8 TIPS to be a GOOD Homemaker ( even when you're NOT GOOD at it!)

All it really takes is five minutes of scrolling on Instagram or Pinterest or even sometimes Facebook and just people you really know well to suddenly feel like you are not good enough. You're not a good enough mom, you're not doing a good enough job, everyone else has got it together, everyone else is doing better than you, and you're just failing. It's honestly so easy to feel that way, to convince yourself that that's the truth, but the truth is is that that's not true. So much of what you see online is just either it's completely fictional or it's just a small piece of someone's life, a small piece of their day, a small piece of their home, and I think that if you are someone like me who is not what I would say is a natural homemaker and it just feels like that's something that's not attainable. So today I'm gonna prove to you guys through my own trials and errors how you can be a good homemaker even when you are not good at homemaking. If you're new here I will give you the cliff note version that we are a large family. We're a family of ten. I have eight children. We live on about ten acres and we kind of have a hobby farm homestead. We have lots of animals. I have been learning how to garden and how to take care of animals, sometimes not so well, and you know learning how to grow food and flowers and I'm trying my hand at all these things. I fail a lot, a lot. I also homeschool. I've been homeschooling my kids for over ten years now and that's one of the few areas that I feel very very confident in, but that's because I've been doing it for a really long time and I've made the mistakes. So the point is I'm not coming to you in this video from a place of perfection and saying I got it all together and I'm just wonderful. I'm saying look I've cracked the code. I figured out how to hack homemaking, how to hack into feeling like you're a really good homemaker. When it's not your natural inclination, when it's not who you feel like you naturally are as a person or a woman or a mother or wife or whatever the case may be, you can still be an excellent homemaker and I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you how, okay? Of course all of this is just opinion and you may walk away from this video and think I could do all those things and I'd still be a terrible homemaker. I'm just gonna give you the information. Do what you want with it. Number one, I learned how and I'm still learning how to prioritize. If you don't know what is most important to you in your day then you're just gonna be blowing like a seed in the wind, okay? There's something else that came to my mind there but I wasn't gonna say it's not appropriate for YouTube. You're just gonna be flipping and flopping around, okay? You'll just get swept up in what you see other people prioritizing and that may have absolutely nothing to do with your life and your family. As I've spoken about before, priorities are about you. They're about your life and your family. What will make you feel successful in a day, what will make you feel accomplished in a day, has really nothing to do with what anyone else would say or put down on that list. It has everything to do with you and what your life looks like and what accomplishment looks like to you. So knowing that and then prioritizing those things. So if you know that part of what makes you feel like you're doing a good job as a homemaker is that your house is tidy, that it's picked up, then that's something you're gonna want to prioritize. If it's that your kids are always dressed and looking cute every day with their hair done and looking wonderful, you're gonna want to prioritize that. It's really up to you. I have things that I prioritize because they work well for me and they help me every day to function, to be more productive, and at the end of the day to be able to feel like I did what I needed to do. But I can't tell you what those things are or what they should be for you because only you can know that. So focusing on priorities has really really helped me to hack homemaking. Number two, and maybe this should have been number one honestly, is to stop comparing yourself to other people. This is so hard. I get it. As someone who is fastly approaching 40, I can tell you that the ability to put the blinders on and not compare myself to other people, what they're doing, in so many facets of life, it has gotten easier the older I've gotten. And I think that's true for a lot of people. The older you get, the easier it gets to go, you know what, that's great for her, good for her, not for me, good for her. And that's kind of how I feel and how I've been able to feel like I'm an excellent homemaker, is by not comparing my home and what it looks like and how it functions to anyone else that I know. Because I don't live in their homes, okay, I don't know how they function all the time. I only know what they show me. And that's the truth of any situation. Unless you're living in that home and living with those people, you only know what they show you. You might go over there, you might hang out, you might visit, you might spend time there. It's not the same. You only know what people really want you to know in most circumstances. And so understand that whatever you've built up in your mind that says that they're so great at this and I'm so bad, it could be completely false. And you really, really have to put those blinders on. Focus on your family, your situation, and the things that matter most to you. Number three is to create a schedule slash routine. I am vehemently anti-schedule. It's just part of who I am. The word is like nails on a chalkboard. I hear schedule and I'm like yeah. I just, you tell me that I have to do something every day, I immediately don't want to do it. It wouldn't matter if it was eating doughnuts. I would just be like, nope, if you say I have to do it every day at nine o'clock, I'm not doing it. Now obviously I am an adult so I can push past those feelings, but my inclination is to run when someone tells me that I have to be on a strict schedule. So I have learned over the years to reframe that for my crazy little brain and think of it more as a routine, a flow of the day. That works much better and honestly it just works better because who among us has written a schedule and been able to stick to it strictly? It's very, very hard. You have to be really anal and I just don't like to live that way. So I'm not that type A. I just can't. So having a good routine with a flow or a rhythm for our day, it tells us that this is generally the flow of things and I