The housewife

Jan 8 2024

This morning I woke up at the cabin at three am. Decided to do my “housewife” chores instead of trying to go back to sleep.
I had been washing the sheets that were stored in the barn so that they are fresh for later use. So I took the sheets out of the drier and folded them. I had one time watched a video on how to fold bottom sheets, but can never remember how to do it properly…lol.
Then I put in another load of clothes.

I noticed that the shower, though clean, still had a darkness of dirt so I cleaned it with a magic eraser sponge and it was magic how well that thing worked. Then I swooshed out the toilet with a toilet bowl brush, because apparently I am the only person who does that in our home, and then cleaned out the sink.

Then I washed all the countertop in the kitchen because out in Colorado, out in the valley, there are mice that want to come in and if there are crumbs, the mice really do become a nuisance. Often I have guests who sleep on pallets on the floor so I do not want to see mice at all in this cabin.

I swept out the pantry and then sat on a stool in front of the kitchen sink and pulled out all the items under the sink to organize, condense and sort. I decided I am going to have to do this again because I think I need an under the sink cabinet liner, but at least I got it clean and organized.

Then I cooked some sausage in water, the way my mom taught me, so it is never under-cooked, and put it on paper towels to drain so it was ready for breakfast later. There were eggs in the fridge to accompany the sausage and only one slice left of the homemade bread so I threw that slice away as it probably was dry being in the low humidity here.

Thinking of the humidity, I went and filled up the four humidifiers in the cabin, one at a time, taking care to not drip them on the floor. Even with four humidifiers, the air was only twenty percent humidity. I needed room in the sink to fill them up so I wanted to put the dishes in the dishwasher but it was full of clean dishes so I took those out and put them away in the cabinets, organizing the glasses and the silverware neatly.

I was grateful that the day before I had put the corner cabinet and the pantry in order, taking everything out, sorting things and pulling things to be donated. I saw the four garbage bags of items to be donated in the other room so I brought those bags into the kitchen so I would remember to take them to donate.

I took the garbage also out of the trash can and put it on the back porch since it was freezing outside it would not smell. Our neighbors who run a local restaurant, have offered to let us use their dumpster for our garbage when we are in town, so we are really grateful to not have to drive the half hour to the dump.

I looked at the painting I was doing and was still not satisfied with the nose of the person I was painting but there was not enough light to work on it so instead I did some writing. I like sitting in front of the pellet stove fire and writing on my computer when I feel inspired.

I went back in the kitchen to do my morning prayer because now it was about six am, and after I picked out the daily bible verse, I saw my cookbooks that have tons of recipes falling out and I sat at that table to go through the recipes and discard the ones that were not ever used or that looked uninteresting.

I have three cookbooks bulging with recipes that I have saved so that took a while. I decided to make a file on my phone for photos of the recipes I really love so I can cook some of those things when I am visiting my mom.

My daughter had asked me to fix her hat and it has a big fluffy piece that had fallen off so I found the little sewing kit in the kitchen corner cabinet and sewed the piece back on. All the winter clothes had been washed and hung in the main closet and all the mittens and scarves and hats were in another cabinet that I had sorted and organized as well.

I had a bag of Christmas items to go out to the barn. In the barn I had baby supplies like diaper pails and crib mattresses as well as bicycles and workout equipment that was in disarray so later in the day I got my husband to fire up my master heater and we went out there to put away things and clean out the barn. The extreme temperatures had caused some of the bins to break into smithereens and so I had to sweep up those pieces of plastic and find a big garbage bag to put all the empty flattened boxes and such inside.

I reminded myself to go to the post office and find out why my house is not listed as existing…though we have had this cabin almost twenty years. When I went earlier a kind postal worker who had talked to my mother in law on the phone, had saved two Christmas packages for us at the post office and though it was more than an hour waiting in line, He had the packages for me.

The same neighbors who are letting us use their garbage dump, also said we could use their post office box address until we figured out why our mail is not being delivered. We do in fact exist… they certainly know where to charge us taxes on our property.

I went out to the truck and brought in the canvas which I bought at a thrift shop so I can paint another picture. I found some coats and gloves in the truck as well but one glove was missing and now I have to find the other one. My daughter called and wanted to know if I can take care of her children for her anniversary trip with her husband and I said yes, and then she said they found the other glove in their car but they are back in Texas. Lol. IT will be a process to reunite the gloves.

