Hi there,
I am blissfully domestic. For years after leaving my parent's home - throughout college, throughout various jobs, apartments, roommates, churches, and regions I struggled to realize and accept this innate longing that I have to be a homemaker.
At age 26 I met the man who would become my husband. About 2 and a half months after we met, we were at a point where we were both nearly sure that we were on the cusp of engagement. During that fateful (aka God-filled and God-blessed) conversation during which we discussed and explored the idea of getting married, for the first time we broached those potential deal-breaker topics of future family size and I gently but firmly made it known that I preferred to become a full time homemaker upon getting married.
Apparently my inner struggle against society's popular norms for an American young woman was over! I came to terms with what I wanted and how God had created me to be, and I was somehow brave enough to, in a non combative way, put it out there as a must-have. This is me. Here I am, wanting a large family and the occupation of homemaker.
Miraculously, wonderfully, joyfully, it turned out that Jeff and I were on the same page. He was thrilled that this was my desire, that I wanted this. What a relief/shock. It was amazing to me; there we were in Central Park in New York City, surrounded by nothing like what we had just agreed on wanting.
(What I mean is, I absolutely adored living in NYC, but no one there or anywhere else I'd lived had ever modeled this wanting-to-be-a-young-married-and-hoping-for-a-large-family homemaker idea. No one. )
It wasn't until about half a year after we got married that I stumbled upon the online homemaking community. I was floored, completely shocked and ecstatic that there are other people like me!!!!!!!
Nobody in my life was being openly judgmental or negative about my decision to be a homemaker, but I had no support, either. I'd moved from NYC to Ohio to marry, and friends and family seemed to assume that I was "unemployed" simply because of the relocation. When I would explain otherwise to friends and family, they would get this patient look in their eyes, clearly humoring me and biding their time until the day I'd snap with their anticipated "boredom" and "need" to "get out the house".
People questioned how I was handling being at home after my big - time adventures of living in NYC and always being on the go and in the know and all that supposed stuff. "Aren't you bored?" they'd curiously inquire. My mother thought I'd gone off the deep end when I started making my own laundry detergent. My in-laws kept gently badgering my husband with a car they wanted to give him a good deal on, most likely to try and make it possible for me to go out to work.
It was pioneer-ish and lonely, in a way, being a young homemaker with no known team of supporters beyond my husband, my grandmother and my great-aunt.
But! God blessed me with support from the Beautiful Womanhood website, the Homemaker's Mentor program, The Homemaker's Cottage, The Homespun Heart, and Lady Lydia's wise words over at Home Living. Then Aunt Ruthie (not really my aunt, but that's how she refers to herself) came along, too. Then I found Raising Homemakers! This online community of support is amazingly encouraging; I am not alone, I am not crazy.
I founded this blog, with the help of 2 nice friends, so I could try to be more of a participant and less of just a lurker/onlooker. I wanted some way to have an identity here on the internet so I could in some small way "meet" other homemakers.
But! I am so low-tech. I just am. This blogging thing is starting to drain on me, it doesn't come naturally, it doesn't feel fun or refreshing. I also don't feel like I'm representing myself very well here because my low-tech-ness looks so out of date...I feel like I'm at a party dressed all wrong. My blog is so plain compared to everyone else's it seems, I'm just very discouraged.
So! Here's my knitting analogy, in case you've been waiting for it.
Knitting is supposed to be so relaxing, etc, etc, you know? Well, it stresses me out completely. It is so not for me. Give me a sewing machine and some thread any day, but those knitting needles? Last week I packed 'em up and gave them to a good friend who is such a great knitter she even does socks.
For pete's sake!
I kind of feel like blogging and knitting are pretty similar for me. This blog, just sitting here on the internet looking all empty and shabby and embarrassing, is a lot like that stash of knitting needles and yarn (that sat untouched in the closet for 4 years!). It kind of stresses me out, knowing this blog is here waiting for me to make another entry. Blogs aren't something that seem to end, they are cyclical like sweeping and then mopping the floor - it doesn't stay clean! Though I am perhaps mixing my metaphors, I'm not sure I want yet another cyclical task on my list of things to do.
Because I loooooooove being part of the online homemaking community, I will keep my blog, be it ever so humble. But don't expect anything flashy or high tech. If you came over in person you could appreciate my clean floor, the nice quilts I make, a clean cup to drink water out of, nice little girls who are clean, well dressed and pretty well behaved....but here on my blog, I'm afraid not too much of that shows.
Anybody understand? Isn't life humbling sometimes?
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