don't have to get stressed out if ten minutes passed when I thought I would be doing this or this kid is supposed to be taking a nap at one o'clock. I've just, I've been raising kids for 15 years, okay, 15 and a half years and everybody's, everybody's good, okay. So I can tell you that not having overly strict schedules, your kids are gonna be fine. Good routines, rhythms, flows, they know what to expect, they get that safety and security sense that they're craving. It doesn't have to be to the minute, okay. So deciding what that is though, what it looks like for you. I've shared before a little bit about our routines and rhythms. I do have some things available on my website, some printables and such to help you with certain areas of this so I'll leave all that linked down below but creating a rhythm for your family is so important and really helps everybody to stay on the same page and you will feel like a rock star, homemaker. Number four is to figure out your stuff, what your happy place is with the amount of things that you have in your home. There's a huge push for minimalism, there's a ton of that kind of information and content out there, essentialism. I just read a book on that recently that I loved and I am trying to become more of an essentialist than a minimalist but one does sometimes lead to the other. I'm just not good at being a minimalist I love trinkets and I love having certain little things that evoke memories and feelings and stuff like that and I'm just I'm not good at being a minimalist and it's not my happy place with the amount of things that we have but only you can decide and only I can decide for me what that happy place with our stuff looks like. For me it looks like I have the amount of stuff that I can reasonably take care of, keep picked up and organized on a daily basis. If I find that a particular room in our house, a particular category of things is getting out of control then I know that I have crossed that threshold of the amount of that stuff that I can have and still be able to feel like I'm doing a good job as a homemaker, I'm still keeping my house tidy, I'm still doing these other things that matter to me but if the stuff in that category is taking over then I know it's time to you know kind of reprioritize, reassess and evaluate and get rid of some stuff. So only you can decide what that is but knowing it and sticking to it is going to help you in the journey to hack homemaking to be the best homemaker you can be is to know what that is for yourself okay and to stick to it make yourself stick to it even if you're tempted to add more or you know go cutthroat and get rid of everything if you know that that in the long run is gonna make you very unhappy that you did that you're really gonna miss those certain things or you know they do make your life easier to have those things it's okay to have those things. Strict very very very strict minimalism isn't for everyone and that is okay. Number five is delegation of chores. This is very very very important. I've said this before and I'm gonna preach it till the day I die, you're a mom not a maid. If you're a mom and you have kids you're a mom not a maid. A lot of times people will conflate being a homemaker with being everyone's maid and that's actually not what that means. For me being a homemaker is more about the overall ethos of my home, how it functions, how it runs, and kind of you know big picture taking care of my family and my home but it does not mean that I am swearing some kind of an oath to be a maid to everyone in my home and to clean up after everyone and never ask anything of them never expect anything of them. That would I mean maybe some people love that and go on with your bad self but for me that would be a miserable existence and I think I would grow bitter and I also don't think that it helps you to raise self-sufficient children who are productive in the world and in their own sphere of life and with people that they engage with and such so overall I think it's a great idea to include the entire family in chores and for you to delegate things and to not be afraid to ask for help to not see it as you somehow not doing your job as a homemaker if you ask for help from someone. Think about any other job you've ever had is it ever been a scenario where you can't ask for help of course not you can ask for help from bosses you can ask for help from co-workers people above you beneath you you know in line you can ask for help it's okay and as a homemaker you can and should ask for help when and where you need it. Please just don't sacrifice yourself on the altar of thinking that what makes you an excellent homemaker is the fact that you can do everything yourself and you never need any help from anybody. This is the wrong kind of martyrdom and it not only is a disservice to you it's a disservice to those around you to your children to future generations. Number six is meal planning. If you are catching a theme by this point hopefully you are it's that setting up these different areas of framework are really the key so meal planning I mean how many times do we get to the end of the day and we're like this day has been insane and I have no idea what I'm feeding these people and you're throwing dry cereal and pepperoni slices at your kids okay we've all been there and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that on occasion but if you want to feel like you have really hacked this homemaking thing and you got it together part of that is you know you want to be eating nutritious meals serving nutritious meals to your family delicious things that you love and hopefully they love too. How you can do that is through meal planning. This is something that we have been working on getting better at as a family for years and I finally feel like we have gotten to a really good place with it where we have our you know sort of regular rotations. Don't feel like you have to serve new things every week it has to be like surprise grab bag dinner no one's ever had this before in the history of man. