Sunday

What is Homemaking?

So I named the blog Purposeful Homemaking because I want what I do in the home to have purpose.

What exactly is homemaking though? It is when "a person...makes a home." Holly Schurter defines homemaking in My Hearts at Home by Jill Savage as "the deliberate cultivation of beauty and productivity in family relationships...[it] is about helping your family feel loved and comforted. Homemaking is about celebrating each other, and about caring for each other, as well as for your friends and extended families and even the occasional stranger. Anyone can keep house. Not everyone bothers to make a home." 

I love this quote. It inspires me to keep trying to improve what I do around here. Homemaking is a worthy calling. It is not always easy.  In fact, it is definitely the hardest thing I have ever done!

But, there are rewards, not all of which are readily apparent but press on. Pray for grace and God will give it.  These days will be gone too quickly and although I am so looking forward to all that sleep, secretly I think I'm going to be sad that they are gone.

The poem Wet Oatmeal Kisses that I keep in my Mother's Journal always helps me keep things in perspective. My Pastor's wife read this at a mom's group this past summer and of course I was sniffing and crying right about from the moment she started reading it.

Wet Oatmeal Kisses

The baby is teething. The children are fighting.
Your husband just called and said, “Eat dinner without me.”
One of these days you’ll explode and shout to the kids,
“Why don’t you grow up and act your age?”
And they will.


Or, “You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do.
And don’t slam the door!”
And they don’t.

You’ll straighten their bedrooms all neat and tidy, toys displayed on the shelf hangers in the closet, animals caged. You’ll yell, “Now I want it to stay this way!”
And it will.

You will prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn’t had
all the olives picked out and a cake with no finger traces in the icing
and you’ll say, “Now THIS is a meal for company.”
And you will eat it alone.

You’ll yell, “I want complete privacy on the phone. No screaming. Do you hear me?”
And no one will answer.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti. No more dandelion bouquets. No more iron-on patches. No more wet, knotted shoelaces, muddy boots, or rubber bands for ponytails. Imagine. A lipstick with a point.
No babysitter for New Year’s Eve, washing clothes only once a week,
no PTA meetings or silly school plays where your child is a tree.
No carpools, blaring stereos or forgotten lunch money.
No more Christmas presents made of library paste and toothpicks.
No more wet oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy.
No more giggles in the dark, scraped knees to kiss or sticky fingers to clean.

Only a voice asking: “Why don’t you grow up?”
And the silence echoes: “I did.”

-Anonymous

3 comments:

Holly said...

Hi, Becky -- I just found your blog -- and my quote! I hope you still find "making a home" rewarding . . . now that our children are grown and have families of their own, I can see the fruit of the long days and hard work of "homemaking" -- and it is so worthwhile! I visited your home page and saw the good news about a new son; wishing you every blessing, Holly Schurter

becky@purposefulhomemaking.com said...

Thanks, Holly for stopping by! So glad you found me. Yes, I am still happily pursuing homemaking! :) We are delighted to be chosen to raise a son for God and are praying for His development and arrival.

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