A Happy Friday

This was a good week. A few months ago I was feeling like an impostor. I claimed to be a homemaker, but really that was just a nicer way of saying I was currently unemployed. I had the feeling that being unemployed made you a lazy bum, but being a homemaker meant you were doing something worthwhile for your family and the community. So my mouth said "homemaker" but my actions were more lazy bum.

I took me a while to realize that I wasn't really being lazy, I was just untrained in the homemaking career. I had come from a successful career as a registered dental assistant. I would not expect a person who had never worked in the field to be able to do what I was doing. It took me years of education and experience to get to the point where I was good at my work. In retrospect, it was unrealistic to think that I could stay home one day and instantly be able do all of the laundry, clean the kitchen, drive everyone to school and back, and still have time to bake bread. I started a new career that I have no experience in so I can't expect to be good at it yet.

As a dental assistant, I finally knew I was good when I was asked to help our new assistant learn the ropes. I suddenly realized that I knew what I was talking about. I wasn't playing "dental assistant" anymore, I was a dental assistant. When I took on homemaking, I forgot that there would be a learning curve. I've only been at this for a few months, and there is nobody here to train me. So I need to go easy on myself when I can't find the time to bake bread. One day, when I've been at it for a few years, I will find the time.

This week, rather than complain that the living room is a mess, I looked at what I did accomplish. My kitchen is sparkling. I gave it a thorough cleaning on Monday, and it has stayed clean all week. Its easy to wipe up a few crumbs when they aren't stuck in the orange juice that spilled yesterday. I also made my own laundry detergent. A year ago, that would have been out of the question. Who has time to go buy a bunch of different things and mix them up and make a mess? Now that I'm at home, I think who has time (and the money) to go to the store every time they run out of laundry detergent? So I put in an hour of work, and my laundry is set for the next six months.

I am not good at homemaking yet, but I am learning. There are things that are happening automatically now that a few months ago may or may not have gotten done. As I master one concept, I am able to start experimenting with something new. If I keep this up, pretty soon I'll have to change the name of my blog.