It says in James 4:6 “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” So today I’m going to be humble and hope the Lord graciously blesses me with some great ideas through all of you. True confessions here. Are you ready for the horror?

My kids toys are not organized.

Oh, sure, I have them categorized in labeled bins, so if you happened to go into my basement on one of the three days per year that it was actually clean, and you could, you know, see the floor, you might be tempted to think that I don’t have such a problem with this. (Of course, if you’re a veteran mom, you might see through all my little labels and smile to yourself while you marvel at your great luck at arriving on one of the only three aforementioned days…)

BUT the fact is, that my toys are not functionally organized, and therefore, for the other 362 days out of the year (which sorta feels like always) they are a mess.

Over at Organized Everyday, the Organizing Mommy has written a brilliant post called, Organizing for the High-Brow Types. I hope you all go over and read it because, as I said, it’s brilliant. Anyway, in this post she gives a bit of a checklist for how you know when your “organizing bird” can fly off to a different part of your house:

1. Is the space used for it’s most effective CURRENT purpose? (these change all the time)

2. Are the items used MOST often in the MOST easily accessible space?

3. Are the items that are truly JUNK removed? disposed of?

4. Is it visually appealing to the eye? (Yes, I like beauty and artistic order in my home)

5. Is the space labeled/ marked for easy upkeep of the current system?

Sounds great. Sounds logical. I’m trying to apply it to my kids toy area, and suddenly I see why my current system does not work, but I don’t know how to fix it. I need some help. So, of course, I thought to myself, “Who better to ask for help than people who have mostly never even seen my house?” But seriously, I don’t really expect that any of my problems are all that new. I think most moms have faced something along these lines and come up with lots of solutions that would probably also work at my house, and I am so in need of creative inspiration.

So, will y’all brainstorm with me?

OK, so here’s my situation. My kids’ toys are in the basement. The idea is that they ALL stay in the basement unless they are being played with, and then they are supposed to be returned to the basement. (I can hear so much laughing right now. Yeah, I know, I’m totally unrealistic, and probably someone has a bridge to sell me in Brooklyn, too.) Since the kids don’t PLAY in the basement, we fail big time on Question 1. because the basement is not being used for the most effective current purpose. Why is this section of my basement a toy area? Well, it’s because we live in a VERY small house. All three kids share one bedroom, so there really isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there. The other bedroom is a study/sewing room/guest room, so there REALLY isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there, and that leaves the living room.

The living room is where the kids usually actually play, and that means that my decor tends towards the “tornado aftermath” theme, which can be a little unappealing, especially given the open floor plan that means that first thing when you open the front door you are greeted by a disturbing scene from a Kansas newspaper… er, my kids’ un-cleaned-up mess.

It doesn’t make much sense for the toys to be kept where they are not played with. I could insist that the children play in the basement. But there’s like nine square feet of floor space when it’s clean, and there’s no window down there, and besides, it’s hard to determine who had the Magnadoodle first if I wasn’t there as a witness.

SO, if you had my house, where would you keep the toys?

Here’s my next burning question, what would you keep the toys in? Currently, our toys are in Rubbermaid bins. This is bad. The children are not strong enough to open the bins/get the bins down from the shelves/unstack the bins to get to that inevitably bottommost bin they want. So they need help both to get the toys they want and to put their toys away. Since I am often doing trivial things like making dinner at clean up time, the toys often just get dumped on the basement floor.

Another problem with my bins is that they are organized by category (trains, dolls, crafts, etc.), and that means that in every bin the one or two favorite toys in each category are buried in amongst the non-favorite toys of the same category, leading to the constant refrain, “Mommy, where’s my blue propeller airplane?”

Both of my bin issues are failures of Question 2. because the things that are used most often are not remotely in the most accessible places. In fact, in my current system, NOTHING is really very accessible.

As for Question 3., the junk, I’m afraid we probably have a lot of junk, but I worry about throwing away treasures. How have you all managed that with your children?

