townhouse, I could walk to the grocery store, the library, the subway station, restaurants, a big shopping mall. When we bought a house, we bought it in Vienna, very near the metro. For ten years, Rick walked to the subway to get to work. I had to drive to the grocery store, but we could walk to the public school (where Hannah attended Kindergarten and First grade), to the bike path, to a playground, to the pool in the summer, to a 7-11 and a MacDonalds, plus there were lots of kids in the neighborhood so we were always walking to playdates. When we moved to this house, I was very pregnant with my 5th child. Our other house was small and I simply couldn't figure out how to fit a new dresser for the new baby into our already overcrowded situation! So we were looking for 3 things in a house: 1) another bedroom 2) easy access for Rick to drive to work (because now we were richer and could afford two cars) 3) a fireplace or a woodstove. This current house met all three criteria, plus it had the gorgeous pond and orchards in the back yard. It also was closer to all our homeschooling friends. So we moved. However, I really miss being able to get places without having to get into a car. I think this is one thing I dislike about the suburbs. I either want to be really out in country where I can enjoy privacy and nature and know that the price I have to pay is having to drive longer distances. Or I'd like to be right in the thick of things, knowing the price I pay for easy access and convenience is giving up country life. What I don't like about where I am now is that I neither have the privacy nor the easy access. See? I'm always dissatisfied! Not good. No wonder I am so begrudging about this housekeeping stuff!
3) The size of our house:
We moved to get a bigger house for our growing family. I like the size of our house. With the two oldest gone off to college, it feels a bit empty. However, I like that I can host exchange students pretty easily. I like that I can have guests stay over night. I like that when my aunt needed care, she could move into our house pretty easily. I do wish the bedrooms were configured a little differently. I'd rather have slightly smaller bedrooms so that we could have one more upstairs. But really it is not much of a problem.
I'm running out of time. I have to get breakfast and get my aunt up. And then we have to bundle up warmly for Becky is marching in a Christmas parade today. I'm dragging Sean along with me because I don't want him spending another morning idling time away. We have to be at the parade grounds by 9:20 and the town is over 30 minutes away. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue this at some point later today.
****************************************
Back again! Had a great time at the parade, came home relaxed for a couple hours, did a little Christmas shopping and got Italian carry out for dinner. Okay, back to this blog post!
4) Beauty in the Home:
I think my house is pretty. it is a big white colonial with big colonial windows. It is set back from the street and has a pretty garden in front. I like my brightly colored walls. I like old fashioned, country and that's what I've got. My interior decorator was great. I told her what I liked and she was really intuitive about picking up on everything. Basically, I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the home I grew up in. The color of my living walls is the same color my sister painted my parents living room walls. I always dreamed that if I ever got a separate dining room, I'd decorate it like my mom decorated our dining room growing up because as a child I loved to read at the dining room table when the room as quiet and empty. I loved the rose wallpaper and the pretty curtains. So when we moved to this house, voila! I had a separate dining room and that's exactly how I decorated it. I like pretty things. However, because I am such a clutterer that house very seldom looks its best. Instead every surface becomes piles of debris. That feels ungrateful too, because here I am blessed with something pretty but I don't take pains to keep it that way. Boy, this book is acting like an examination of conscience for me!
5) Space and How To Use It
I've already alluded to this, I think. I don't use space well at all. I am often quite flummoxed by how to be more efficient. I truly seem to lack common sense in this area. However, I am pleased with some things. For one thing, one reason why I liked this house better than the others we looked at when we were shopping for a new home, was that it had a living room and dining room that could be closed off. I am not a big fan of open floor plans. I like being able to into a room and shut the door. So we have french doors on our living room entrance and another french door between the kitchen and the dining room. I also love our study, which is now Aunt Jackie's bedroom. One whole wall is books shelves. I love having a huge area for books! It isn't even enough. We have books in every room, but that is book central.
I'd like to get a closet organizer for our master bedroom closet. Right now it just has a bar for clothes to hang on that runs around it perimeter and then a high shelf above that. Right now I'm planning to move Rick's old dresser to the back of the closet and store out of season clothes there (maybe I could put the comforters on top of it!). Rick has never liked his dresser. It is a big hulking thing, bigger than he is (he's short!) and the top drawer broke a few years ago which annoyed him greatly but we never got it fixed. So I got him a new dresser for Christmas (he asked for this!). I don't really care if we ever get around to putting a door on the closet, it opens into a little dressing area anyway, not onto the main bedroom but I'd like the closet to look nicer and be more practical in in storage capacity.
