Jubilee Monday #14 - back to basics

I don't know how things were for you last week, but for me, time had wings.

It really is good for me to stay off the 'net (pretty much...I still checked my email and the weather forecast) on a regularly scheduled basis, as much to put things into perspective as to have some extra time to catch up on things.

I spent some time just thinking. Thinking about what I really wanted my days to look like, and how that should happen. Thinking about changes we need to do to the house (We moved in 3 years ago but have not really changed anything since)...things *I* want to do to the house to make it reflect who we are and pondering what the first steps in that direction should be.

And I wrote down some potential routines and found the paint scraper.

But mostly I reconsidered who I really am. I'd been doing so much work as a volunteer that things around the house really, really fell behind. Not that I caught everything up...it's been too long neglected...but I caught a vision of how it *could* be.

And I realized we'd been living a two-income-lifestyle (harried, hurried, driving around daily eating carry out or processed quick fix food) on a one-income, um, income. Something's gotta change.

I need to be a home maker -- not a Stay At Home Mom. Funny how the title matters.

I was really surprised by that revelation, because (true confession time) I've always sort of subconsciously resented having to be the one to do all the housework, even while I was helping out in other places and gone so much. Oh, I could get some help now and again, but it always falls back on Mom.

This past stay-home week finally began to break through that. Maybe it's the economic anxiety that's all around; I can see where staying home and really managing the household could be a profitable thing to us as a family, instead of just the drudge work no one else wants to do.

I used to do that, when the older kids were small. I cut coupons and made menus and cooked from scratch...and still managed to teach Sunday School and Youth Group and sew clothes for me and the kids. Didn't manage the clean house most of the time, and I would get up at 5 AM to go to the grocery store and back before My Sweet Baboo left to go to work, but, somehow...I don't remember feeling as knotted up as I have felt at times lately.

As I commented to My Sweet Baboo, I feel like something in me began to unwind a little last week, and it felt good.

So I don't want to jump back into the craziness; somehow, I've got to hold things lightly and not get so overbooked.

It is Jubilee year...it should be the year of opening and unwinding and holding things lightly.