The Organizing Mommy’s last two questions can probably wait until I get the first three headed in the right direction.

Thus ends my humble confession Anybody have any gracious ideas?

Recently, after thinking seriously enough about moving to get a Realtor to start showing us houses, we made the decision to stay in our three bedroom, 1,200 square foot home, with a half basement. We thought there’s no good reason a family of five can’t fit in three bedrooms, and we decided to make it work for a few more years, and (Lord willing) a couple more babies. The only thing holding us back was that we had too much stuff.

And thus began the sorting, purging, and reshuffling project that led to an epiphany: we cannot get any more toys. No more trains: my train bin is full. No more Duplos: my Duplo bin is full. No more dress up clothes: my dress up bin is full. No more trucks and tools: my truck and tool bin is full. No more dolls and purses: My doll and purse bin is full. DEFINITELY no more stuffed animals: All THREE stuffed animal bins are full. We do have room for a few more books, but only because we added another book shelf to take care of the books that were stacked on the floor, and if I get too many more books that we own, I won’t have any shelf space for library books, so it’ll be back to the floor for book storage.

The only problem with this is birthdays. The traditional American cake, ice cream, and presents birthday party results in, you guessed it, toys. If you figure three or four presents from the parents, a couple from each set of grandparents, and one from each family that you invite to your party, then you end up with ten to fifteen generously given, warmly received, fun, creative, space-eating toys. And if you have three children, then that’s thirty to forty-five new toys that have to be stored each year. And if you’re hoping to be blessed with two more children before you leave your already crowded, three bedroom, 1,200 square foot home, with a half basement, that number could go as high as seventy-five new toys seeking storage annually. Did I mention that my bins are full?

With our youngest about to turn one in a week and a half, we’re rethinking birthdays and how we celebrate them. For starters, the baby doesn’t need any more toys. She’s just as happy emptying out my kitchen cupboards as she would be playing with the latest and greatest from Fisher Price. But I want her to have a fun birthday. I want the family to have a chance to celebrate her and what a gift she is to us. I want a good picture to paste on the “First Birthday” page in the baby book (right next to the neatly lined space titled, “Guests and the Gifts they Brought”). And, while I’m at it, I want something to write in that neatly lined space. I don’t want our great-grandchildren to remember us as the mean parents whose bins were too full to let their grandmother have any birthday presents.

(Who started this birthday present thing anyway? What a commentary on our materialistic culture that we view birthdays as a chance to acquire. Did I mention that my bins are full?)

My husband had the great idea to do birthday trips instead of presents, giving our children interesting, fun, non-space-hungry experiences that would otherwise be a bit on the pricey side. I’m wondering what our soon-to-be-one-year-old might like to do. I’m also wondering what other people with small houses, full bins, and big hearts for children do for birthdays. Does anybody have any ideas for me?

Home. For some it’s the embodiment of contentment, productivity, and joy. For others it’s a prison, or at least just boring. For those of us who have made the choice to be deliberately at home, our view of home shapes our day to day universe, and makes the difference between loving our work and being weary of it.

This past weekend I had a conversation with new mother. She shared that after several hours at home with her baby, she felt like a zombie. This is a common refrain, and one that I wanted to understand better, so I asked her if she was used to being at home before her baby was born. Did she think that it was being with the baby that made her feel like a zombie, or was it being at home? She said that actually, for her, the parenting part was much easier than she had expected. It was still her life. She was just bringing her baby along with her. But the being at home part, that was hard.

And then she said something that turned all the lights on for me. She said that she and her husband had been talking about home and ideas of home. For her, growing up, home had been a place where she could never get anything done, where the TV was always on, distracting her; home was a place to get away from. But for her husband, growing up in a large homeschooling family, among acres of woods, home was a place to go to do things, where there were always relationships, conversations and interactions, cozy corners for private thoughts or reading; home was a place to get away to.