I do wish my linen closet was bigger. I don't know why they put such a tiny linen closet in this house. My older, smaller house had a good sized linen closet.
6) A Room of One's Own:
Well, I alluded to this earlier. My two spaces where I can get some privacy are at this desk in the middle of kitchen, when no one's here, LOL, which is right now because everyone's gone down to the basement to probably play video games. My other space is my bedroom. I love my bed. It is so comfy. I try to lie for at least 20 minutes every afternoon and I love, love, love getting into bed at night. I read and play scrabble on my ipad (that's a recent thing) and sometimes listen to classical music on the radio. That is the time I really relax. My bed isn't all that private, my husband is there, but he's an extension of myself so he never bothers me. And sometimes my youngest still sleeps in our room, though she sleeps on the floor at the foot of the bed, but I don't mind that either. The other place I get privacy is the shower! Lovely, that!
8) Beware of Too Many Masterpieces:
Guilty! On my mantle right now: an old, old painting of the Virgin Mary on wood that hung on the living room wall in the house I grew up in, an old kerosene lamp that parents used when the lights went out, a candle my sister in law gave me, two little vases of flowers which are little bouquets Becky made left over from our Thanksgiving centerpiece, a crucifix made of air dried clay and a statue of Mary also made of the same clay. These were created by Becky a few weeks ago, an old cross made of clay and then glazed that reads on it: Do small things with great love. That was Christmas present from Hannah many years ago. An old Victorian mantle clock. Then there's also car keys, a little wooden camel from the Holy Land (Granddad brought it back from his trip) and various other little sundry items. Behind all this is an old picture of a very contented baby sitting in an old fashioned high chair. It's a kind of famous painting from Williamsburg, VA.
Anyway, the point being is that I have way too many masterpieces but they all mean so much to me. I am actually quite sentimental about things because they all carry memories for me. Be warned! If you give me something I will keep it forever.
I do feel overwhelmed by things and I am constantly either thinking about decluttering or actually decluttering. For instance I just went through and got rid of a lot of plastic kitchen stuff that I didn't care for anymore. I've turned against plastic! I've got it all in a box in the garage waiting for me to take it somewhere. I also went through all the closets the day after Thanksgiving and gave away a lot of clothing. Bags and bags. Yet it was just a surface sweep and I probably need to do it again about 3 times before I'm really where I should be. One of my main housekeeping deficiencies is my lack of putting things in their right place. I feel I've advanced in that I actually put bowls back in the same place. When I first started housekeeping for myself, I'd put them any old place! So I've progressed!
9) Cleanliness and Godliness:
My kitchen sink is seldom clean. It has perpetually got something soaking in sudsy water, or just dirty dishes piled up (as it does now! It is calling to me!). The only time it is really clean is when the cleaners who come every two weeks clean it. So there! I like things to be clean, I really do, but I don't notice messy stuff in my own house. I'll notice it elsewhere, but in my home it just doesn't register at all to me, unless it becomes problematic. Like I need to start cooking dinner but I can't because the sink is full of dirty dishes! This sneaks up on me every day! I'm not even kidding! Or someone is coming over and I suddenly realize that the house looks absolutely trashed again! Or I can't find library books because they've been shoved under someone's bed (along with old socks, wadded up tissues and dust bunnies). I just don't notice things like that. I'm better than I used to be. But I'm still pretty bad compared to a lot of other folks.
10) The Value of Space:
I guess I've addressed this already too. I need to do several deep sweeps of decluttering. My basement is such a mess right now, just filled with STUFF. Old curriculum, sewing things, old arts and crafts, books, old toys that no one plays with anymore. It really bothers me when I go down. I have been avoiding it for two years now. It got even messier when my aunt moved in. Rick took a lot of stuff that was in the old study and just plopped it down in the basement. And then he cleaned out the storage room and the stuff he didn't want there, well it's stacked in corners of the basement!
Okay, I've lost my train thought and I've been typing for too long and this post is way too long. I actually need to go load the dishwasher right now!
Anyway, since I read this chapter last Sunday evening, I think I'll just respond to Willa's questions in her post. Maybe this will help me stay on topic.
