Housewife Weekend

If you've been following along, I'm participating in Jolie Kerr's Year of the Clean Person (more on that here). I've been keeping up with my projects, but lately, I've been so busy that I haven't had time (or more accurately, the desire) to sit down and blog about them. Or anything else for that matter.

But no matter.

I had set this past weekend aside for The Big Closet, a project I was really looking forward to accomplishing. We have this giant (no really, it's about 42 sq feet) closet that's mostly used for the storage of gear and winter coats. Over time, it becomes disorganized and cluttered, and as a coworker recently pointed out, "it has a lot of potential." While it has not yet reached its full potential, this weekend's work was a great start.I made room for no plans if they did not contribute to Mission: Big Closet, and it was honestly so lovely that I don't know why I don't do this more often. (oh right: because I am also a social person and desire the company of humans) I wondered what my life would be like if I didn't work; if my only job was to take care of our home and myself and my family.

Putting my feet up on a mid-closet break

I sometimes struggle to balance the desire to be a Strong Professional Woman with my love of homemaking...can I be both housewife and breadwinner (I mean, I wrote about this 5 years ago, so this is nothing new)? I don't know that it's possible within the laws of physics, but I certainly try. I want to stay home all day and keep house, bake bread, do laundry at my leisure. I want to take midday walks down to the butcher and read a good book in the sun. I want to take that 10am weekday "ABC: Abs, Back, Core" workout class. I want to drop my kids off at school and be home in the afternoons when they're done so I can take them to their various lessons or help them with their homework. But I also want to develop my career, have difficult and engaging conversations with other adults, and do my part to make my company and the industry a better place. I want my hypothetical kids to see that their mom is a strong, driven career woman and know that they can aspire to be anything. I want my world to be more than my home.

It's hard to do it all. And because most of the time, my balance skews in favor of work, sometimes it's nice to reject the laptop and focus on the nesting, however forced it may feel at first.

This weekend (in no particular order) I:

• did three loads of laundry
• repurposed miscellaneous leftovers into a whole new (delicious!) meal
• made banana peanut butter chocolate chip "ice cream"
• organized the camping gear
• overhauled the hockey gear storage
• found new storage for our outdoor toys (jai alai, frisbees, wiffle ball, etc)
• moved the gift storage out of the bedroom (after several months)
• collected a big black trash bag full of clothes to give away
• watched Bye Bye Birdie and Gidget (I have a soft spot for adorable mid-century movies)
• organized the hardware cabinet
• reworked the sprinklers in the vegetable garden
• moved my childhood dollhouse into the Big Closet (it's in a big box that had been moving around the house because of lack of room in the closet)
• put away a bunch of dishes
• prepped a pillow for testing (review coming soon on the blog)
• took a trip to IKEA for supplies and ogling the IKEA things

And that doesn't even take into account the magazine-sorting, table-clearing, trash-taking-out, and dishwashing that Will contributed to the weekend. The house is looking so much better, and I'm feeling a greater peace of mind. I think I might just do it again this weekend.

Separate post on the YoCP stuff to come (because, hello, I owe y'all a post about April still and I took a LOT of pictures of the closet this weekend).