Category: Homemaking

On May 24, 2023

There is a lot of debate as to what homemakers “should wear”. Some people wear nothing but sweats, others are always wearing floral dresses. And there are people in both of these groups that totally rock it and feel great. Ultimately, this should be a personal choice and you shouldn’t feel pressure to dress a certain way just based on being a homemaker. Personally, my preference is to ride the line between feeling comfortable and feeling “put together”. I also don’t like wearing things that will get in the way when I am doing the tasks that I need to do for the day. So what I wear as a homemaker is going to be different on mostly cleaning days, mostly cooking days, or days that I am working outside.

Cleaning Days

For cleaning days especially, my go to are my favorite leggings. These are incredibly soft and honestly I would happily live in them permanently. They work great with a t-shirt when cleaning the house, but look nice with a blouse for out and about. And they also work great for under dresses in the fall and winter when it is cold. I feel like sometimes people are pretty judgmental about anyone who wears yoga pants or leggings on a regular basis but honestly, all that really matters is that you feel good about yourself.

Cooking Days

On cooking days, especially when we are having company over, I tend to want to dress up a little bit and wear soft dresses, like this pretty floral dress. Then I put a cute apron over it to protect it. I am currently working on sewing a different apron for each season based on this pattern. I like the vintage vibes from them and am very excited for them to be finished.

Working Outside Days

On days when I am working outside, it is all dependent on the season and the weather. In the summer I love wearing tank tops and denim shorts and just soaking in all the wonderful sunshine. It makes gardening feel almost like a vacation for me. In the fall and winter though, you can’t go wrong with classic jeans. They protect you from scuffs and if they get a little dirty, oh well.

I hope this post helps you to feel accepted and validated on whatever you choose to wear as a homemaker. And I feel like with as varied of a job as homemaking is, it makes sense to have a large amount of variation in our wardrobes. So embrace the changes! And don’t feel stuck. It doesn’t matter what other people think. What matters is how you feel, both inside and out.

Homemaking for Busy People

I don’t always love home management but I love homemaking. I am distinguishing between these two terms because I believe that homemaking is the art of making a house feel like a home whereas home management is all of the tasks that keep a household running, including things like budgeting and meal planning. So homemaking is a part of home management, and for me, the most enjoyable part. Like I’m sure many of you do as well, I tend to romanticize homemaking with images, feelings, and smells of things like thick warm quilts, pies baking in the oven, and apple picking with my husband. So for this section the focus is on JOY! Here are a few things I’ve learned in my journey.

Work with where you are

This one has always been hard for me. I have been dreaming of my own house for years but we have yet to make it a reality. In the past, me and my husband were living in an apartment in a small city. Here we had a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as our own living room and kitchen. But a couple of years ago, we made the difficult decision to move back into my parent’s home in order to save money to eventually buy our own house. Here “our space” consists of a small bedroom where we have our bed, as well as a bean bag and tv set to function as our “living room”. The kitchen is ultimately my moms, but we can use it as we need. And the bathrooms are all shared. This has pushed me immensely to rethink my ideas around homemaking.

Ultimately homemaking is about making the most of where your are living right now, whatever that looks like. So if all you have to work with is one room, do your best to make it work. In some ways this forces you to focus on the area that would make the most of a difference to you anyways.

Embrace cooking delicious meals

When you are very busy, it can be hard to find time to dedicate to making your house feel like a home. But ultimately people need to eat. And your options are to get premade or takeout food, or cook something at home. The first two may be quicker but if those are your go to all day every day, it will end up costing you a ton and isn’t exactly feasible.

So embrace cooking at home, and try to make the best of it. Even if it is just a few times a week, try and get lost in the romance of cooking a delicious meal. This does not have to mean a difficult or time consuming dinner, just something that tastes great and can give you that sense of accomplishment and fill the house with beautiful smells. You may think you aren’t good enough of a cook. I promise that the path to becoming a great cook is simply one made by practice. Since I have embraced cooking as a hobby, I have turned a chore into something I truly enjoy.

Try out baking

That is if you haven’t already. Baking is one of the easiest ways to make your environment feel like home because the beautiful smells of fresh baked goods and warm comforting taste are truly hard to beat. I would recommend starting with something easy such as chocolate chip oatmeal cookies or a basic white bread. Stay tuned for my recipes on these. Another great thing about bread is that the vast majority of the time it takes to make it is just time spent waiting. It takes maybe ten minutes of engaged work, the rest is all the yeast and the oven. There is also something nice about ditching the consumer culture and making your own bread at home.

