Housewifery

So I have a problem with myself...I often feel like I'm lazy when it comes to homemaking. I can make myself do the things that need to be done, but I put if off and put it off for as long as humanly possible and see if Eric will do it. : /

From a seminar I took, I remember the following: "You either have your reasons, stories, and excuses, or you have the results you want." and "If your beliefs don't line up with your actions, you need to realign either your actions or your beliefs." To put it bluntly, I have been making excuses for not doing things around the house. My back hurts, I've been working all week, Olivia is fussy, blah blah blah. I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I wanted to believe that I was a good mom and wife, but my actions weren't creating that. So...

Today, I decided that in order to be a good mom and wife, I need to take care of my family and my home. This is not at all to say that I don't expect Eric to help or for Olivia to have chores when the time comes, but I need to pull myself together and take care of my home and the people in it.

Eric left for work around 6:15, so I started with getting up at a decent hour (around 8:30am) and not trying to force Olivia to sleep in. We got up, made breakfast and then got straight to work. I loaded the dishwasher and got it started and Olivia "helped." We did several loads of laundry together. I would hand Olivia something and she would put it in the dryer. It was so cute. I vacuumed, Olivia hated that. I cleaned the kitchen, dining room, and downstairs bathroom floors, and she hated that too. I'm patting my own back here but I really did do a lot today. Especially compared to my usual routine of sitting around and doing nothing all day. I cooked all of the food we ate and didn't just pull something out of a package.

Really what I did today was realign my belief that I am a good wife and mother by making my actions reflect that. Sounds cheesy and "programy" but it's the truth. I feel good about the fact that I did things to take care of my home and that Eric will have a clean house and clean laundry to come home to in the morning after working a 24 hour shift. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it might make our Sunday better because we don't have to be trying to catch up and get ready for the coming week.

Eric and I split our household duties most of the time but it really is nice to just take care of it so we can relax as a family. I will say this much though, I don't think I could be a stay at home mom. Having cleaned so much in the house today and knowing how much more there is that still could have been done, I don't think I could keep my sanity in this mad house if I didn't have somewhere else to be (work). I love my job and couldn't imagine not being there. I'm torn sometimes though about not being home enough for Olivia, even though I only work until 5. That's a whole other day though.

Right now though, I'm going to go put away laundry because that's my last housewifey thing to do tonight.

Such is the life of a mother and wife. And I'm so glad it's my life.