Tag: motherhood

making a plan

Mornings are hard.

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

Mornings are hard.

 

     It doesn’t matter what your family looks like or what the responsibilities of your mornings are, mornings are hard. My normal morning includes getting seven people, including myself, up, dressed, fed, in the truck, and headed down the driveway by 7:30. Then, I drive to town where I drop off four children at three different schools by 8:05.

 

It is an adventure. Every morning.

 

     In the last year, I have come up with a pretty good system to keep the family as a whole on time. But before I tell you about that, I want you to tell you something else first. There has been more than one morning that I got into the truck with wet hair, no makeup on, my shoes untied, and a loaf of raisin bread in my hand. As we are driving down the dirt road, the kids are putting on socks and shoes, hopefully they grabbed two of each that match, looking for backpacks, and yelling about missing sweatshirts and coats. I would open the bag of raisin bread, pulling out one slice at a time, and toss it behind me into the back seat, hoping it would make contact with the child who was strapped into a car seat in the third row. This happened more than I would like to admit.  

 

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making a plan

The Problem with Laundry

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

I want to talk to you about your laundry situation. I have heard wives and mothers in all different walks of life vocalize how overwhelming laundry is to them. Most of us have whole rooms in our homes dedicated to laundry, along with two moderately expensive appliances whose only job in life is to wash and dry laundry.  So with all that, why are we all so overwhelmed with this? I believe laundry is hard for a few different reasons. Let’s only go over the most practical one right now.

 

How we all physically do laundry.

 

From what I can tell, this is how most of us do laundry. First, you go all over the house collecting all the dirty laundry, bringing it to one central location, and then wash and dry it. Most people then take it to another location; to the living room, bedroom, or wherever to fold it. Then, once it is folded into neat little piles, we have to go the distance of the whole house to deliver it back to it originating locations.  

Ok, just for a second, pretend you are running a business, and your chosen “product” is making clean laundry. Now, picture yourself sitting in a conference room trying to explaining to investors your system for getting your product made. If you told them the above system, they may call your job into question.The system is inefficient at best and the CEO, you,  are doing all of the product movement.

 

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Story Time

Things I get to say as a parent

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

As a parent, you have the unique opportunity to guide a young person through life into adulthood.  Teaching them along the way the things they should or should not do. We get to say things like, “don’t eat off the floor”  and “ go brush your teeth.” These are of the norm.  

But, sometimes you get to form and speak sentences that you just have to stop and giggle over.  

 Like, here are some of the things I have said in the last week:

 

“ Please, do not lick the baby.”

 

“Good job putting on your shoes, but you need two of the same shoe.”

 

“Yes, you have to wear pants to school.”  

 

“You have to take off the dirty underwear before you put on the clean ones.”

 

But, so far this week my favorite happen tonight.  

 

“Hey. HEY! Yes you! Turn that off.  No leaf blowers in the house.”

 

I wish I was making some of this up.

DIY Projects, Story Time

For Real, It’s Not Magic

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

 

A few years ago, I took a class from a woman at our church on how to make bread.   It was just a 15 or 20 of us sitting in the back corner of the gym on a Saturday morning, but it really was a turning point for me and my outlook on much of how I run my home.

Janette was in her late 60’s, her family had been member of our church since before anyone could remember.  Her and her husband raised 5 sons who were all happily married with children of their own and all living within 30 miles of home.   I first meet her early in my college career, she hosted a Sunday lunch after church that was open to anyone.   There were usually 3-4 of her son’s and their families, anywhere from 2-20 college kids and anyone else who looked lost and hungry after church.     Because of these lunches, which I should point out is one of the only ways I survived college, her cooking skills were known far and wide.    Especially her homemade rolls and homemade jelly that was served with every meal.

It. Was. Amazing.

So when I heard that she was teaching how to make those amazing rolls I had to go, even if I never got it right I had to at least try.  As we were getting set up a few of the woman were laughingly doubting their potential bread making skills. (I was one of them for sure) She stopped us and said that making bread really was easy, but that for some reason the skill had been elevated to almost celebrity status.   She added that lots of woman who know how to do it, want to keep it that way, like they have skill that makes them superior to the rest of us.  That they have a domestic magic.  It was after that day that I started to wonder if all the mothers around me, who’s lives looks so perfect and put together, were just faking it.  Maybe they did not all possess some magic that was out of my reach, maybe it really was just smoke and mirrors.

She is right it really is pretty easy to make your own bread or rolls, I’ll show you sometime.

Because for real, it’s not magic.

Story Time

A world I don’t understand.

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

I have 4 sons and I am learning that despite having a brother of my own, and working in a male dominated field for 15 years, I still can be at a loss for words.

The other day, headed into the store, as I’m walking across the parking lot I hear, “Mommy wait a second, my penis is stuck to my leg I gotta fix it!”

What do I do with that?  

(I just pretended I didn’t seem him adjust himself in the parking lot)