Decorate your space

Decorate your space with things that make you happy and remind you of wonderful memories. Be intentional. In our room, we don’t have too many decorations out but the ones that we do, we love. We have a wedding picture, a woodcarving we got on our first vacation together, a blanket from my husband’s grandmother on our bed, and some other things that we love. These small things make it feel not just like a home, but our home.

Do things out of joy, not obligation

Some people love sewing, others don’t. The same goes for gardening. These are two things commonly associated with homemaking. But they aren’t necessary. So especially when you have a limited time to spend on homemaking, don’t waste it on things that won’t actually make you or your family happy. Instead of doing things out of obligation, do the homemaking tasks that genuinely bring you joy, I promise that will be enough.

Check out the other posts in the Home Management for Busy People Series:

I hope you that homemaking brings you the same kind of joy that it has brought me.

Managing Everyday Chores for Busy People

Everyone has dishes and laundry, they are pretty unavoidable. And all spaces need to be cleaned up occasionally. I’ve found that these things weigh on me when they get out of control, and it is worth prioritizing the time to keep up on them. Here are a few tips I have for making it easier to manage everyday chores when life is extra busy.

Focus on the most important areas

While I was going to school, this meant to always keep my studying area clean. That way I had a nice place to focus without having the distraction of clutter around me. Now this has transitioned to keeping my living room clean because that is where my husband and I spend the most time at home now. So if you spend majority of your time in your bedroom for instance, taking care of it first can make a bigger difference in your life than another room.

Involve kids in age appropriate chores

If you have children, involve them in everyday chores that are appropriate for their ages. This will help ease the work load while also teaching your children important life skills. They will need these skills when living on their own in the future. Many college kids struggle when they move out and no longer have their cooking and laundry done by their mother. The kids who helped with family chores have one less learning curve when going to college which is really helpful.

Load directly into the dishwasher

If at all possible, load dishes directly into the dishwasher after eating and rinsing them off. Run it at convenient times like overnight or when you leave for work even if it isn’t 100% full. This way it gets done and will have room for the dishes from the next meal. Leaving them in the sink often leads to them building up and causing stress. When cooking, try and load dishes as you finish with them.

Keep cleaning supplies accessible

Keep cleaning supplies in an easy to access place so that you can quickly take care of messes as needed. This looks like keeping a spray bottle of cleaner and rag underneath the bathroom sink, keeping washcloths or “unpaper towels” in a basket or roll on the kitchen counter, and keeping a laundry basket anywhere that people normally undress, like the bedroom and bathroom. In general, people are much more likely to wipe down the countertops when there are washcloths within reach.

Clean as you go

Along the lines of the previous tip, try to clean up messes as they happen instead of putting it off until later. If possible wash the prep dishes from dinner as it is cooking and wipe up spills on counters immediately. This way you will not have to come back to these messes later in the day or week. Sometimes the hardest part about cleaning up is the mental overhead of starting and this trick can help avoid that feeling.

Fold or hang up only what you want or need

This tip may be a bit controversial… but in my opinion, when you are really busy and stressed, worrying about folding and putting away all your laundry may not be worth it. Sometimes just having separate baskets for clean clothes, dirty clothes, and clothes to wear again before washing is enough for items that don’t show wrinkles easily. Unless this is a specific priority for you, feel free to let it go without guilt.

Check out the other posts in the Home Management for Busy People Series:

Ultimately decide on the everyday chores that are most important for you and your family to have done, prioritize them, and let the others go occasionally.

Meal Planning for Busy People

Meal planning is such a huge part of home management because people have to eat several times a day and if you aren’t prepared for that, it could cost you way more time and money than it needs to. If you have checked out my previous post, Budgeting for Busy People, and put together a budget, you can now decide how to spend the money that you allocated for food. Here are a few things I have learned in my meal planning journey.

Involve the people you live with

This is going to look different based on whether you life alone, with roommates, or a family. If you live with roommates, a system of switching off making food and sharing the cost of groceries between them can work really well if you get along. This can cut down on the cost of food as well as the work taken in preparing the food. Just make sure that it evens out and is fair for everyone involved, don’t get taken advantage of.

