Homemaking Made Simple Part 1

My family has recently moved into a new house.  With moving comes change, and sometimes it can be hard to get back to normal or typical routines.  I know that it has been a confusing and hectic time for use, but today I think of getting back into a routine.  As a housewife and stay at home mother to two boys I don't work outside the home.  Our home is my work, raising and caring for our children is my work and taking care of my husband is my work as well.  Whenever I need inspiration for my life or the woman I hope to become I turn to Proverbs 31.  The woman described in Proverbs 31 is a role model to all Christian women, both in biblical times and hopefully today as well. 

I've tried a lot of different things and around eleventy hundred different methods and routines and programs to try to find the best fit for myself, my family and my home.  Not one of them was exactly what I was looking for.  So I just try to kind of do my own thing now.  I try to take what I have learned from various sources, mix it all together and make it truly my own.  The key is customization and personalization.  Not everyone works well with strict confines and not everyone like loose plans.  Some of us are planners and some of us aren't.  The key is to figure out what you like, what you need and how you like to work.  I personally like to be scheduled -- to a degree.  I don't force my children into a set daily schedule that doesn't allow them any free time or any wiggle room, and I don't want that for myself either.  What works best for me is a very basic schedule and lots of organization.

As I said, I use a variety of different resources.  Here are some of my favorites, and I will go into detail about them later today when I finish my Homemaking page for my navigation bar up there under my header.

My Favorite Resources:

• Flylady : This was the first thing that I tried when my Husband and I first got married.  I've always been a housewife, I haven't worked outside our home at all during our entire marriage.  So I wanted something to kind of "teach" me how to be a housewife when we first married, because my Mom passed away when I was 5 and I never had that influence in my life.  So I tried flying, and I found it very overwhelming with all of the emails and such that they send out.

• Household Management 101 : This is a more recent favorite of mine.  It's very helpful because she breaks things down a little better than Flylady, in my opinion.  As you can see here she has tons of information on schedules, house cleaning tips, a how to clean things section, lists and other printable resources and a wealth of other information.  This is probably one of my current favorite sites.

• Christian Homemaking :  They have some helpful articles that I like to go back and read over.  Especially the New Years Day article, it's got some good information and some great ideas for New Years!

• Creative Homemaking :  This is another favorite of mine.  I came across it by chance a few months back and then forgot about it for a while, not that I've found it again I'm super excited about putting it to good use.  I especially like the sections about cooking and food storage!

• The Family Homestead is a site that I'm new to as well.  I haven't gotten the chance to read a lot of it yet, so I'm not really sure how I feel about it.  I do know that she lives in a rural area, and being a southern girl myself, I'm excited to read a bit more from her. 

• Passionate Homemaking : I absolutely adore this blog, and I love her youtube videos as well.  She has a very lovely and a very helpful blog and it's on my list of 10 blogs I must visit daily right now.  I found her through youtube, and I've been a reader ever since then.  She has some great ideas and seems like such a sweet person.

I'll get my navigation tab set up later on today, when I get a bit more free time.  I'm going to be recording the making of my new notebook there, so I need to get it done as soon as possible.