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every single meal. It's a good saying. Find meals that you know your family likes and make those on repeat you know I mean we all know about Taco Tuesday but you know we love to have breakfast for dinner or brinner because who doesn't love breakfast food we all love breakfast food it's very easy very quick so we typically when we're sitting down to make our meal plan we know we're gonna plug in breakfast for dinner one night some kind of Mexican like taco burrito something like that some kind of pasta dish is spaghetti and meatballs or spaghetti carbonara we know that we might do if we're doing a two-week meal plan we might do a pizza one night that kind of thing so it's just if you already have all those plugged in then oftentimes you're really only ever meal planning or trying to generate ideas for a couple new meals a week you know one two maybe I find it to be the easiest the best way to stick to things then your grocery shopping from that you know you have all your ingredients you're not having to run to the store back and forth and no one's gonna die from eating much of the same thing frequently okay no one's gonna die from that everyone will live you don't have to serve some exotic cuisine every week that is different and new stick to what you know and insert new things try new things as you feel like you've got this you feel as though you've got a handle on your regular dinners and cooking and meal plans then you can start to kind of add in some different things and try new things but try to make it as simple as you can from the beginning and I do have meal planning principles and grocery lists and such as well that will be linked down below number seven and I think this one is one that many many many women I know struggle with myself included and that is to not sweat the small stuff I think we can get really really really caught up in little things that don't really matter but we decide in our head that they matter and they're a really big deal and I'm not being a good mom and I'm not being a good wife and I'm being a terrible homemaker because I blah blah blah we pick some little thing and we fixate on it and we don't look at the big picture we don't think of the big picture of our family either from the day the week the month the year overall like how things are going the entire ethos of your home you just focus in on these little things and again I am I'm just as guilty of it as the next person but trying to do better with this over the years maybe it's just because I'm getting old and tired but either way the older I get the less that I tend to sweat the small stuff because I have seen firsthand how little that stuff actually matters and once you've got older kids who are able to be like no I don't remember that at all what are you talking about and you're thinking that your kids were like oh my mom was so terrible she did X or Y or whatever it is and they don't even remember it it's like we stress about so many things that don't really matter in the long run and so getting better at letting go you know maybe you need to go back and watch frozen a few more times but let it go okay just let it go don't sweat the small stuff let it go and that is a good mantra for all things but especially when it comes to homemaking just woosah let it go move on you will thank yourself later and your future self will thank you too because you will realize that you saved yourself so many years of being a stressed grumpy tired mom wife by just letting things go and the last thing and arguably the most important thing is that at the end of the day don't forget you are a wonderful mother you are a wonderful wife you're a wonderful spouse the fact that you're even trying to figure out how to do certain things better says that you have a level of care for these things that some people don't some people don't even have the awareness that they should care about those things so you're already five steps ahead by just thinking about it and wanting to improve certain areas I think that as I've said over the years a posture of gratitude of thankfulness is so important to your everyday and also be able to hold a good sense of perspective of your life of your circumstances you know again I know that it's not that we're playing a game of who's got it worse or anything like that but I think even within your own life comparing to times that maybe things were harder and and how things have changed for you for the better and really just the perspective in our lives that a lot of the things that we worry about stress about beat ourselves up about are so insignificant in the long term they're so insignificant in the big picture of the world and of the entirety of your life this this little thing and you're just looking at it when you pull back to that kind of 30,000 foot view you're looking at this little thing going with why am I stressing about that again that is so dumb so I think that kind of posture of perspective and gratitude are so important for me to keep myself focused every day to keep myself feeling like I want to do my best and I'm trying my hardest but I'm also not beating myself up and having unrealistic expectations of myself I still am who I am okay I'm still gonna bite off more than I can chew sometimes I'm still gonna get overly excited about ideas or things and take on too much but I've gotten a lot better at going okay well that's not working so let me step back what can I drop what can I let go of so being able to do that for yourself and readjust and get back to it it's not gonna be this perfectly linear journey to like I am an excellent homemaker I am the matriarch of all matriarchs it's gonna be this exact journey where sometimes you're doing really great and then you're like ah veering off into a ditch and then you get yourself back out and you're getting back on the straight and narrow it's a back and forth but being able to get yourself out of the ditch and get back on the straight path is the hardest part and if you can do that then it doesn't matter because you can't be stopped if you're not stopping I hope this video was helpful for you I want to end it with something that I stumbled across online the other day that I just really really loved so I'm going to close out the video and read to you this homemaker's prayer the author is unknown but I thought it was really beautiful and maybe it will encourage you to Lord we thank thee for the sink of dirty dishes we have a good food to eat thank you for this pile of dirty laundry we have nice clothes to wear thank you for these unmade beds they were comfortable last night thanks for this bathroom complete with soggy towels splattered mirror and grimy sink thank you for this finger smudge refrigerator that needs defrosting so badly thank you for this oven that absolutely must be cleaned it's baked many good meals over the years our whole family is grateful for that tall grass that needs to be mowed thanks for that slamming screen door the children are healthy and able to run and play Lord the presence of all these chores awaiting me says that you have richly blessed this family I shall do them all gratefully and cheerfully amen