I realized that women who complain that there’s nothing to do at home, that it’s boring or stultifying, mind numbing to be “stuck” there all day, probably feel that way in large part because they live in a home where it’s all true. Their view of home has created a culture in their home where there really isn’t much to do.

As the “Mom’s Taxi” generation grows up and takes up the mantle of motherhood, many will need to be remaking their idea of home. A lot of us were almost never at home, or were only there to regroup between activities: school all day, then music lessons, sports practice, club meetings, dance classes. It’s no wonder women who grew up like that think there’s nothing to do at home. If home is merely the place you go at the end of the day to sleep, then it’s a little like bed. I’d feel like a zombie, too, if I spent my whole day in bed.

Many, many ladies have rattled off lists of all the things there are to do at home: gourmet cooking, sewing, crocheting, painting, flower arranging, gardening, scrapbooking, researching, writing, learning foreign languages, and on, and on. This is not to mention the equally long list of things there are to do with your children if you have them: teaching, reading, playing games, doing crafts, taking nature walks, etc. But I wonder if this brainstorming, and “hobby hunting” might be the second step in the process of learning to be happy and productive at home.

The first step has to be the vision, the view of home as engineered society, private utopia, the one little corner of the planet where the culture is entirely up to you and your husband. The culture of the home will reflect the ideas of the people who live there, and no one’s ideas influence the culture more strongly than the wife and mother’s. If you struggle with being at home, or even if you don’t, it might be time to sit down and ask yourself what your ideas about home are and then what your ideals for life are. How can you create a home that is exactly what you and your family most need? How can you turn your ideals into a cultural blueprint? What should life in your home look like, and how can you make it happen?

Do you want a home full of peacefulness or bustling activity? Is it quiet or full of music or laughter? Who is there all day? Is it children, the elderly, neighbors, family? What do you want to learn about? What do you want to produce? If you find yourself wishing to be out of your home, what is it that you want to do? How could you make your home a center for that kind of work?

Everyone’s home is going to be a little different. I love study and writing, interacting with ideas. I’m creating a home where learning happens throughout the day for myself and my children. I shared with my cousin’s wife how when I had my first baby, I did hours of internet research while I nursed during the first year. She said she didn’t like the computer. She wanted to be with people. Someone like her could look at bringing more people into her home. Her home could be a place of encouragement, friendship evangelism, mentoring. Another friend of mine has a passion for working with her hands. She has a small pottery studio in her basement, and dreams of pottery parties, having other ladies over and sending them home with something they had made themselves. She has many craft times for her children and has stocked the home with the supplies she needs to help them be creative.

If you don’t like being at home, change your home. Make it a place you love to be. Your home doesn’t have to look anything like anyone else’s, particularly if that someone else’s home was something you grew up with and didn’t like. Home is exactly what you make it, so start with a vision, a culture that feeds your soul, and then implement it, let it shape every aspect of the home you’re making. One day, you may wake up and realize there’s no place else you’d rather be.

Ah, schedules! Marching orders for when I’m too tired to think, reassuring plans for getting everything done, barometers for how I’m doing today, rhythm for my children to soften little agonies like laundry time or bed making (because we “always” do that “now”). I’m addicted. I’ve been making schedules for myself since I was a teenager on vacation. (”I’m going to read one more chapter of Ivanhoe, then go for a walk outside…”) I got pretty good at scheduling school work in college. (Let’s face it, I was a bit of a nerd.) But all that was like a lazy, summer canoe trip compared to the trans Atlantic crossing of running a household. Vacation schedules were trivial. Schoolwork schedules were guided by the constant deadlines like a canoe is guided by the bends in a river. Homemaking schedules are vital, essential, and yet the possibilities are endless, just as a ship in the middle of the ocean can sail in almost any direction its captain chooses. And you’re taking your family along. If you don’t get them safely to harbor, there might be chaos, disorder; there might be no clean socks! (And seriously, that can be demoralizing to a husband who’s trying to get out the door for work…)

Over the years, I’ve had dozens of homemaking schedules. Some worked. Some didn’t. Some lasted for months. Some didn’t survive a week. And while I love having a schedule, I’m keenly aware that I’m still learning how to make effective schedules. Figuring out how much time to allot to a given activity and how often to repeat that activity (if I even want to include that activity!) can be a bit of a trick at times.

