So one thing I've learned being a stay at home mom is if things at home get out of control or left undone for one day, it takes several days to get things back in order to where they need to be. The wisest advice someone gave me for being a stay at home mom and keeping up with the the house is "never let it get out of order" which has been a struggle for me with three little ones, and even worse when I'm pregnant and not feeling 100%.
As a wife and mother, I know several other wives and mothers whose lives also get out of control, and struggle to keep up with things, and struggle to find time with God during those busy days. These are the same women (myself included) who feel so much guilt when they don't accomplish what they wanted to in one day, or a week or who feel that they are a failure because they didn't teach their child a bible lesson today or didn't get much homeschooling done with their child today, or didn't get much housework today. There is so much included in being a effective Godly wife and mother, so many expectations that we can have of ourselves and even expectations our husbands and children might have of us that it can be very overwhelming at times.
I was watching the show "hoarders" last night and one of the things that caused these women to not be able to keep up with cleaning their homes was they became so overwhelmed with looking around at all the piles and rooms full of things and trash to clean that just cleaning one corner of a room at a time for them was discouraging! They would become overwhelmed and just think "whats the use the rest of the house is dirty anyways." As women we tend to do the same thing at times, we start working on an area of our lives and then look around at all the work that is left to do and we think "whats the use!" And that is what we need to stop doing!
We need to start focusing on one area of our lives, our house, & our children's lives at a time and not look up until we have accomplished our goal. It's when we start looking around at all the other things we want to accomplish, and we stop looking at what we already have accomplished that we get side tracked and fall apart.
This week for me has been HUGE! I had been feeling pretty overwhelmed by housework, in a days time I will have done at least 4 loads of laundry, two-three loads of dishes, cleaned the living room at least 5 times, vacuumed 3 times, picked up toys 10 times, mopped the bathroom floor from accidents 3 times, Changed at least 12 diapers before 5pm, made 3 meals, and taken care of any of my children's needs. With having to clean each room so many times it doesn't leave a lot of time to school my children, or read to them, or teach them things, and that is where the guilt comes in.
So I've made a few goals for myself that I've been working on. #1 every morning while they watch their morning cartoons and drink their milk, I do a bible study, and read part of a spiritual book. #2 Empty the dishwasher every morning and load it with dishes throughout the day, my goal is for zero dishes to be in the dishwasher, then before bed i will run it and it's ready for the next morning. #3 do 1 load of laundry every day, 3 loads on Monday to keep up with the weekend #4 Do 2 worksheets with Alanah every day after lunch time #5 Read the girls the bible every day.
These goals I've made have been almost life changing! At first I felt a little frustrated because in order to do 1 load of laundry a day I had to get caught up first, same with the dishes I had to get it to where I only needed 1 load of dishes a day. This process was the most frustrating but after three weeks of working towards these goals this morning I woke up to NO dishes in the sink, one load of laundry on the floor, and TONS of time to spend teaching my children about the word of God and to do their lessons. Standing in the kitchen this morning and looking at my empty sink made me feel like I was doing something right!! It was so exciting that I had been able to accomplish this goal. It leaves so much more time to do other things that were needing to be done and so much more time for my children.
So anytime I start looking around the house at other things that are undone or not in order I just go in the kitchen and look at my sink and remind myself I accomplished that goal for the day, the other things will come along later.
The key is to not get so overwhelmed to where you feel you are going to accomplish nothing, but instead to get so excited about accomplishing those little goals that you can go onto bigger things later.
This week my goal was my home and my children and they have been accomplished, next week I'll add to it and work on being a Godly wife. Maybe work on one thing from the Psalm 31 wife, until I accomplish that one thing. However long it takes I know I will get there!
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