It was when I hung up from talking to her, that my son called and said he was visiting his dad in Bourne and we had a short but fun conversation as I always like hearing what any of my kids are doing. He is about to do a trail run in west Texas with his running group.

He said that he was trying to figure out what to feed his people right before he hung up.

I thought about that a lot. Because I thought about how AI has content that is on our “feed”. It is fed to us the same way as a housewife I plan meals for my family.
As a house wife, I pay a lot of attention to what happens in my house. I clean, organize sort and discard. I maintain and I inspect and I repair.
These are things I do for my home and family. But I thought, how much more important are the things we do for our thinking.
Are we organizing, and discarding that which is of no benefit in the real estate of our mind? Are we cleaning out that which is dirty and donating that which we do not need if it is useful? Is our thought as pure and clean as our home? For me that is a worthy goal.

I think that is why I pick a bible verse every day to focus on. This action, starts me off like a recipe starts me off for what I will feed my family. They will eat whatever I fix usually, but as a housewife, it is important to me that the food is fresh, that it is nourishing, has variety and does not have too much sugar, chemicals or fat.

If an organization decided that it wanted to compete with milk, because it did not like cows for example, so it started making milk from nuts and calling it milk, I would know that is not the truth. Scientifically we still do not know all the ingredients that compromise milk and if a mom is all alone with a newborn child, she is producing milk for that child, not nuts. The label of milk for nuts might be something that is highly marketed, but calling it milk does not make it so. I even remember making a comment one time on social media about how much I like milk and getting attacked by a multitude of trolls. Why is the thought that “milk is bad” so important to marketing that they will stifle any contradiction to their strategy? Is it because they think cows are bad? Is it because they think people are bad? As a housewife, I can see how important it is for me to pay attention to the “feed” I am getting from “marketing” and rely on that which is pure, honest, and natural. Nuts are not bad but neither are cows. And by the way cows are not sacred. God is sacred and God made mankind as his highest form of idea.

I want ingredients that are pure and simple and honest and not manufactured…and in the same way, the feed that we are taking in from electronic sources, needs to be pure and simple and not manufactured.

I do not want to clog up my thinking any more than I want to clog up my digestion. Those who feel that they need a cleanse, perhaps are having to take in too much electronic feed that is not pure, not uplifting, not helpful and not even truth.

As a housewife, I do not sort through the garbage to find food, I work along side my husband and pay for the best quality I can find, choosing what is fresh and varied. I know how to cook from scratch as I was taught by my mom who also was a housewife.

She, like me, also has had a full time job. My mom was the Goldsboro Occupancy supervisor for government housing in N.C. , and I was a personal trainer. Both of us were proud to be able to do both full time employment, and work as a housewife, and do a good job at both. I am grateful now I can just focus on being a housewife. For the first ten years of my marriage while I was having children, (I had five) it was nice to be just a housewife and not have to work full time as well.

When I get back to Texas, I have different chores to do such as maintaining out outdoor plants, watering and fertilizing. I keep the garage organized and sorted as I am storing things for various children. I correspond with family, buy groceries, mend clothes and clean bathrooms and toilets there too. I dust, vacuum, mop, keep appliances working and functional, make repairs and of course take care of my family by cooking meals and such. I like a clean house.

I am always on the lookout for books that feature little children doing good things instead of books about animals doing people things…or now books about beans or eggs doing things. Clever but not really truthful is it? Do animals want a clean house? I do not think so. Do people and spider webs have anything in common? IS the web a way to get dinner for the spider? Um yeah I think it is. Spiders will not be allowed to stay in my clean house just like the web generated ideas cannot stay in the thinking of my well guarded family.

And I am grateful to have accumulated a stockpile of durable wooden and vintage toys that the kids love to play with. And I am grateful that I know how to do a myriad of useful skills that I teach to my children and their children, so that they are not dependent on spiders for entertainment. We are learning to cook, sew, read, and paint and clean together, at my house.

And when we pick our daily bible verse, and let what feeds us, spiritually and mentally sink in, we are learning how to forgive, heal and prosper, together as well. Being a housewife has given me that insight that I would never have had otherwise. That is what a housewife is and what a housewife does, because me and my family wish to serve the lord.