1) Dream houses:
In many ways the house I live in is a sort of my dream house. We renovated the kitchen and basement and we decorated it with the help of an interior decorator. I always wanted to be able to do that! I'm lacking in the decorating department. And I have a big screen porch; something I've always wanted. We have garage; something I never actually thought about but now that we have one, I find it invaluable. One sad thing I've found, as I have moved closer to my house ideals as I've gotten older, is that nothing is ever perfect! Things always need improvement and the things one dreams about in one's youth, may or may not be satisfactory once you get them. It feels shameful to state that, like I'm very ungrateful. There might be an element of that - lack of gratitude. I think it is my own personal response to all the materialism and the focus on thinking that things like having a HGTV home brings actual happiness. Not!
Even though there are many wonderful things about my house, there are many irritating things as well. I guess familiarity breeds contempt. For instance, after putting the screen porch, we enjoyed one glorious summer with it. Then the bulldozers came and devastated the orchards behind our house. They began to build mcmansions (the most pretentious one's I've ever seen!) behind our house. Not only was the noise of construction off putting enough to make sitting on the screen porch unpleasant, but the red clay dust raised by it all, constantly coated everything, including the pretty porch furniture which became permantently stained by it. I didn't think to run out and get covers for it until too late. That annoyance lasted a good two years, then we got stinkbugs. So even though I've got this lovely porch, it has been problematic. Also screen porches are really another room to clean! I hadn't realized that it takes effort to keep it up looking nicely. Why that wouldn't occur to me. . . well, I don't think along those lines very naturally.
Here's another example. Even though my house is big I don't seem to be very good at figuring out how to store things in a practical way. I've never found a good place to store thick comforters for instance. I sheepishly admit they are stacked in my upstairs hall right now, on a box of stuff filled with. . . I don't know what. I think when Hannah last cleaned her room (a year ago?) she took a big box and put a lot of cast off stuff in it that I don't quite know what to do with. She pushed that big box out into the hallway where is has since become the place where the comforters are stored. The comforters used to be on my closet floor but the cats would always sleep on them. So when you'd go to use one for an especially cold night or when a guest was visiting, there'd be cat hair all over it. That kind of thing stymies me for years. . .
This gets me to longing again for some expert help. I dream that someone who has a gift for organization comes to my house and just gives me directives on how to handle all this sort of thing. I'd love to just follow directions and not have to think about it! I do think the idea of the dream house, and the habit I formed long ago of daydreaming about what the perfect house would be like, does make me discontent. Right now, I am very discontent about where we are located because of the big ugly housing development. Now, I dream I live on a farm. I want to raise chickens but my property is too small. This is completely unrealistic practically speaking, but that is my romantic daydream of country living. So I am a malcontent! It is actually good to realize this, so I can work on changing my attitude.
2) The structure of a house:
The very two examples that Willa points out here from the book are exactly two issues I have with my house! When we were renovating the kitchen/family room, we deliberately combined the two rooms. When we moved in the kitchen was this awkward boxy room. We took down the wall between the kitchen and family room hoping to create a sense of an old fashioned great kitchen. I think we did a pretty good job BUT we do have the big screen TV on the wall. I would not let it go above the fire place though. I wanted a tradition mantle set up. So we put the big TV on the wall opposite the sliding door to the screen porch. My desk is right at the center of the kitchen family room combo. This is good and bad. This room really is the center of our home, but it means that I am working in the midst of lots of chaos and noise. I get so I hate the noise and images pouring out of the TV when I'm trying to focus. It is hard to blog unless I'm up early before anyone else (the case right now!) or if I want to order presents on line (the children seem to be uncanny in their ability to sense this!) or if I want to read a blog that might not be appropriate for a 10 year old girl (last night I was trying to read a blog about gay marriage and she came over and wanted to know what I was reading. I just didn't want to have to address that quite yet!). Sometimes I want to see a video someone has posted but I'm afraid that it will contain language inappropriate or will conflict with the noise from the TV. For instance, I wanted to watch a clip from John Stewart's show yesterday and did so very furtively! So there's a lack of privacy in my work space that annoys me. At the same time, things are very conveniently placed because we do most of our academic stuff here at the kitchen table.
