Beautiful Homemakers

Calm.   Peaceful.   Happy.   Content . Happy Family 1955 Eloise Wilkin No more mad morning dashes out the front door. No more being late to work. No more snapping at the kids. No more schedule rearranging. No more sick days. No more melt-downs in the mornings. No more, “Who is picking up the kids today?” No more, “Who will pick up dinner?” No more, “Who will stay with the sick child?” No more, “Not now, I’m working.” How would your life change? He begged her to stay home.   She didn’t feel adequate.   She couldn’t accept his care of her.   She feared abandonment.   “What will it take?” he asked.   She jokingly replied, “A Porsche Cayenne.”   Within a week he had one delivered and demanded she resign.   He told her that he and the kids desperately needed her to be at home.   The chaos and negativity of her job was destroying their home life.   She quit, and the above was her partial list of what...

The Job A. Sarnoff When my baby was 2-1/2 years old, my old job called to see if I could fill in for two and one-half weeks while someone was on vacation.  Lured by the easy money, I readily agreed. I was to begin on a Wednesday, so my DH took off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  I left a full fridge, no dirty laundry, and a sparkling clean home.  I was gone 10 hours.  I came home to dinner and a clean home, happy to see baby and daddy. Thursday, same scenario, except the house was no longer sparkling. Friday, I came home to no dinner and a messy house.  I was exhausted, and as I hadn't made the mess, I went on strike.  I wasn't going to do any dishes, laundry, or housework on my weekend.  I did take over caring for baby. For the next two weeks, daddy took baby to grandma and grandpa's house.  Then he went to work.  When he picked little one up, grandma had dinner ready and waiting for him. I began working 12 hour days.  A...

Children think their mothers are beautiful! We are so very beautiful to them, no matter if we have make-up on, are overweight, or are wearing old pajamas with holes in them. They say the sweetest things about how we look that are highly exaggerated.   Write them down!   I keep a small book in the kitchen of all the funny and sweet things my son has said over the years, and funny events, comics, etc.  (I began with scraps of paper I threw in a box.)  How we giggle when we go through it! He just told me I didn't look any different with make-up on, so why do I wear it?  "It's the same old, adorable, beautiful face!"  Ha, ha! When I saw this boy's pin-up, I realized that is truly how our children see us - we are the most beautiful gal in the room. both ads by A. Sarnoff Happy Mother's Day!  You are blessed!   “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” -C. S. Lewis “Love me ...

Photo credit You can alter your life by altering your attitude .   ~ Unknown I embraced my situation in life on April 3, 2000.  I found a support group for a problem in my life that filled me with fear.  I took baby steps in ending the reign of my clutter (I believe I was one of FlyLady’s first 100 people).  I was also one of Rhonda Britten’s (of Starting Over fame) first clients.  I acknowledged myself for the many baby steps I was taking in several directions and my self-confidence grew.  I began to visualize how I really wanted my daily life to be.  It was indeed a journey and I had many instances of confusion deciphering, “What am I committed to?  How do I act?  Where do I spend my time?  What do I want out of life?”  Yet because I was now consciously searching, writing and taking notes, spending an hour a day in prayer, devotion and learning, I had many key instances of clarity, vision, and discovering who I reall...

photo credit We always think we are going to get our life together after the wedding, when we have a better job, after the baby is born,  when the child goes to school, when we get a raise, a dependable car, a bigger home, better organized, finish college, lose ten pounds... Alfred D. Souza said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business...then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." Instead of being surprised by hardships, I've come to expect them.  When I have a great day, I rejoice! I've recently learned three things: 1)  To accept and bless my present circumstances - there is no better time to be happy than right now!  I have finally accepted the silliest things that bothered me in the past.  I have blessed my small house.  I went through each room...

I love to do things in order – everything simply turns out better!  Our God is a God of order! He tells us that when we seek his Kingdom first, our other concerns will fall into order.  “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  Matthew 6:33 Your home can be a place of order, but FIRST it needs to be a place of WORSHIP.  Silence, or reading in the sunlight and listening to the everyday sounds of a child playing, or a dishwasher humming, is relaxing and well-worth turning off the radio, computer and t.v. to attain.  Singing a cappella, or with a CD, is a way to bring worship into your home.  You don’t need to practice yoga and sit in silence, emptying your mind, to find serenity. In fact, as Christians, we are called to FILL our minds with Scripture.  When we have questions for God, He often will answer us through memorized Scripture.  And if you haven’t memorized any – or ra...

" Every mother loves to button up her child's clothing and kiss his face," I assured my son after he had once again buttoned his shirt askew and come to me in despair. Beatrix Potter / Peter Rabbit & Mum So, several years later, he still comes to me for buttoning, though sometimes he cries, “Stop kissing me!” with a big smile on his little face.   He comes, not because he cannot button, but because he likes the care and attention I bestow on him at that moment. We each choose what is important, and we each choose different things. I decorate differently every month!   Flags, designs in the front windows for the month’s holiday theme, towels with cute pictures, tablecloths, placemats, pot holders, and even one wall where we put up the month’s name and past and present drawings, cards, cute calendar pictures, etc.   Our wall of the month. I give snacks in little, but heavy, crystal bowls – even to 5 year olds! ...

