Breaking out of the funk

Spring is late this year.  If you didn't know it from looking out my window, you'd know it from the shear amount of griping about it on Facebook.  Everyone's kids are hyper, and stay at home parents, especially, are getting grumpy.

Being stuck inside gets depressing.  It is so easy to fall into a behind-on-housework, no motivation funk.  My personal challenge to myself has been to get the laundry folded and put away, but I have been failing to complete this for about 2 weeks. Sickness and busyness threw off our routine, and I just can't seem to get it under control again. Each day I do a little, save Sunday which is my day off, but I am starting to feel like Lucy next to the candy conveyer belt... There is always more coming!

Times like this, I have to fall back to my go-to "break out of the funk" strategies.  Maybe they can help you, too, next time you feel depleted and overwhelmed by the repetitive nature of home making.

• Change the atmosphere.  I make a cup of tea, put on a favourite cd, and open the curtains. These are things that are mood lifting for me. I do it even if I don't feel like it because I know it helps.
• Focus on one thing at a time.  I like to tackle the most obvious, annoying, in the way problem first. This might mean I clean the kitchen or living room, at the expense of the whole rest of the house. 
• Make a 'Done' list. To Do lists are depressing and exhausting. Done lists are energizing. List everything. Changed a diaper. Tidied toys out of the living room. Loaded and ran the dishwasher.
• Reward yourself. It can be as small as 'I fold this load of laundry, and I get to play a level of Candy Crush saga' to as big as, if I work for two hours this morning, I am vegging out on FB for an hour (or more) after lunch.
• Do something that lasts. Do an activity with your kids and take photos. Bake something. Organize a cupboard or drawer. Anything that will stay done for a least a few days counts.

 

We made a gingerbread house.  See the mess in the background?  Who cares?  Candy!

• Get out. Take a walk. Go to the library. Make a meal plan and shopping list, and get the groceries. Bonus if you do this in the morning, because it forces you to dress yourself and your kids, and eat something.

Life is made up of days, and days are made up of moments.  Focusing on the big picture can be overrated, and overwhelming.  Just take it one breath at a time.

Homemaking, one bite at a time.

Homemade Challah

For months now, I have been going through a transformation, here at home.  With the help of a group of wonderfully supportive fellow Facebookers, I have been taking small steps in my life, to declutter, simplify, and focus on what is really important.  When we started, we had a lot of common goals.

Most of the goals started out in the arena of what we wanted less of.  Less clutter.  Less stress.  Less money trouble.  Less junk in our way, messing up our homes.  Less keeping up with the Joneses.  But as we talked, we also discovered what it was we wanted instead.  Clean, peaceful homes, filled with mindfully chosen useful and beautiful things.  Lives lived in contentment, within our means, with time for the things that are really important, and that set good examples for our kids.  More gardening, baking, sharing, crafting, and beauty.  More connection to others, and to the earth.

Those were our ideals, and they were lofty.  They left us with that daunting question: How do we get there from here?

Well, how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

We began encouraging each other through weekly challenges.  Though some of the challenges hinted at the ideals we were longing to live out, the majority smacked of the mundane and the repetitive.  Keep a clear counter.  Track your spending.  Take the too-small clothes out our your kids' dressers.  Start a laundry routine you can stick to.  Make a nice dinner for your family.

They were good challenges in that they were things we needed to improve at.  But they seemed like such surface things.  We were craving something more visceral, more enlightened, and yet, it seemed almost impossible to get away from some basic connection between simple living and being clean and organized.

From The Complete Tightwad Gazette:
 

"I have had this same experience on several occasions: I visit the home of someone on a small income, frequently a senior citizen. The home is tidy, orderly, and inviting. I like being there.

Maybe the hostess asks me to get the milk. Only then I notice that the refrigerator is of a vintage bordering on antique. The paint has worn through near the handle from decades of openings. But the refrigerator is also lacking in fingerprints and the litter of shopping lists and phone messages adhered with cute magnets and clear tape. [...]

A further tour throughout the home would reveal a similar pattern. Furniture might be mismatched by good looking. Woodwork might need to be repainted, but it is clean. Nothing is brand new, but somehow the entire home has an appeal.

Where we live has a marked effect on our sense of well being. If we are happy in our home we have less need to leave it and spend money."

As we go along, it is becoming clear how the simple, somewhat monotonous tasks of homemaking really make up the stuff of life. If they are going smoothly, we have space for creativity, deeper spirituality, real human connection. But if they are a mess, we just feel harried and inadequate.

"Consider this: if your home is not providing you with a place of peace and calm, of focus and motivation; if your home is instead a major source of stress and anxiety in your life, then isn't it obvious that things are seriously out of balance? [...] How you live in the home -- eat, breathe, sleep, play, and connect with loved ones -- should be the antidote to stress, not the cause."
~Peter Walsh, author and organizer extraordinaire

Elevating the importance of peaceful home life seems to be at the heart of the simplicity movement. It isn't about keeping things clean for the sake of appearances, or even worse, to compete with Jane down the road.  Rather, it seems to be about realizing that if we can learn to keep comfortable homes, our families will want to be in those homes, and that will support our larger goals of cultivating an attached and connected family.

Kim John Payne, Waldorf educator and author of the book, Simplicity Parenting, has this to say about the link between simplifying and strong families:

"While our love may always be there, our attention can suffer, our connection can sometimes falter, and when this happens, understanding [our children] can seem like a whole lot of work. Our instincts are not always strong. Simplification is about stripping away the distractions and clutter that monopolize our attention and threaten our connection."

As a group, we are certainly finding this to be the case.  One member came on to post in celebration that she was so caught up with cooking and cleaning that she had extra time to devote to playing  farm animal dominoes and candy land with the kids.

Hubs, playing guitar for the kids, after bath time.

For myself, because I have been caught up with the house, I have been baking more. My husband has had the space in the evenings to sit in the living room and play guitar. I have cleared off my craft desk, and have begun creating again. My son can go downstairs, find a clear space to play, and build something out of LEGO.  Friends and family can drop in unexpectedly for lunch or tea, and I have a place for them, and food to feed them.  I can offer to share things with others, and there is space to walk into my storage room and find the things I am looking for.

My clean home is empowering us to be more present, creative, productive, and generous.  It has been the best kind of surprising.

Image credit to Soulseeds: Daily Affirmations

Categories

Just getting started with this blog, I know I want to create posts that relate to a life lived richly on a number of levels, in a myriad of ways.

Home life - Posts about all that relates to the inside of the house and home, so organizing, decorating, home renos, and other goodness

Life outdoors - Posts about being outside in the backyard, gardening, nature, and the changing of the seasons

Family life - Posts about parenting, marriage, sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents, cousins, oh my.

Life at play - Posts about fun things, family outings, cool kids stuff, vacations.

Spiritual life - Posts about faith, tuning in to the divine, and taking care of the spirit.

Life in my head - Posts about mental health, positive thinking, happiness, and other head case stuff.

Food life - Posts about cooking and recipes, buying food, growing food, and otherwise celebrating what we eat.

Creative life - Posts about the various things we make, and the arts we enjoy.

Life's rhythms - Posts about our various routines, traditions, and annual patterns, including birthday and holiday celebrations.

Life costs money - Posts about our struggles and triumphs with managing money, spending wisely, and living within our means.

Community life - Posts about our place within our church, neighbourhood, and parenting group, and the memories made being part of these communities.