Recently, in response to If My Grandma Could Do It, Cristina wrote: “Great post, maybe you could post your schedule? Or others could? Would love to see how others get it done.” I’m happy to share. You’ll find my most recent schedule at the end of this post, but do bear in mind that I am very much still in process. I don’t get it “all” done. There are still mornings when Mr. Parunak has to ask me if he has any clean socks, and evenings when the first cars start pulling in the driveway for prayer meeting while I’m frantically trying to finish vacuuming.

I am learning, though. And by now, I’ve gotten a regular route charted for how I go about making my schedules.

The first step for me in making a new schedule is always to write out my skeleton schedule. This is the list of the things that must happen to keep my family healthy–stuff like eating and sleeping–and the times they need to happen throughout the day. At our house, the sooner we eat after getting up, the fewer trials and tears the children face (in fact, we’re all a lot happier if our blood sugar isn’t low). So if I decide to get the children up at 7:00, then breakfast had better be happening by around 7:15. If we eat at 7:15, then our tummies are rumbling again by around 10:00, so we need to have a snack then, but it can’t be a big snack because everyone is so tired by noon that lunch needs to be at 11:30, so we’re all set for 12:00 rest time. You get the idea.

Once I have my skeleton schedule, the next step for me is to make a list of all the most important things that I MUST get done on a given day. For me, this includes: Bible reading, exercise, homeschool, laundry, baths, bed making, daily chores, and a little gardening on summer days. For some, making this list may actually be the hardest part of scheduling. It’s a bit like packing for a trip. How do you know how many pairs of shoes you really need? How do you know how often to vacuum, clean the bathroom, or dust? The answer is similar to both questions: it depends on what you’re going to be doing, what lifestyle your plan needs to support. I have a friend who needs to sweep under her kitchen table after nearly every meal, but who only vacuums her house every other week. This is because she has small children and no dog. My family also has small children, but we have a dog, so I only sweep under my table every three or four days because our dog eats almost everything the children drop, but I have to vacuum the fur out of my house at least once a week. Basically, you have to watch your house. You want the schedule to say it’s time to clean each part of your home just before it starts to look dirty. If that area has been atrocious for days, you didn’t schedule frequent enough cleanings, if the thing you’re about to clean still looks impeccable, then you scheduled the cleaning too soon. What I like to do is to simply have a “chore” time each day and use it to attend to whatever is bothering me, whatever I’ve noticed around the house that needs to be cleaned. Then, every Wednesday afternoon before everyone arrives for prayer meeting, I do my big weekly vacuuming, bathroom wipe-down, etc.

You’re also going to have to decide whether you want to have the same schedule every day, or whether you want to have one day to do all your laundry, another day to do all your cleaning, etc., or some mixture of both. This will depend a lot on whether you have your own washer and drier, whether you’re homeschooling (and therefore may not have huge blocks of time to devote to various major chores), and so on. This just takes trial and error. What works right now for my family is to do one load of laundry a day (I can hear the mothers of many out there laughing!), and a little gardening and housework, plus my big Wednesday pre-prayer meeting clean up.

Once I have my “important things” list, I use it to fill in the “holes” in my skeleton schedule, keeping in mind several things as I go along. First, there are some things that are much easier to do when the baby is sleeping (like doing my aerobics DVD), so I snatch up prime sleep times first. I also try to alternate sitting and moving activities to help keep my children from getting too restless (read aloud time, then chores, then seat work), and once the summer gets hot, it’s nice if I schedule outdoor activities early before the heat of the day. The opposite is true when it’s cooler.

