Dear Friends,

Down at my post of my homekeeping book, Tracee wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Share...please share.We both work full-time and our little family is OUT OF CONTROL. I'm too exhausted to complete tasks and IF we had a schedule...perhaps it would help.Tell me/us what and when to do it...hey, maybe you could actually make INCOME by doing this...Please help those of us who have no choice but to BOTH work full-time AND raise a family.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I snorted out my coffee at the thought of me making income helping other people get organized. People who know me in real life who read this blog (Hi, mom!) had similar reactions I am sure.

Tracee, your comment really pierced my heart though because your frustration is so clear. First and foremost please know you are not alone! I have felt many times that I must be a failure as a mom and wife because I simply could not get it together balancing kids, husband and my personal outside stuff too. (I help out with religious apostolates) And I don't even work outside of the home!

Truly, just laying things out on paper like I did for this homekeeping book was a tremendous help. Over the past two years I have definitely gotten better at this motherly balancing act, but I have also gotten to a point where I am not so hard on myself either. I have really worked on not comparing my mothering/wifely style to others and that is soooo hard because I know many women who have more kids and more responsibilities who seem to just effortlessly overachieve!

A good friend recently suggested that I write a personal mission/life statement. At first, I shrugged it off and thought it was a cheesy idea, but the more I think about it the more appealing it is to me. I think I am realising that what really was getting to me is not the cobwebs in my home, it is the cobwebs in my mind. It sounds refreshing to take a step back evaluate my life, who I am and how I am living and what my goals are. Of course, keeping a home that is elegantly simple and a life schedule that is the same actually clears many of those mind cobwebs too.

Not coincidentally, many of those mind cobwebs grew like mad during the Big Wait to Mary Clare's referral. Regretfully, for many months I was just punching the time clock around here. I wish I had more concrete things to share. I do recommend following the links down at that other post plus there is the whole flylady thing and hundreds of different organization or routine building websites and companies.

I will work on somehow posting some of the simple routines and checklists I worked up for us. They are not comprehensive, they are just guidelines.