Random Thoughts at Home

My train of thought last night while I was putting clean sheets on my bed ended up far from the task I was doing. It started: if I worked at a hotel I would have a very efficient way of making this bed. I would know which corner would be the best to put the fitted sheet on first and would know which should follow. I would have mastered the ability to billow a sheet in the air and let it fall flat on the bed instead of just ending up bunched in a pile again and again. I would have done it so many times that I would be able to get lost in the rhythm of the task. But then I thought, I have a college education and should be able to do things that require more mental thought and training than just making beds all day. I could be searching archives for hard to find ancestors, building large pedigrees, and spending hours looking at old handwriting waiting for the name I'm looking for to jump off the page. I could be bringing people of the past to life by pulling them out of the records they left behind, building eternal families.


But in reality I am doing neither, I am not loosing myself in the rhythm of manual labor and I am not lost in some library searching for long lost and long dead individuals. I am a stay at home mom and that is a job all of its own.

(**these rambles are mostly about the homemaking part of being a stay at home mom. Do not mistake this to mean that I do not love that I am able to stay home with my boys. I believe it is the best place that any mother could be and the most important job is raising my kids. BUT...)

Everyday there are menial tasks that have to be done: making beds, doing laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, wiping noses, laundry, cooking, changing diapers etc. I am not doing the same thing all day and that is a blessing but maybe (just maybe) a curse. I haven't been able to get lost in the rhythm of these tasks, become an efficient machine. They are things that I do because they have to get done (and usually I put them off until the HAVE to be done), not because I feel that I am able to do a good job at them. They do not challenge my mind. Some days my brain just feels like jello up there, not being used for anything so not much use for anything (blogging has proved a good outlet for me). There is so much uninteresting stuff I have to remember (ie. the best price for cereal and milk, how long the leftovers have been sitting in the fridge, when was the last time Elijah used the potty, where did I leave this or that, where did Josh put this, etc.) There isn't much room left to pondering anything, let alone anything profound or creative.

Anyway, this thought process made me think of the author of the blog Meck Mom. She is just one example, a mother like I am. She runs a house and does many of the same things that every other stay at home mom does BUT she is different than I am. She has used her talents and creativity to come up with solutions to help make her tasks more efficient. I admire her for it and I hope to emulate it.

So, last night it started simply by making my bed before I went and messed it up again by sleeping in it and I ended up determined to figure out a way to use my creativity (or at least copy someone elses ingenious) and make my home life more functional, efficient, and organized. I have things I need to do that aren't terribly exciting but that doesn't mean that they can't challenge my mind or creativity. Somehow I feel this will be a long process, even lifelong. I guess truly it isn't just the doing but the mentality behind it.

oh my, that was a long ramble (one that wasn't written in one sitting, to be sure). For those of you who find yourself running a home, what do you do to challenge yourself amid the hoe hum of daily tasks? Do you have any brilliant ideas you have come up with?