Next, I take inventory of what’s left, and make a list of nonessentials that I would really like to be able to do (like sewing, blogging, and baking yummy treats with my children), and I fit the niceties into the space that’s left. Voila! A plan.

Now comes the crucial part: fine tuning. I have to live with my schedule and see where the kinks are. Sometimes the initial plan is great, but chances are, it needs a little help, usually because I didn’t give myself enough time for the assigned tasks. (”Oh, I guess I can’t actually weed the whole garden in a half an hour…hmm.”) Then, there may have to be a little reshuffling until everything truly fits.

And then, I’m done. I have my goal, my daily vision. Once again I am safely in the harbor, family in tow, having banished a fair amount of chaos and disorder, and (I hope) having ensured the future of clean socks! It doesn’t always work like I want it to, like today, for instance, when all my children are sick. And that’s when I need to remember that the Lord is the Ultimate Scheduler. I can make all the plans in the world, but in the end, I need to be open to what He has for me each day.

Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

***

And, for those of you who are curious, here’s my most recent, workable schedule. I am currently in the process of making a new summer schedule with room for morning gardening. Anyone else who’d like to post one of their schedules is more than welcome to in the comment section. I’d love to be able to compare!

5:30 –Mr. Parunak and I get up and dress (unless it’s been a bad night with wet beds, bad dreams, etc.) I eat my morning snack.

6:00 (or so) –Baby usually wants to nurse around this time and usually goes back to sleep.

6:30 –I have some time to sew, blog, or bake something special for breakfast.

7:00 –I wake my older children up (provided I stopped sewing, blogging, or baking in time…I need to work on this!)

7:15 –Breakfast

7:30 –I do aerobics. The children finish breakfast, clear their places, and play.

8:30 –Baby usually wakes up or else I wake her up. We nurse, and I read to the older children.

9:00 –Whoever’s bath day it is gets a bath, and whoever’s bath day it isn’t helps with chores. Everyone makes his own bed. (2 1/2 year old gets help.)

9:30 –We all throw a load of laundry in and fold and put away the previous day’s load.

9:45 –Nurse the baby and read history book to older children. Baby usually falls asleep for a nap.

10:00 –I supervise seat work for homeschool preschool and kindergarten while cleaning up breakfast dishes, and getting started on lunch. The kids have “hors d’oeuvres” while they work.

11:00 (or whenever school is done) –The kids play outside while I finish lunch prep.

11:30 — Lunch and get ready for rest.

12:00 –Memory verses, Bible reading, prayer, and quiet rest time. Baby nurses. Baby and 2 1/2 year old usually nap. 4 1/2 year old looks at books. I keep everyone company and work on the computer.

2:00 –Snack

2:30 –Afternoon projects (cleaning, baking, organizing, etc.)

4:30 –Kids do German language learning on the computer. I nurse sometime around now, start dinner, and talk to my mother on the phone. (She lives very far away. :()

5:30 –Eat dinner. Do whatever Mr. Parunak wants to do for the evening

6:30 –Baby usually wants to nurse again around this time.

7:30 –Get children ready for bed.

8:00 –Older children in bed. (I really need to work on this one!) Baby often nurses.

9:30 or 10:00 –Bed for me and Mr. Parunak

This past weekend, I did a remarkable thing. I threw away my collection of sour cream containers. Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why did she have a collection of sour cream containers in the first place?” The answer is very simple: My mother uses washed out sour cream and cottage cheese containers to store leftovers. The problem was that, despite my noble collection, I almost never actually used them for leftovers, or anything else. Mostly, they were just filling up my cupboard. I had the general feeling that a frugal homemaker saves things like sour cream containers and then does good and creative things with them. I wanted to be a frugal homemaker, so there they were, waiting for a surge of goodness and creativity to sweep them from their shelf and send them into action. This particular shelf was in the worst cupboard in my kitchen. This was the cupboard that I would throw things into and hope they didn’t come tumbling back out of (which they sometimes did).