The other thing is our neighborhood. We basically live on a cul de sac off a narrow, windy, very busy road. That means that we can't get anywhere unless we drive. I've never lived anywhere like this before. I grew up in a small city where we could walk or take a bus to anywhere! It was very freeing, now that I look back on it. When I lived on my own, I lived in Baltimore and again could walk or take a bus anywhere. When we first married, we lived in Arlington, which is like a city. From our apartment and then later our townhouse, I could walk to the grocery store, the library, the subway station, restaurants, a big shopping mall. When we bought a house, we bought it in Vienna, very near the metro. For ten years, Rick walked to the subway to get to work. I had to drive to the grocery store, but we could walk to the public school (where Hannah attended Kindergarten and First grade), to the bike path, to a playground, to the pool in the summer, to a 7-11 and a MacDonalds, plus there were lots of kids in the neighborhood so we were always walking to playdates. When we moved to this house, I was very pregnant with my 5th child. Our other house was small and I simply couldn't figure out how to fit a new dresser for the new baby into our already overcrowded situation! So we were looking for 3 things in a house: 1) another bedroom 2) easy access for Rick to drive to work (because now we were richer and could afford two cars) 3) a fireplace or a woodstove. This current house met all three criteria, plus it had the gorgeous pond and orchards in the back yard. It also was closer to all our homeschooling friends. So we moved. However, I really miss being able to get places without having to get into a car. I think this is one thing I dislike about the suburbs. I either want to be really out in country where I can enjoy privacy and nature and know that the price I have to pay is having to drive longer distances. Or I'd like to be right in the thick of things, knowing the price I pay for easy access and convenience is giving up country life. What I don't like about where I am now is that I neither have the privacy nor the easy access. See? I'm always dissatisfied! Not good. No wonder I am so begrudging about this housekeeping stuff!
3) The size of our house:
We moved to get a bigger house for our growing family. I like the size of our house. With the two oldest gone off to college, it feels a bit empty. However, I like that I can host exchange students pretty easily. I like that I can have guests stay over night. I like that when my aunt needed care, she could move into our house pretty easily. I do wish the bedrooms were configured a little differently. I'd rather have slightly smaller bedrooms so that we could have one more upstairs. But really it is not much of a problem.
I'm running out of time. I have to get breakfast and get my aunt up. And then we have to bundle up warmly for Becky is marching in a Christmas parade today. I'm dragging Sean along with me because I don't want him spending another morning idling time away. We have to be at the parade grounds by 9:20 and the town is over 30 minutes away. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue this at some point later today.
****************************************
Back again! Had a great time at the parade, came home relaxed for a couple hours, did a little Christmas shopping and got Italian carry out for dinner. Okay, back to this blog post!
4) Beauty in the Home:
I think my house is pretty. it is a big white colonial with big colonial windows. It is set back from the street and has a pretty garden in front. I like my brightly colored walls. I like old fashioned, country and that's what I've got. My interior decorator was great. I told her what I liked and she was really intuitive about picking up on everything. Basically, I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the home I grew up in. The color of my living walls is the same color my sister painted my parents living room walls. I always dreamed that if I ever got a separate dining room, I'd decorate it like my mom decorated our dining room growing up because as a child I loved to read at the dining room table when the room as quiet and empty. I loved the rose wallpaper and the pretty curtains. So when we moved to this house, voila! I had a separate dining room and that's exactly how I decorated it. I like pretty things. However, because I am such a clutterer that house very seldom looks its best. Instead every surface becomes piles of debris. That feels ungrateful too, because here I am blessed with something pretty but I don't take pains to keep it that way. Boy, this book is acting like an examination of conscience for me!
5) Space and How To Use It
I've already alluded to this, I think. I don't use space well at all. I am often quite flummoxed by how to be more efficient. I truly seem to lack common sense in this area. However, I am pleased with some things. For one thing, one reason why I liked this house better than the others we looked at when we were shopping for a new home, was that it had a living room and dining room that could be closed off. I am not a big fan of open floor plans. I like being able to into a room and shut the door. So we have french doors on our living room entrance and another french door between the kitchen and the dining room. I also love our study, which is now Aunt Jackie's bedroom. One whole wall is books shelves. I love having a huge area for books! It isn't even enough. We have books in every room, but that is book central.
I'd like to get a closet organizer for our master bedroom closet. Right now it just has a bar for clothes to hang on that runs around it perimeter and then a high shelf above that. Right now I'm planning to move Rick's old dresser to the back of the closet and store out of season clothes there (maybe I could put the comforters on top of it!). Rick has never liked his dresser. It is a big hulking thing, bigger than he is (he's short!) and the top drawer broke a few years ago which annoyed him greatly but we never got it fixed. So I got him a new dresser for Christmas (he asked for this!). I don't really care if we ever get around to putting a door on the closet, it opens into a little dressing area anyway, not onto the main bedroom but I'd like the closet to look nicer and be more practical in in storage capacity.