If you are married or have a family this looks a little different. Make sure to include your spouse and kids in plans for every meal to make sure you all have something to eat. And then split up who is cooking what depending on your workloads, schedules, and preferences. When cooking, don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it and definitely involve kids in age appropriate tasks, they will learn valuable skills.

Write down a basic plan

Actually write down your meal plan before going grocery shopping. For breakfasts and lunches you can write down a couple ideas each for the week but for dinners it helps to know what you are eating each day. If you are planning on leftovers or eating out some nights you can note that instead. Don’t forget to include snacks and drinks in your plan. By doing this before going to the store, you can have a faster, easier, and less expensive trip. And when you plan in advance you can limit your grocery shopping to once a week or less.

Rely on simple meals and batch cooking

Its hard to find time to cook elaborate meals all the time while trying to focus on work or classes. Have a few easy, quick meals you can pull from when you need to. Some of our favorites are basic pasta with pre-made sauce, cheese, and spinach, simple ham fried rice, and breakfast-for-dinner. For the bigger meals, we generally make enough to eat again the next day. You can also always make a large batch and then freeze it in individual portions to eat later.

Try a rotating meal plan or theme days

A rotating meal plan is basically just a list of meals that you enjoy that you rotate through every month or two. This takes the decision making out of meal planning each week which can really help make things easier. Another option is to have themed days such as “Meatless Mondays” or “Pasta Fridays”. This gives you a general idea for the kind of food to pick each day which also helps the plan come together fast.

Stay tuned for posts on some of my favorite recipes to include in your meal plans.

Check out the other posts in the Home Management for Busy People Series:

Enjoy the good food ahead of you, it will be worth it.

Home Management Tips for Busy People

In life, there are many things competing for your time. Sometimes home management seems like just another thing for your to-do list. But employing simple techniques can help add valuable structure and routine to things you would have to handle anyways.

From budgeting your income, to providing yourself with a calm and peaceful place to complete your work or relax, there are many things you can do that can make a big difference in your state of mind and stress levels. The big idea is to keep it as simple as possible, and focus on the things that will make a difference. From my experience, what made the biggest difference was budgeting, planning meals and groceries, managing everyday chores, and putting some time into making my house a home. In this series, I will go through these topics and give you tips on how to make them easier. You can find each post at the links below.

Home management isn’t easy, especially when you are busy with other life obligations like school, work, or parenthood. But for many people, like me, it can help bring stability to their lives. I hope these tips can help you to maximize your time and energy when managing your home.

My Top Homemaking Distractions and How I Overcome Them

On April 27, 2023

Working from home always comes with an extra share of distractions. When your job is to take care of the home, they can be even harder to resist. But we still have so many responsibilities that we need to take care of! From cooking dinner, to keeping the garden under control, we have things we need to prioritize over distractions. It is easier said than done though. Here are my top 8 homemaking distractions and tricks I have found for overcoming them.

The quest for perfection

I chose this one to be first because for me it is truly the biggest of my homemaking distractions. Suppose on my list for the day is to clean our bedroom, bathroom, and do laundry. Sometimes I get caught up making our bedroom PERFECT. Then I spend way more time on little things in our room that won’t make a difference. By the time I have meticulously cleaned our closet, desk, and my craft cubby, as well as wiped down every conceivable surface, I may not have enough time left to adequately clean the bathroom and do the laundry.

How I overcome it: There are deep cleaning days where you totally should focus on getting on area fully clean. If you’ve got other tasks for the day though, don’t let a quest for perfection on one task keep you from doing the others. Embrace the saying “Done is better than perfect”. And let go emotionally of the idea that you have to do everything 100%. Break down a big task into smaller ones and only do the smaller tasks that you really need to do.

Looking through old things

Similarly, if I try to go through our storage closet in the morning then have other plans for the afternoon, I could come across some little box with trinkets from my past that I had forgotten about. I could spend way too much time going through that box and fiddling with all the stuff. And then sometimes I just end up keeping all of it anyways! So no progress was actually made. I have again been derailed by one of my homemaking distractions.

How I overcome it: If I come across a memento or box of mementos when my goal is decluttering or cleaning, I decide first if this is something I want to go through right now, with the goal of getting rid of stuff. If it is, I try to go with my first gut feeling on each item on whether I want to keep it (it makes me happy) or I want to get rid of it (it doesn’t make me happy). By focusing on my gut feeling with each item, it helps to make the process quicker. If I find stuff that I can’t make these quick decisions on, I put them to the side for now. I can come back to them a day when I have more time and emotional energy.

