If you want to go out and do great things this year, you will need a place to start from. You will need a place to come back to for refreshment and rest. One of the greatest things about home is the fact that you have one. Here are the books and the chair and the lamp. Here you can put your feet up and eat the food you like (or know you need). Home is where your people are.

Homemaker: a person, usually a woman, who cares for her own home and family by cleaning, cooking nutritious meals, doing laundry, running errands, caring for pets, working with a budget, organizing, etc. She is her own boss and enjoys the freedom of creating her own schedule. She does not have time to be lazy. She realized the value of her unpaid job as a homemaker because it brings stability to the family and less stress for all. — Urban Dictionary

A godly home is a foretaste of heaven. Our homes, imperfect as they are, must be a haven from the chaos outside. They should be a reflection of our eternal home where troubled souls find peace, wearied hearts find rest, hungry bodies find refreshment, lonely pilgrims find communion and wounded soldiers find compassion. — Jenny Ort Lyn

What a great job description! Is that how you feel about homemaking? You are your own boss, can create your own schedule that emphasizes the things you think are most important. You have an unpaid job that is worth more than any money you could be paid, because you add so much love to every corner of your home.

Homemaking is not always valued in today’s culture. In some environments, we might feel embarrassed to tell someone what we ‘do’. I have often felt like I should be doing something more. When I hear of others’ hobbies turned into money-making side jobs, I have wondered about starting something myself. But I can’t forget it’s still the basics of homemaking that will truly nourish my life. The troubled souls, weary hearts and hungry bodies are often ourselves and our families. Being the
homemaker means we get to give meaningful help to the ones we love best.

The Brilliant Basics

Food. Clean clothes. Clean bathroom and kitchen. Clutter put away. All of these recurring tasks seem inconsequential individually, but they are the backbone of a functioning life. It doesn’t matter if I live alone or have a family of ten. These jobs may seem unimportant because they are the little routine things that happen
every day. They are the things that I might try to do quickly so I can get to my ‘real’ work. But from another perspective, these little daily duties are the real work of my life; after all, that is what makes everything else possible.

Occasionally, for a short time, housework flows. One meal feeds the next with the leftover rice or potatoes giving the cook a head start. That doesn’t mean I never have a day where my mind is blank about what to make for supper. Any job can get boring from time to time. Just because I don’t know what to cook and it’s been a problem for weeks, doesn’t mean I should quit cooking. After all, food made at home and eaten together around the table is generally more nutritious. Conversation reveals our hearts and we can find help and hope from others at the kitchen table. A little time looking through cookbooks refreshes my ideas and makes it interesting again.
Or I just keep cooking, the inspiration will come again with a little time.

Sometimes it’s a struggle. Sometimes there’s just too much to do besides the basics. Some unfinished tasks don’t bother me for awhile, but the day comes when someone doesn’t have the clean clothes they need now. I want to enjoy all the benefits of a clean, organized, well-appointed home, but the daily reality is sometimes a drag. I
have seen it as doing the slave labor that no one else wanted to do. I was the person who didn’t matter because anyone can clean a house and cook a meal. It wasn’t until I accepted that was my place that I started to see the deeper meaning in what I did. Somehow my eyes were blind to the importance of my work and the blessing it
was to me that I didn’t have to go out into the world and do a ‘real’ job. I really wasn’t made for that.

Is Your Schedule Serving You?

You have a housekeeping schedule. It’s just however you regularly do, or don’t do, the basic tasks. Try writing it down and giving it some thought. Is this schedule serving you best right now? A few tweaks may be in order. Life is full of change and it’s easy to hang on to an old way of doing something because it worked last year. After our son got married, I couldn’t figure out why my husband was often looking for clean jeans. I was doing laundry just like always. Which was: collect laundry most mornings and wash whatever was enough for a load. But then I caught on that with fewer jeans coming through, I wasn’t washing jeans as often. There were two solutions: either buy more jeans or wash only four pairs in a load.

I usually write my home-keeping schedule somewhere in my planner. I don’t refer to it often; it is pretty much a habit by now. But occasionally I run across it and read it and think, yes, that’s how I like to do it. I also like to call it Home Blessing (borrowed from Flylady) because it makes me feel like a benevolent queen. ( I just looked in my planner and I don’t think I’ve written a schedule for more than a year! I suppose it was because we lived in a camper and then a shop and are still in the process of building a house. Hmm… maybe that’s why the basics seem to be taking all my time. I need to get this clear in my mind again.

Since you are cleaning up anyway, declutter something. Choose the area in your home that gives you the most pain. Could you reduce the stuff there by half? Even if you don’t, it will feel better to declutter and reorganize so it serves you better.

If you don’t know how to do the basics, you have an adventure of learning before you. You will make mistakes. We all did and still do from time to time. Keep your sense of humor intact. Start with the suggestions that look easy and you will quickly develop your own homemaking flair. If all you can do now is the basics, you are doing
so much good work for your family and yourself. If you don’t want to do the basics, remember that’s the foundation for every other good thing you want in your life. Life will become chaotic without something solid to build on at home. If you love the basics and find creativity and satisfaction in them, don’t think you have to add
other things to your life just because of popular opinion. If you cannot do the basics for whatever reason, know that this is only a season if you keep moving forward. May you find restoration as you accept help.

Someone has to be at home to work that magic of clean clothes, supper on the table and attractively arranged furniture. It takes love, thought and hours of time. I am so thankful I can be the person who sweeps the floor and winds the clock.

For today, for your family, for your future self, make sure the basics are the main thing. And while we are making a home, let’s remember to do it with love and cheerfulness.

And to mention a book: Have you read any of Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson? I say ‘read any’ because this is a huge book of information about housekeeping. It isn’t really a book you would want to read from front to back, but it does have some inspiring essays at the beginning of each section. And if you have any questions about modern housekeeping, this book will likely have answers.

Let’s be cheerful! We have no more right to steal the brightness out of the day for our own family than we have to steal the purse of a stranger. Let us be careful that our homes are furnished with pleasant and happy thoughts as we are that the rugs are the right color and texture and the furniture comfortable and beautiful. –Laura Ingalls Wilder

–Liz and Eva

Don’t leave — there’s something new from So She Reads!

Do you feel at loose ends at the beginning of the year? Does all the talk of goals and plans leave you feeling a little empty or lost? Maybe you need a different perspective on the new year. I created this devotional with a list of 40 scriptures to read or write, and one word topics to pray about. These will aid you in seeking God’s will as you plan and dream of the future. The link below will take you to our So She Reads Shop Page where you can order this download.

If you order this, look for an email from Elizabeth Jantz. We are still working out the technical details of this process, and hope you will bear with us.

So She Reads Shop