I do wish my linen closet was bigger. I don't know why they put such a tiny linen closet in this house. My older, smaller house had a good sized linen closet.
6) A Room of One's Own:
Well, I alluded to this earlier. My two spaces where I can get some privacy are at this desk in the middle of kitchen, when no one's here, LOL, which is right now because everyone's gone down to the basement to probably play video games. My other space is my bedroom. I love my bed. It is so comfy. I try to lie for at least 20 minutes every afternoon and I love, love, love getting into bed at night. I read and play scrabble on my ipad (that's a recent thing) and sometimes listen to classical music on the radio. That is the time I really relax. My bed isn't all that private, my husband is there, but he's an extension of myself so he never bothers me. And sometimes my youngest still sleeps in our room, though she sleeps on the floor at the foot of the bed, but I don't mind that either. The other place I get privacy is the shower! Lovely, that!
8) Beware of Too Many Masterpieces:
Guilty! On my mantle right now: an old, old painting of the Virgin Mary on wood that hung on the living room wall in the house I grew up in, an old kerosene lamp that parents used when the lights went out, a candle my sister in law gave me, two little vases of flowers which are little bouquets Becky made left over from our Thanksgiving centerpiece, a crucifix made of air dried clay and a statue of Mary also made of the same clay. These were created by Becky a few weeks ago, an old cross made of clay and then glazed that reads on it: Do small things with great love. That was Christmas present from Hannah many years ago. An old Victorian mantle clock. Then there's also car keys, a little wooden camel from the Holy Land (Granddad brought it back from his trip) and various other little sundry items. Behind all this is an old picture of a very contented baby sitting in an old fashioned high chair. It's a kind of famous painting from Williamsburg, VA.
Anyway, the point being is that I have way too many masterpieces but they all mean so much to me. I am actually quite sentimental about things because they all carry memories for me. Be warned! If you give me something I will keep it forever.
I do feel overwhelmed by things and I am constantly either thinking about decluttering or actually decluttering. For instance I just went through and got rid of a lot of plastic kitchen stuff that I didn't care for anymore. I've turned against plastic! I've got it all in a box in the garage waiting for me to take it somewhere. I also went through all the closets the day after Thanksgiving and gave away a lot of clothing. Bags and bags. Yet it was just a surface sweep and I probably need to do it again about 3 times before I'm really where I should be. One of my main housekeeping deficiencies is my lack of putting things in their right place. I feel I've advanced in that I actually put bowls back in the same place. When I first started housekeeping for myself, I'd put them any old place! So I've progressed!
9) Cleanliness and Godliness:
My kitchen sink is seldom clean. It has perpetually got something soaking in sudsy water, or just dirty dishes piled up (as it does now! It is calling to me!). The only time it is really clean is when the cleaners who come every two weeks clean it. So there! I like things to be clean, I really do, but I don't notice messy stuff in my own house. I'll notice it elsewhere, but in my home it just doesn't register at all to me, unless it becomes problematic. Like I need to start cooking dinner but I can't because the sink is full of dirty dishes! This sneaks up on me every day! I'm not even kidding! Or someone is coming over and I suddenly realize that the house looks absolutely trashed again! Or I can't find library books because they've been shoved under someone's bed (along with old socks, wadded up tissues and dust bunnies). I just don't notice things like that. I'm better than I used to be. But I'm still pretty bad compared to a lot of other folks.
10) The Value of Space:
I guess I've addressed this already too. I need to do several deep sweeps of decluttering. My basement is such a mess right now, just filled with STUFF. Old curriculum, sewing things, old arts and crafts, books, old toys that no one plays with anymore. It really bothers me when I go down. I have been avoiding it for two years now. It got even messier when my aunt moved in. Rick took a lot of stuff that was in the old study and just plopped it down in the basement. And then he cleaned out the storage room and the stuff he didn't want there, well it's stacked in corners of the basement!
Okay, I've lost my train thought and I've been typing for too long and this post is way too long. I actually need to go load the dishwasher right now!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Keeping House - Chapter Two
I feel ill equipped to write this post right now. I can't locate my Kindle. I'm pretty sure it is up in my room somewhere, but my husband is out of town on business so I let Becky sleep on his side of the bed last night (she's the prickliest, sauciest child during the day, but at night she wants to sleep in the same room with mommy!), and I don't want to turn on the light and wake her up! So I'm just going on memory or rather, my gut responses to reading this chapter.
