Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Welcome to Passionate Homemaking...Becoming P31


Welcome to Passionate Homemaking…Becoming P31. My name is Christine and I am a “30 something” (who’s really counting after 30 anyways?…I was born in 75 if you want to do the math) wife and mother. My husband and I have a blended family that stopped feeling “blended” years ago - we have three teenage boys and a tween daughter.

Our family is busy. My husband has always worked crazy hours – either working away from home for a few weeks at a time, or crazy shift work, or like right now, he works two jobs, one as a flight instructor that can have him flying late into the night and on weekends. My children are busy too – they swim, they dance, they do school sports, add on church and school events times four children and you have a pretty full and hectic schedule! It is a craziness that I wouldn’t trade for anything though.

Cooking for me is a passion. Seeing my families faces light up when I take cookies out to the oven never gets old for me; neither does the pleasure I get when I serve my family a homemade and nutritious meal that I put time and effort into creating for them. I am like everyone else and have days I don’t even want to step into the kitchen, but overall, my kitchen is a place of comfort, good food, special creations, time with God, time with my children and time alone with my own thoughts.

Cleaning for me is also a passion. Even writing that sounds silly to me, but it is true! I get up in the morning with thoughts of what I am going to cook and clean for the day! I love a clean house (who doesn’t?), but I also enjoy the act of cleaning the house. My husband and children appreciate this as it more often then not gets them out helping. In the last few years I have made a concerted effort to train my children in this area in preparation of them having their own homes and families.

Helping others become passionate about homemaking brings me a lot of joy. I often hear from women that their family and home is their first priority after God, but they are stressed out! Maintaining a budget, planning meals and shopping trips, planning for regular cleaning and maintenance has turned into mad dashes. Supper is thought of as they drive home from work, cleaning seems continuous without anything ever feeling clean, a budget is whatever bills come in that month and what gets paid depends on how much they spent on take out due to the lack of meal planning or impulse buying!

It is not that these things are not important to them – they are - it is that these things were not ever taught to them, as homemaking skills are often under-valued in our society as a whole. I have met many young men and women, some with several years of post-secondary schooling, that do not know how to stock a kitchen, plan a budget or do lawn maintenance. What happens is that their biggest blessings (their home and family) become their biggest stressors and life starts to feel like a catch up game, a game in which they feel that they are never really catching up and are always one step behind.

Join me as I talk about the joys of cooking, healthy living, cleaning, home maintenance, budgeting, frugal living, and all things in relation to homemaking here at Passionate Homemaking…BecomingP31.

Christine

For more posts about me:

My Family

My Testimony

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