The Chronicles of Homemaking

I have been asked by quite a few people over the last seven months just what it is that I do all day. I've had everything from a thoughtless, "So, I hear you're taking it easy at home these days" to a thoughtful, "Tell me what your days are like now that you stay home". In case you ever ask a full-time homemaker about how she spends her time, you may want to keep in mind that how you ask makes all the difference in how that woman feels - about you and quite possibly about herself - when she walks away. Anyway, this is a difficult question for me to answer. Elise and I do have a routine, but it is not rigid, and a "typical" day could look like any number of things. So I thought that I would write down what I did today. This is a typical day, even though tomorrow won't really look anything like it.

First, I got up quite early to take my husband to work. Didn't bother with the usual morning routine that early; just got up, woke Elise up, changed her diaper, and hopped in the car. Andy was a sweetheart and made me a cup of coffee (before we hopped in the car, of course). I neglected to start the dishwasher as I had reminded myself to do. I like to run it while I am away as it is really loud. We drove to Redmond, dropped Andy off, and Elise and I went back home. Elise and I ate breakfast together, I checked email, did a more thorough job of making myself presentable, gave Elise a bath, got Elise dressed, took a phone call from my sister, put Elise down for a catnap (there wasn't enough time for a real nap), cleaned up the kitchen a bit, restocked the diaper bag, loaded some stuff into the car, and got Elise up. We then drove to the home of Bob and Grahame, dear friends of ours. Grahame and I sort of trade babysitting on Thursdays. I say sort of because I have had to cancel many, many more times than I have actually made it. But today I made it. Of course, I forgot to start the dishwasher again before I left. Elise and I played with Grahame's daughter for an hour or so while Grahame ran some errands. Then we drove back to Redmond to pick Andy up early from work. Returned a phone call while waiting for him in the parking lot. The three of us drove to Bothell where we had an appointment at our church. We got there early and fed Elise her favorite lunch, sweet potatoes, then had our meeting. Afterwards Andy and I were quite hungry, so we went to Qdoba Mexican Grill for a late lunch. (I had never been there before - it was really good!) We also stopped at the Christian bookstore on the way home, but did not find what we were looking for. We came home and I fed Elise again and then put her down for a nap, which has actually ended up being part of her regular night's sleep as it is now 9:10 and she is still asleep. I finally ran the dishwasher, picked up the living room, gathered laundry to be washed tomorrow, checked email again and responded as needed, flipped through a new book, took a shower, browsed a magazine from Janene, and finished a devotional reading and some journalling. Now I'm blogging.

This particular posting is more for my benefit than for anyone else's, as I realize that it is really boring to read the details of my day. I wanted to write them out because people do ask me quite frequently how I spend my time, especially those who know that I left the professional world to be a mom, and I usually stumble over my answer because, really, it's a hard question to answer. Maybe I should have just written this out in my journal, but it is already typed and I don't want to hand-write it all over again, so here it is for all to see. I might do this a few more times in the weeks to come, again mostly for my own benefit, since our "routine" varies so much from day to day. This is new for me...having a job without a job description, having responsibilities without a boss, having a schedule without set working hours. So if you find this post to be ultra-boring (and I don't blame you), then you won't want to read the rest of them. Fair warning.