Anyway, I think this is the best book I've read on this sort of thing since I read Holiness for Housewives. The author is so clear-sighted, intelligent and profound about everything. She's really thought through what home and housekeeping mean from a Christian worldview. And it's beautiful. I'm finding it very inspiring and it's coloring my attitude which is such a blessing. To me housekeeping is just another long line of failures on my part. At least that's how I look at it. I am very negative about it, always on the brink of despair. I don't like it when people say they can't handle things. I always want to say it's all in your attitude. Some people say they can't handle more than two kids. I could handle that. Some say they could never home school, I could handle that. But the one thing I do say I can't handle is housework. So maybe I know my limits? Or maybe it really is in one's attitude and I've just had a bad one for so long which is so entrenched, that I can't see my way around it.
Yesterday, I was rereading the second chapter (or at least I think it was still the second chapter, sometimes on my Kindle I have a hard time knowing exactly where I am in the book) and the author talked about housework being sacramental. At that moment those words struck a beautiful chord in my heart. At the time I was feeling very sleepy and low-energy and in truth rather crabby. I forced myself to come downstairs to the kitchen/family room where I spent probably the better part of 30 minutes just tidying up. I started at one end of the room and worked to the other end. I put on some beautiful Christmas music sung by a Catholic choir. I threw out bits of trash. I took the stuff that belonged upstairs and put it on our steps so that the next time I went up I could take them with me (only did about half). I straightened the piles of books so the coffee table didn't look like a trash heap. I cleared off the kitchen table which was still full of clutter from my preparations for our Aquinas Learning Day. I'm always trying to have a craft to go with the saint of the week. Yesterday we learned about Andrew the Apostle (whose feast day was Wednesday, the day before!) so we made these little Russian Christmas Star ornaments (St. Andrew is said to have traveled to Kiev and is the patron saint of Russia). I cleared off our kitchen island which is always absolutely covered in all things kitcheny - my glass jars of flour, the lazy susan, the bagel guillotine, sundry things that should be put back into the pantry, fruit bowl, glasses, cups, plates, old mail. . . .
While I was tidying Becky came in. She began to lobby for a baby sister. This is an ongoing thing with her. Poor dear. She was not meant to be the baby of the family. I mean personality-wise. She is the type of person who is meant to be in charge! She is determined, resourceful, take-charge. She NEEDS to be directing something or somebody. She daydreams all the time of having a passel of little siblings. I believe she has two variations in her daydreams. One variation includes at least 5 little brothers and sisters and she's given names to them all. But yesterday she was lobbying for just a baby sister. "Please mom, can't we adopt someone? Please. I'm asking you because if I ask Dad he just laughs. But you don't laugh because you kind of like the idea, don't you?" (I think my husband is kind of open to the idea too. He's done several pro bono adoption cases and I think that's changing his heart). Then she started to sob. "Mom, all my daydreams are about something that will never happen!" It about broke my heart. I tried to explain that choosing a child to adopt is not like picking out a puppy or a new doll. I tried to explain all the changes it would bring. I think about what an ongoing hard time we've had adjusting to having my aunt move in with us. I tell that I think I'm too old to adopt. She thought that was ridiculous. I tell her it takes a very long time from beginning to end. That it could take a year or two and that she'd be older and maybe not really want a little sister anymore. She vehemently denied this though the idea of such a long wait dismayed her greatly.
We wound up looking at a list of children waiting for adoption. We found a little 4 year old girl who is blind. "Oh, Mommy! Can't we adopt her! Your mom was blind! You know about blind people! We could help her! I could take care of her!"
This is really drifting from the topic of housekeeping but really not so much. Because it is all about service. Serving one another. For me as the mother, serving my husband and children by providing them with a comfortable home. I look at the rooms I tidied yesterday at about 4 p.m. Since then more stuff has been dumped on the coffee table and there's a blanket and a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. Dishes are stacked up that never got loaded into the dishwasher last night. There's a big pile of pots and pans that have dried and need to be put away. And this isn't even mentioning all the clutter on my desk that has overflowed onto the counter next to it. Instead of being exasperated that I'll have to tidy again (probably a couple of times today) I should see this as an ongoing gesture of care for my family. I wish I could maintain feeling that way. I wish I could be convicted down deep in my psyche. Alas, I only get glimmers of that and instead fall very easily back into my negative habits of thought. I think this will be my prayer today: Lord, lift me up!
