A dream coming to fruition

It's been a little while since I've been active on the blogosphere and communities for a number of reasons.  The best one is that I have been consumed with a new interest that has seen me turn a corner in my recovery!

For the last week I have been creating and then actively engaging in a home management binder.  I saw the idea a while ago and it peeked my interest.  Last week I acted on it.  Before I knew it, I was spending all my time creating daily, weekly, monthy etc cleaning lists, turning them into colorful and attractive word documents and acting on them in a frenzy of cleaning, clutter clearing, organising and labelling.

My scrapbooking materials came out as I created dividers and matching tabs and I began to feel a sense of truly beginning to live my life again after months of grief and years of fertility treatments.

One of the goals that I have had for this last half of the year was to find what it was that I wanted to do with my life.  This is the reason for taking time of work and giving myself space to not only grieve but to create the new life that I new that I needed. 

I began to realise that one of things that I really wanted, was to be at home creating a beautiful and natural home life for us.  We began with putting in raised garden beds and buying heritage seeds and seedlings.  And we are slowly looking at other natural options - a worm farm, better composting etc.  To do these things needs time and I know that I want my life to have room for this, along with time for babysitting and taking care of my parents.

This means not going back to work as I did before and not bringing in the same income.  I am so grateful that DH is happy for this to happen.  Neither of us are obsessed with money.  We both feel that as long as we have enough to live plus a bit extra to enjoy life, is all that we need. 

I can't tell you how excited I am at the prospect of not going back to the full time work of teaching that I have been doing for over 20 years.  To move away from that world is a relief.  It is a world that no longer serves me.  A world that doesn't fit who I am now.  I've felt that way for quite a while, but the last few years and particularly the last few months has seen me change in so many ways.  Finally, with the support of DH, I have broken away.

Creating the home management binder has been a HUGE step in achieving the goals that I do want.  It has taken me away from the stationery place of my grief and has seen me becoming passionate and active and finally achieving my goals of breathing life into our home.  The grieving is still there (big time today), but that is for another post.  This post is about the good things that are happening in my life.  The corner that I have turned!

As I talked to my therapist about all this, I realised that I just can't up with a name for the role that I am playing.  "Housewife" seems to have a negative, almost degrading feel to it.  "Homemaker" seems a bit corny to me.  What do I say to someone who asks what I am doing with my life?  Aside from the three days a week work that I have, one day teaching and two days doing officework, this is my role.  A role of maintaining our home, growing vegetables, being there for DH who is doing such long hours at the moment, being there for the rest of my immediate family and taking the much needed time to take care of myself.  Basically getting back to the roots of life, to what really matters.

I keep thinking back to the days before civilisation took hold, when people's lives were about the basics.  Obviously I wouldn't want to go back to that (!) but the simplicity of life appeals to me.  Spending time growing food, preparing food, using what the world gives us, ensuring that we live in a clean and uncluttered environment creating a freedom of mind, heart and soul.  Most importantly, taking care of ourselves and our loved ones.

The routine and structure of chores in the home management binder has brought that to my life.  Anything I think of goes down in the to do list, freeing my mind of worrying about it, and then getting ticked off when it is done.  I can easily see what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.  The house is fresher, less cluttered, cleaner and it is being reflected in my mind, body and soul.  I am feeling better.  Finally, I am out of my rut and bringing into my life what I have known I wanted to do for so long.

DH is away at the moment.  Three weeks in Italy for work.  It is really hard with him away and I haven't been coping well.  Yet, it has been the perfect time to begin this huge project.  And when he comes back at the end of next week, the place is going to feel SO much better.

I am so grateful for this coming into my life.  And I'd like to give a big thank you to all the women that have posted about their own home management binders and shared their ideas, their homes, and their visions!

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PS.  I seriously would like an answer to what to call this life I am leading now!!!  Any thoughts?