I'm at home with nothing I have to do! What a strange concept.
I mean, of course there's the laundry. And the mountain of dishes from yesterday. And I still need to organize one corner of my storage room. And I do have two columns due tomorrow.
But on the whole, I have nothing to do compared to normal! It's bliss.
I've knit a lot this week. I finished a qiviut scarf, which is luscious! Qiviut is extremely expensive yarn made from musk ox fur. It's the softest and warmest natural fibre. I didn't buy 100% qiviut because it was just too much. But I bought 45%, and it's still lovely. I finished a sweater for my husband, mended my daughter's gloves, mended my gloves, finished Keith's gloves, and finished a pair of socks for Katie. And now I'm well on my way to finishing a vest for myself.
I forgot how much I love knitting. It's what I do to relax, and too often lately I've been on the computer late into the night getting things done, and I forget to knit.
Do you have a hobby like that? One that makes you feel better, relaxes you, and that you just love? Have you been neglecting it?
It's interesting, because one of the things I've been doing is preparing articles and podcasts and videos from my book To Love, Honor and Vacuum lately, and in that book is a chapter on our priorities. I tell women that we need to schedule in the stuff that we love, that we just need to get done for the health of our own souls, before the housework and all the other drudgeries of life. And yet I haven't been doing that!
In December I created some household planners and charts based on the book, with one chart in particular about scheduling in our priorities. And here I wasn't even using it myself! I didn't realize until I had this vacation and I started knitting again, and noticed how much more relaxed I felt, and how much nicer I was to everyone.
So now I'm going to start using the charts, too! I did, after all, create them. And I was doing so well a year ago. But it's amazing how quickly things can slide when we don't take care to put first things first.
I do have to work. I do have to homeschool. But sometimes it takes a vacation to remind ourselves that we have to knit, too!
If you want the charts, you can get them for free here. So go to it, and start prioritizing your own downtimes again. We do, after all, need them!
I'm an organizer. I think it's because I'm not naturally organized that I've built all these systems to help keep me on track. I know which days I iron, and which days I do my husband's billing. I know which days I write my columns and which days I teach history. Everything has its time and its place.
But it's hard to keep track of all of that! So I've created a couple of household organization charts that keep me going. There's one that lists kids' chores; there's one that lists all the chores that need to be done in the house, both daily, weekly, and monthly, and there are two special ones.
One is just for me. It's my "New Priorities" chart, based on chapter 4 of my book To Love, Honor and Vacuum. Basically, here's my philosophy: one of the reasons we women often feel so ragged is because we don't concentrate on what we need at all. So we skip our private devotions, we don't take time to ourselves, we never exercise, and then we're exhausted! So I have a chart that makes you schedule in these important things first, before you add housework and making dinner and driving kids around!
And the second is just as necessary. It's a Family Meeting form. And here's the premise: housework should not be entirely a mom's responsibility. The kids should be helping, as should the dad, depending upon his work schedule. But to get them on board you should talk about it. So I've got instructions on how to host a family meeting, how to brainstorm about how to divvy up all the chores, and then how to do it. It works, it really does! And then the kids take ownership of some of the housework.
I use them all the time, and I finally made them into .pdf files so other people can have them, too, FREE! All you have to do is go to my To Love, Honor and Vacuum charts page !
And please investigate my book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum. The charts work wonderfully on their own, but they're much more effective with the book explaining the philosophy (and so much more!). You can learn more here.
Thanks for stopping by! Why not stay a little and look around? I've got lots of otehr posts on marriage, parenting, and even a video on how to cure the hiccups!
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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