Anyway, I think this is the best book I've read on this sort of thing since I read Holiness for Housewives. The author is so clear-sighted, intelligent and profound about everything. She's really thought through what home and housekeeping mean from a Christian worldview. And it's beautiful. I'm finding it very inspiring and it's coloring my attitude which is such a blessing. To me housekeeping is just another long line of failures on my part. At least that's how I look at it. I am very negative about it, always on the brink of despair. I don't like it when people say they can't handle things. I always want to say it's all in your attitude. Some people say they can't handle more than two kids. I could handle that. Some say they could never home school, I could handle that. But the one thing I do say I can't handle is housework. So maybe I know my limits? Or maybe it really is in one's attitude and I've just had a bad one for so long which is so entrenched, that I can't see my way around it.
Yesterday, I was rereading the second chapter (or at least I think it was still the second chapter, sometimes on my Kindle I have a hard time knowing exactly where I am in the book) and the author talked about housework being sacramental. At that moment those words struck a beautiful chord in my heart. At the time I was feeling very sleepy and low-energy and in truth rather crabby. I forced myself to come downstairs to the kitchen/family room where I spent probably the better part of 30 minutes just tidying up. I started at one end of the room and worked to the other end. I put on some beautiful Christmas music sung by a Catholic choir. I threw out bits of trash. I took the stuff that belonged upstairs and put it on our steps so that the next time I went up I could take them with me (only did about half). I straightened the piles of books so the coffee table didn't look like a trash heap. I cleared off the kitchen table which was still full of clutter from my preparations for our Aquinas Learning Day. I'm always trying to have a craft to go with the saint of the week. Yesterday we learned about Andrew the Apostle (whose feast day was Wednesday, the day before!) so we made these little Russian Christmas Star ornaments (St. Andrew is said to have traveled to Kiev and is the patron saint of Russia). I cleared off our kitchen island which is always absolutely covered in all things kitcheny - my glass jars of flour, the lazy susan, the bagel guillotine, sundry things that should be put back into the pantry, fruit bowl, glasses, cups, plates, old mail. . . .
While I was tidying Becky came in. She began to lobby for a baby sister. This is an ongoing thing with her. Poor dear. She was not meant to be the baby of the family. I mean personality-wise. She is the type of person who is meant to be in charge! She is determined, resourceful, take-charge. She NEEDS to be directing something or somebody. She daydreams all the time of having a passel of little siblings. I believe she has two variations in her daydreams. One variation includes at least 5 little brothers and sisters and she's given names to them all. But yesterday she was lobbying for just a baby sister. "Please mom, can't we adopt someone? Please. I'm asking you because if I ask Dad he just laughs. But you don't laugh because you kind of like the idea, don't you?" (I think my husband is kind of open to the idea too. He's done several pro bono adoption cases and I think that's changing his heart). Then she started to sob. "Mom, all my daydreams are about something that will never happen!" It about broke my heart. I tried to explain that choosing a child to adopt is not like picking out a puppy or a new doll. I tried to explain all the changes it would bring. I think about what an ongoing hard time we've had adjusting to having my aunt move in with us. I tell that I think I'm too old to adopt. She thought that was ridiculous. I tell her it takes a very long time from beginning to end. That it could take a year or two and that she'd be older and maybe not really want a little sister anymore. She vehemently denied this though the idea of such a long wait dismayed her greatly.
We wound up looking at a list of children waiting for adoption. We found a little 4 year old girl who is blind. "Oh, Mommy! Can't we adopt her! Your mom was blind! You know about blind people! We could help her! I could take care of her!"
This is really drifting from the topic of housekeeping but really not so much. Because it is all about service. Serving one another. For me as the mother, serving my husband and children by providing them with a comfortable home. I look at the rooms I tidied yesterday at about 4 p.m. Since then more stuff has been dumped on the coffee table and there's a blanket and a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. Dishes are stacked up that never got loaded into the dishwasher last night. There's a big pile of pots and pans that have dried and need to be put away. And this isn't even mentioning all the clutter on my desk that has overflowed onto the counter next to it. Instead of being exasperated that I'll have to tidy again (probably a couple of times today) I should see this as an ongoing gesture of care for my family. I wish I could maintain feeling that way. I wish I could be convicted down deep in my psyche. Alas, I only get glimmers of that and instead fall very easily back into my negative habits of thought. I think this will be my prayer today: Lord, lift me up!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Keeping House - Preface
Willa is doing a book study on Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life by Margaret Kim Peterson. I downloaded it onto my Kindle and started reading it. Somehow I didn't stop at the Preface but read right through to the end of Chapter One. Very undisciplined of me!