Country Living has a lovely book called Simple Country Wisdom, 501 Old-Fashioned Ideas to Simplify Your Life , by Susan Waggoner . I've been using this gem of a book for several years now and refer to it even more than Home Comforts . It has beautiful pictures, and easy to read pages with lots of headings so you can easily peruse it to find the details of what you "kinda remember reading."  You know, "didn't I read about something that deodorizes closets?"  Oh yes, go to All About Closets, and notice that you starred the last paragraph regarding how to refresh cedar wood blocks.  Now I remember! The book has 4 sections:  The Home that Welcomes; Behind the Scenes; In the Kitchen; and Harmony. The Home that Welcomes discusses what makes a welcoming home, clutter control, and what meets the eye (colors, textures, painting, decorating, senses), along with beautiful and inspiring pictures.  The pictures are one of my favorite parts of this book - I a...

photo credit We had to cut 60% of our budget in order for me to stay home. I had started a list of all I did in this post, but it was soooo long, that I eventually took the 240+ steps I took while living on one income and becoming debt-free, all while homeschooling our child, and expounded on them in my book How to Thrive on One Income .  The blessings of living on one income are so worth the effort! Know that you must be agreed that you being home is more important than a higher income.  If your husband is resentful you will encounter problems (or if you really want to work, then you will sabotage yourself at home).  You can have a trial time as well – he might not believe you can cut expenses.  But you can!  Joni McCoy of MiserlyMoms.com has a wonderful audio tape telling her story that is incredibly inspiring. You must know WHY it is important for you to be home.  Finding Your Way Home , which I talk about in its own post ( here ), is a...

Elosie Wilkin "We Help Mommy" Clean in ORDER.   That means, you pick the most important room in the house to YOU, and start there.   You never deviate from the path (otherwise you get sidetracked). I t works really well because it is thorough .  Example:   I start with our bedroom.   I make the bed, take clothes to laundry baskets, straighten dresser tops and books.   If it is a cleaning day or changing sheets day, I do it.   Then I move on to the next room clockwise.   If I find something that does not belong in the bedroom I take it to that room, and just place it down anywhere .   I don’t decide to feed the cat, or wash dishes, or sort laundry or wrap a gift or… I simply place it down and go back to the room I’m working in.   This ensures that : all the clothes from each room in the house ends up in the laundry basket before I sort and begin the wash; all dishes are in the kitchen; all trash cans empt...

Eloise Wilkin In paying attention to the sunrise/sunset calendar I printed from sunrisesunset.com , I realized that January 1st is the perfect month to begin getting up earlier!  Every day, set your alarm for the same time the sun rises. January 1 - 14:  You have two whole weeks to get used to arising at 6:58 ! January 15-18:  Arise one minute earlier:  6:57 January 19-21:  Another minute:  6:56 January 22-23:  6:55 January 24-25:  6:54 January 26-27:  6:53 January 28:       6:52 January 29-30:  6:51 January 31:       6:50 You've painlessly begun your quest to get up with the sun! Half of you are thinking "I WISH I could sleep in that long" but the other half is praying that God will help them as they attempt to arise earlier. You can always set your alarm for 5-10 minutes earlier than the sun so that you can be outside when it arises.  I've come ...

On January 1 st we place our Christmas cards in a basket, and each morning after our Bible reading, our  child randomly chooses one card and we pray for that person or family.  If it is from a coworker we pray for him and all the coworkers by name.   We also put in index cards for elderly people we know that were not able to send out cards.      If a card was from a child, we pray for his family, as well as other families we play with at the park, wherever we know that person from. Then, as we finish, if it is a photo card, we place it in our Christmas album.    If it is a card with a signature (not typed), we cut it out and their message, if any, and glue that into our album.   We usually don’t keep the whole card, just the message, and sometimes part of the card’s picture if really cute or biblical. The result is an album that shows our family and friends’ children growing from year to year, and a scrapbook of actual sig...

Read this slowly and imagine the words about Home :  “At night across the mountains when darkness falls and the winds sweep down out of the hollows, the wild things with their shiny eyes come to the edge of the clearing.  At such an hour the house seems safe and warm, an island of light and love in a sea of darkness…   …the vision of a mother’s face, a father’s deep voice, the aroma of fresh baked bread, sunshine in a window, the muted sounds of rain on a roof…the cry of a newborn babe, and voices calling ‘goodnight.’  Home, an island, a refuge, a haven of love.” This excerpt of Home was John Boy’s epilogue of Season 1, Episode 15, “The Actress,” from The Waltons .  I don’t recall the episode, but I replayed the DVD until I had these words on paper.  They evoke such peace!  I used to watch a lot of old t.v. shows searching for that feeling of peace.  I believe that many of the “old” shows are so beloved as we age (even when we didn’t...