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"Cooking, home and gardening shows dominating the media. Since I am not the star of a hip HGTV show, I don&amp;#039;t have a set decorator keeping my 1950&amp;#039;s home sparkling with charm. It&amp;#039;s all me, baby! This often means Cheerios live on the checkerboard kitchen floor a few hours longer. It means grade school art projects take up one side of our dining room table while we dine on the other half. It means that windows get a bit dustier before they shine like stars and laundry sits on the floor for two days instead of one. (Okay, sometimes four days. Who&amp;#039;s counting?) It means sometimes chaos dominates our tranquil abode until I nudge my orderly husband toward the dishwasher or my children toward the The Great Toy Removal Site. (Our TV room.) As I remind myself every day during my meditation practice (A.K.A. 15 minutes of breathing while I&amp;#039;m locked in my SUV away from the madness of said home above) it&amp;#039;s not about perfection in life. It&amp;#039;s about presence. My home, like my marriage and family, is a precious gift. Rather than treat it as one more item on a monotonous (and never ending) check list, why not enjoy the journey? Even with deadlines and dinner... with school runs and homework... with laundry and toilet cleaning... isn&amp;#039;t it possible to breathe life into these ordinary tasks and make each moment beautiful? Some days, the answer is a flat out, &amp;quot;Heck no!&amp;quot; But on other days, with the right perspective, I can find true peace in my homekeeping. Yes, having a maid would give me more time to write that book. But I wouldn&amp;#039;t have the satisfaction of having my girlfriends sit around my table eating off vintage glass trays that I washed in lavendar soap just for them. I wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to soak my hands in a warm kitchen sink and day dream about Rex and I creating Christmas Eve memories. With every fold of a sheet... with every hanging of a new picture... I am attempting to remind myself of the blessings that come from work and time, patience and sweat. And hopefully, more than all this, laughter! Betsy Shaw of Numbmum knows a bit about being a reluctant housewife. Once an Olympic snowboarder, Shaw is now the mother of two young girls. For the past few years she has abandoned her Vermont home to join her husband in remodeling an old barn in France. If you think learning a new language and cozying up a dilapidated rental is a walk in the park, think again. But Shaw is determined to infuse magic into her girls&amp;#039; days. She also weaves it into her writing, both at Numbmum as well as at her Momformation BabyCenter blogs. I&amp;#039;d like to spend the next few weeks talking about making a house a home. I&amp;#039;d like to talk about keeping our expectations in check so that we shine and polish for the right reasons (&amp;quot;Our homes deserve respect and love&amp;quot;) as opposed to the wrong ones (&amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want someone to come over and think I&amp;#039;m a pig!&amp;quot;) I&amp;#039;d love to chat about how an organized home can bring us one step closer to our spouse. After all, who wouldn&amp;#039;t want to lay down with their mate on a fresh made bed only to mess it up again? I, for one, find that option to be more appealing than polishing the silver any day of the week! Maybe you do, too. Would love to hear from you! Do you enjoy taking care of your home, or is it a life suck? Does your spouse help you enough? Can you be a &amp;quot;good enough&amp;quot; housekeeper and enjoy the madness and love that can only live when we abandon perfect towel folding for racous joy unfolding? * Photo from Betsy&amp;#039;s farm house. Go visit her! It&amp;#039;s cheapter than a plane ticket to France and much more enjoyable than a cramped coach seat! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a3244/good-enough-housekeeping-marri/?src=rss>