Homework, Housework, Happy-work?

Let me rant about homework first. Now, I am thankful for my wonderful husband who does almost all of my daughter’s homework with her every night because that is a big task. Occasionally, an assignment comes home that Howard turns over to me and tells me I get to do it. I’m really wondering where in the world these assignments come from. I’m seriously thinking they send these home to see whether you’re a good mommy or not. Let me explain. The assignment for this week was to work on a timeline. My daughter was supposed to find out when she first smiled, when she took her first step, when she learned how to ride a bike, etc. — about 20 questions in all. You may or may not know, but I have a horrible memory. The super moms can rattle off ages of all their perfect children and when they did what. I sadly, am doing really well to remember my daughter’s birthday. Ok, it’s not quite that bad, but you get the picture.

Being the timeline was due today, I began digging in some boxes I have sitting around my office looking for her baby book — granted I knew this was a very long shot as I knew I never finished her baby book, but maybe it would give me some answers. Thankfully I found a calendar I had written stuff on her first year of birth (she’s almost 8 now by the way). Praise God I wrote most of that stuff down. I only had to guess on about 4 of them Isn’t it terrible how we’ll feel judged if we don’t have some of this information at hand?

Now let’s talk about housework. I do not know how anything got done when I had a full time job outside the home. Honestly, I cannot remember. I’m sure the laundry got done, but when? And honestly the house didn’t get cleaned that much, but I was never here to see it. Since I began “working” from home — something like 7 years ago (good grief that’s a long time!) — I still struggle with getting stuff done. You’d think it’d be easier to start a load of laundry, work a little bit, go do another load, and so on. I couldn’t do that when I worked in an office. But remembering to go in there and change out the loads seems to be something I have not mastered yet. Not to mention the laundry seems never-ending.

And dishes. Let’s talk about the kitchen. First off, I don’t cook — at least not often, and not very well. We do eat out a lot. So how can so many dishes still get dirty? Oh, and let’s not mention how quickly the dog hair (from 2 dogs now) gathers in the corners of every room. Dusting? Sure I could do it now and you could come over tomorrow and it’d look like I hadn’t touched it in months. I would love to get some honest feedback on how you deal with this stuff so leave your comments! I mean seriously, I don’t like to do this stuff in the first place and I want to get it done quickly.

Some days I can find the joy in doing all of this, while other days I just feel like hiding from it. It’s the same stuff over and over and over. “Didn’t I just wash these same dishes?” “Didn’t I just wash these clothes?” “Do you ever get ‘caught up’?” These are the true mysteries of life!