Since I can't keep my remarks to just the Preface because 1) it has now blurred with the first chapter and 2) I'm expecting guests soon and don't have time to go back and reread at the moment, I'll just quickly post about why I wanted to join in this book study.
See, me and housekeeping, we don't get along. I am at my most ADD when it comes to keeping tidy. I often joke that I am like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip. Where ever he goes, there is a cloud of dust. Where ever I go, there is a pile of clutter. I've been like this all my life. As a child growing up, my mother was very strict about keeping things tidy. Once I left home, however, I completely fell apart and never ever gained traction again. I have struggled with this all my life.
One thing I know about myself is that I can fall easily into despair and feeling overwhelmed. So I have to work at keeping myself buoyed up. Prayer is good, cultivating my spiritual life is good, surrounding myself with encouragement is good. And all this does a wonderful thing - it keeps me from being a subject of that reality show Clean House! I am able to just barely keep myself above the water so I don't drown. And this is even with housecleaners that come to our house every other Monday and vacuum and scrub it for me! That's how pathetic I am!
So as the holiday season approaches, I tend to really want to get my house clean. Even though I'm terrible at keeping things in order, I crave order especially around the holidays. I have a very hard time with Christmas. I find it completely overwhelming and sadly, I don't enjoy it much. I'm always exhausted when it is over and it takes me a while to recuperate (like all winter!). Every Christmas I vow I'll be different. So far I haven't accomplished this. But hope springs eternal!
Anyway, I am hoping this book study will be a source of inspiration to me as we move into the holiday season. I've had a rough fall. I've overbooked myself and have run into a lot of bumps in the road. I'm very tired. I suspect that I have fibromyalgia. I don't know for sure, but I am exhausted and in pain much of the time. I've been feeling very down lately, though I'm fighting mightily! Anyway, I know perseverance is key. I know that if you wait long enough the sun will rise. I know God will never abandon me. So things are good even when they seem bad!
Back to the book, I like the author's clear-sighted and intentional approach to housework. Her voice rings very authentically true to me, so I am finding the book very appealing. It gives me food for thought and make me want to be more intentional about my wifely and motherly duties. And that is what I need. So I am looking forward to this book study very much!
Since I can't keep my remarks to just the Preface because 1) it has now blurred with the first chapter and 2) I'm expecting guests soon and don't have time to go back and reread at the moment, I'll just quickly post about why I wanted to join in this book study.
See, me and housekeeping, we don't get along. I am at my most ADD when it comes to keeping tidy. I often joke that I am like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip. Where ever he goes, there is a cloud of dust. Where ever I go, there is a pile of clutter. I've been like this all my life. As a child growing up, my mother was very strict about keeping things tidy. Once I left home, however, I completely fell apart and never ever gained traction again. I have struggled with this all my life.
One thing I know about myself is that I can fall easily into despair and feeling overwhelmed. So I have to work at keeping myself buoyed up. Prayer is good, cultivating my spiritual life is good, surrounding myself with encouragement is good. And all this does a wonderful thing - it keeps me from being a subject of that reality show Clean House! I am able to just barely keep myself above the water so I don't drown. And this is even with housecleaners that come to our house every other Monday and vacuum and scrub it for me! That's how pathetic I am!
So as the holiday season approaches, I tend to really want to get my house clean. Even though I'm terrible at keeping things in order, I crave order especially around the holidays. I have a very hard time with Christmas. I find it completely overwhelming and sadly, I don't enjoy it much. I'm always exhausted when it is over and it takes me a while to recuperate (like all winter!). Every Christmas I vow I'll be different. So far I haven't accomplished this. But hope springs eternal!
Anyway, I am hoping this book study will be a source of inspiration to me as we move into the holiday season. I've had a rough fall. I've overbooked myself and have run into a lot of bumps in the road. I'm very tired. I suspect that I have fibromyalgia. I don't know for sure, but I am exhausted and in pain much of the time. I've been feeling very down lately, though I'm fighting mightily! Anyway, I know perseverance is key. I know that if you wait long enough the sun will rise. I know God will never abandon me. So things are good even when they seem bad!
Back to the book, I like the author's clear-sighted and intentional approach to housework. Her voice rings very authentically true to me, so I am finding the book very appealing. It gives me food for thought and make me want to be more intentional about my wifely and motherly duties. And that is what I need. So I am looking forward to this book study very much!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)