TV

It is easy to say that you are just going to take a quick break and watch a few minutes of a show. But it is so easy to just finish the episode… or just one more episode. How can they expect you to leave without knowing what happens to so and so? Before you know it you could have wasted multiple hours in front of the TV.

How I overcome it: If I feel like I need a break and am tempted to use that time to watch TV, I try and use that time instead to do something that will help me feel better than TV would. So things like doing a bit of yoga or deep breathing, going for a walk or even just stepping outside for a few minutes. All of these things help more to give your mind and body a break than zoning out in front of the TV would. And you can get back to work easier when you are done with these activities.

Social media

This one is similar to TV, but it is even easier to say you’ll just spend a couple of minutes. And if you keep your phone in your pocket all day long, that distraction is always there. It is so easy to give in to and becomes a big part of homemaking distractions. If wasting your time wasn’t bad enough, a scrolling session on social media may be enough to make you feel discouraged and decide to take a longer break, maybe with some ice cream.

How I overcome it: Put your phone away while you are doing things around the house. If you are worried about people being able to get a hold of you if they need you, put your ringer on loud enough that you can still hear it from the other room. There are also focus apps that you can install to help you focus and avoid getting on your phone.

Emails and texting

Especially if you work or run a shop or other business, it can be tempting to check your emails constantly. And sometimes you don’t even respond to emails immediately when they do come in. The same goes for texting. Especially if you have friends that want to text back and forth about everything that happens in each other’s lives.

How I overcome it: I recommend setting 1-3 specific times of the day where you can check your emails and texts and respond to the ones that need attention. For me, since I run an Etsy shop and want to provide quick shipping to my customers, I check my emails once first thing in the morning, once at lunch, and once at the end of the work day. This helps me to package and send off items quickly without the emails derailing my focus for the day.

The news and google

So you heard someone mention this big new thing that happened. And you decide it can’t hurt to do a quick google and just read an article or two about it. Or your mind was wandering and you want to know the answer to a quick but random question. I have been there a lot. And by there I mean 10 articles deep into something that doesn’t actual matter at all.

How I overcome it: Although it may seem like you are obligated to know about every event going on it the world, know that you aren’t, especially trivial events that don’t really matter. Don’t get me wrong, people should be educated on societal and political events that are important and will influence the decisions they make (like voting and activism decisions). But most of the stuff we google really isn’t the important stuff. And remember that reading this stuff isn’t work, so give it the proper time and place in your life. If this is something important to you, make room for it in your free time. Just don’t use it to procrastinate the things that you need to do.

Snacking

For me this tends to go hand in hand with spending time in front of the TV. I’ll thing “I can just grab a snack and watch my show and then I’ll get back to work”. But am I actually hungry? Definitely not every time. Most of the time it is just another one of my homemaking distractions.

How I overcome it: Having healthy snacks throughout the day is important for taking care of yourself. However, make sure that you are eating them because you are actually hungry. Don’t eat because you are bored, sad, or procrastinating something. It helps me to pause for a minute before going to get a snack to check in with myself. I check if I am actually hungry or if it is motivated by something else. And when I am hungry, I can take a small break where I can truly enjoy my snack, without the TV being a distraction to that.

Talking

In this one I’m not meaning talking with your children. Ultimately a huge part of homemaking is taking care of your children and spending time with them. I’m meaning talking with other adults being a distraction while you are trying to do your work or spend time with your children. Whether it is on the phone or in person, stopping to chat with someone can really derail you from what you need to do. This doesn’t mean to just ignore people when you are busy, but there are ways to prevent it from causing problems.

How I overcome it: First off, if you would prefer some time where you don’t have to talk to anyone, there is no reason you can’t set that boundary to give yourself some space. That is perfectly valid. But if you do want the company, my favorite solution to this one is to invite them to join you in your task. And then you can keep going, while having the company of a loved one. If they called, maybe you can put them on speaker phone and enjoy your conversation as you fold laundry or weed the garden.

So there ya have it, my top 8 homemaking distractions and how I overcome them. Us homemakers have a lot to do every single day and getting past our distractions is so important. Ultimately it it a process learning how to do this. And it will take time. But it will get easier and easier to overcome the things that distract us on our homemaking journey. I hope you found these tips helpful and can apply some of them to your everyday life.

Welcoming Springtime Energy into the Home

On April 19, 2023