Well, on Saturday, as I was nursing, I read an inspirational post on organizing in which the author encouraged taking everything out of a space, putting back only what you truly want to have there, and then dealing with the rest. This is actually pretty much my husband’s way of organizing, too, and it works really well. So, I decided to try it out in tackling the cascading cupboard in my kitchen.

My baby sat on the floor with me, joyfully exploring everything I shoveled out around us, while I laid down the law: If I don’t use it, it doesn’t belong in my kitchen. It may belong somewhere, but not here. I had a trash bag, a place to pile things I wanted in the cupboard, and a place to pile things I wanted, but not in the kitchen.

I discovered that I actually use less than a sixth of what was in that cupboard. Everything else was there for the wrong reasons, most of them having to do with my feelings of frugality, the hunch that I might really be able to find a good use for that whatever-it-is sometime, and that I will have saved money by having just the thing on hand. But I was drowning in it. I had so much stuff that I couldn’t really function. My cupboard was frustrating, hard to find things in, unsettling to look at. There was the enormous pile of canning jar lids and bands, most of which were so rusty that I was too embarrassed to ever use them on a hostess gift of jam, so there they sat, unused, taking up space in my cupboard. I saved the impeccably beautiful ones, and threw all the rest in my trash bag. I must admit, I felt guilty. Canning lids and bands cost money, and visions of frugal friends looking on in horror flickered across my mind. Nevertheless, I was determined to be merciless. Also into the bag went a Tupperware container that had warped so much that the lid no longer fit. It had been my Grandma’s, and it was a nice big one, probably useful, but in eight years of owning it, I had used it once. I got rid of all the old jars I’d been saving–pickle jars, yeast jars, honey jars. And lids! I had way more lids than jars. How did that happen?

And then there were the sour cream containers. I felt a tug over them. So useful. I could put collections of small things in them. I could use them to hold water for the children’s watercolors. I could put leftovers in them! “BUT I don’t,” I told myself. Into the bag they went. Besides, we go through a container of sour cream every other week or so. If I ever need another one, I’ll know where to get it.It was a great epiphany when I realized that for me, and indeed for most of us living in the U.S., things like sour cream containers are pretty easy to come by, so saving them when we have no real use for them is actually not being as frugal as we might think. Actually, we’re just hoarding. True frugality is making prudent use of what you have, so that you’re not wasting your resources. So if I use a decorated sour cream container as a bank for my child instead of buying a piggy bank, that’s being frugal. If I’m only trying to stay prepared to do such things at a later date, which may or may not ever come, that’s hoarding, and it’s being wasteful of things other than money. What I realized in cleaning out my cupboard is that we have many more resources to manage than just money. We have our time, our space, even our quality of life.

Now, of course, if you’re like my dear mother, who actually uses her sour cream containers to store leftovers, then you are being frugal having a nice collection of them. They cost a lot less than Tupperware! But if you just hear about someone else’s frugal idea, and it doesn’t work for you, then don’t feel obligated, and certainly don’t make my mistake and store stuff for ages, hoping that you’ll use it. The online world is full of great ideas for how to save money by reusing this or that–plastic grocery bags, jars, old calenders, worn out clothes. And if it works for your family, wonderful, but if not, that’s OK. If you’re not using something, you should feel free to get rid of it, even if it would cost money to replace. Chances are, you won’t need to replace it anyway because if you’re not using it now, you aren’t likely to want to use it later.

So today, the cascading cupboard is the practically empty, showpiece cupboard. Instead of drowning, I’ve gained some breathing room, and even a little sanity. I’m one step closer to finding the system that works for my family. I’ve decided to be frugal about life.

Before I got married, I had the impression that homemaking would be fairly easy. I was thoroughly convinced that it was the best job for me, and I was expecting an idyllic life. People worried that I’d be bored. “It doesn’t take all day to clean an apartment,” they warned, but I was confident. I had such plans for the wonderful ways I would use all my “extra” time. I had just graduated from college where I’d felt very successful and capable, and I couldn’t wait to conquer my next sphere.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that I stank at homemaking! I could not figure out how to keep the bathroom clean, the dishes from overflowing the sink, the mail from piling up on the floor, the carpet vacuumed, the laundry put away, and decent food cooked–all at the same time. And when and how was I going to “decorate” and make things beautiful? I had no system, no experience. This “easy” job was killing me!

It’s been nearly eight years now, and I’ve learned an awful lot. I definitely don’t “stink” anymore. But I’ve still got plenty yet to master. I keep fighting along, striving towards the goal of making a wonderful home for my family. And I remember that other women have gone before me, others who didn’t have the equivalent of a Ph.D. in home economics when they started out. One of them in particular I knew very well. She was my grandmother.

By the time I knew her, my Grandma was the queen of an elegant, beautifully run home. Her table, piled high with delicious food (always everything you wanted on your birthday) and sparkling with crystal and china laid down over lace, was my introduction to the intrigues of etiquette. (”You mean all those forks are for me? What do I do with so many?”) Every corner of her house was rich with color: flowers, photographs, heirlooms, little treasures from friends (Grandma had a lot of friends), and then there were the candy dishes, and cookie trays, well stocked for the grandchildren. Nothing ever seemed overdone, only full of depth and artistry. I was in awe. I still remember the creamy satin bedspread, the shining dark wood of her highly polished tables, her mother’s petit point chair, dusty rose afghans, towels, pillows, all the colors in harmony flowing from room to room. It was actually a tiny house, but I never knew it until I was nearly grown up. She had worked such wonders in her crowded space that all I felt was air and light.

My grandmother did everything, too, and with such perfection that any one of her talents would have been remarkable, yet she had mastered them all: cooking, sewing, flower arranging, cake decorating, a multitude of crafts (Grandma loved her hot glue gun!). She even made ordinary things into works of art. Every package she wrapped was a masterpiece of coordinating ribbons and handmade bows. She dressed herself in beautiful clothes, every inch of fabric carefully pressed, every shade exactly right for her skin.

My grandma was Superwoman.

But now, here’s where it gets encouraging. When my grandma got married, she couldn’t do a thing. Her mother had always done everything and never let her help. Grandma had to check out a book from the library to learn how to make the bed. She had barely cooked before, and her story of the first time she made rice went something like this: “I looked at that little cup and thought of my great, big husband, and I said, ‘No way! I’m putting in the whole bag!’ I had rice in every pot in my kitchen.” And then there was the time she tried to make pudding from scratch, and she burned it. So she tried again. And she burned it. So she tried yet again. And she burned it.

So many women today feel handicapped by their lack of training. They turn their hearts toward home, only to discover that their hands are so inexperienced that all they produce is failure. Or perhaps, they don’t even know where to start. They’ve never made a homemaking schedule before, cleaned an oven, or cooked from scratch. They hear of women like my Grandma finally became, and they think, “These people are aliens. I can’t even make a cake let alone decorate one.” But if a woman who started out her homemaking career not knowing how to make a bed can do it, then so can we.

Every one of us can follow in my grandma’s footsteps. I believe that all it takes is knowing what you want, being willing to seek out the information you need, and then allowing yourself to fail until you get it right. That’s the hard part, the failures. It’s easy to forget sometimes that homemaking is a skill just like any other. It is neither innate nor automatic. It takes practice and trial and error (usually a lot more error than any of us would like!). We may have to burn our puddings three times in a row before we learn how to make them. But it’s worth it. I’ve seen the end result of sticking to it for years.

If my Grandma could do it, then so can I. So can you.