Housework as Art

We've been working around the house pretty hard and it's starting to pay off. It's really wonderful coming home to a place that's clean(er) and (more) organized and warm.

It makes me think about the art of home-making. For a long while it became almost derogatory--someone being a homemaker was a person who didn't have a life of their own. It still has that taint. I'm not sure how that happened. Maybe because of it's association with wives and women. That's a really awful idea, that something that becomes associated with the feminine is diminished and derided and considered irrelevant or even frivolous.

My DH has been putting in just as much work, if not more, into making this house a home and now that we're seeing serious progress there's just so much pride and satisfaction in it. It's not just pride and satisfaction, though. It's a form of creativity, with emphasis on the create part. Anyone who has finished writing a book or a painting or has watched a flower bed blossom after all the preparation and hard work understands. And yes, these things are never really completed. Projects aren't finished so much as they're abandoned, or revisited in another form at another time. Just as the cells in our bodies continuously divide and process and breathe, the environments we create are never static. They grow and change and breathe too. With effort, they flourish. With neglect, they decay and die.

Our house is very alive right now. It's beautiful, even with all the dust and ongoing battles with clutter that doesn't have a spot to settle into (yet.) Will we ever finish? I'm sure we'll have breaks from the wall painting and edging and organizing. But I won't sit still during those time periods. I'll have another way of putting my feet up--putting up outbuildings, relaxing while lazing about weeding in my garden beds, eating tomatoes fresh from the vine.

Yep, it's almost that time of year. Mid-February I'll be starting those earliest of seeds. Yikes! That's in about a month. That's all the time I have to polish the work indoors.

I'm already full of anticipation--the garden in our future, the livable house that soon will become present, the sawdust piles and scrap pieces of flooring that will be in the past.

It's a great way to begin 2012. I think it's going to be a fun year. The art of it will be all around us. We'll be living in it, eating from it, and resting within it. It's living as art, and art as life.

2011

Lots of new stuff this year. New car, bought with cash--first new car bought with cash. Highly recommended, btw, because there's no interest to pay. New cat (the Poop, aka Veronica.) New chicken coop. New (sort of) job, but with the added newness of being my first full time job since, oh ... let's see ... the early nineties. New friends, too. And our house has new paint on it. Speaking of which, we'd better get that new porch finished soon.

Lots of old stuff this year. Old clothes sewn back together. Old vehicles carefully maintained to continue running for years to come (we hope.) An old blanket with a new shell, now a favorite blanket that everyone wants to snuggle in. An old dog who survived serious surgery and is even now snoozing under the dining table. Good times with old friends, and visiting old haunts. Cleaning out old, dusty corners and rediscovering new living and storage space.

Mostly, though, 2010 was a lot about survival, and returning to a wilder, more insecure lifestyle. It's a lot scarier to rely upon self-employment when you have a mortgage and kids to take care of than the last time we did this way back in our college years. I have the easy part of the deal: I trust and believe in my DH to continue to succeed, and I believe we'll thrive with him at the helm. I'm the backup plan, the supplemental income person, the fill-in-the-gaps gal. I have a lot less pressure on me, but I think that my DH is happier with the very different kind of pressure that he's under, as opposed to the daily slog kind of pressure he had before where the future looks pretty much the same as the past. We're bailing like crazy, but our boat is afloat and we don't appear to be sinking. I don't think our goal is some distant shore. I think it's to put our boat into order and keep sailing on.

For now we're all healthy, including the animals. I'm grateful that we have even more than health. We have shelter, food, clothing, clean water, beautiful skies, and good earth. I'm even grateful for the stupid blackberries.

Here's to health, and life, and most of all, to hope. It's the beginning: time to dream, to plan, and to strive.

The Year in Retrospect

Highlights of 2008:

My DH was home for half the year.  That time was precious and glorious.  I didn't realize how much we did together until all at once we didn't.  But we talk and type lots and lots.  I love our relationship.  We got some strange and beautiful blooms on our relationship tree this year.

My brother-in-law's cancer proved to be treatable.

Nikita was still alive.

I had a great time at Radcon.

ItRunsInFrontofMe came into our lives.  Aw, she looks so thin.  She glows with health now.

We adopted Carey.  After Nikita's and Mojo's loss, it felt good to have both Carey and ItRunsInFrontofMe in our lives.  And Carey is so sweet!  To us.  Ahem.  I'm glad she made A her person, and ItRuns picked the boy.  Emotionally that worked out really well.

I had some stunningly beautiful days.  A pic of a peony heart in my garden.  Click the gardening tag for more garden stuff.

I rediscovered bowling.

I left a good job.  Well, okay, good for me.  Sort of.  I do miss Barbie Lady.  I don't miss the lost writing time and the struggle to keep up on housework.  Now, if I neglect housework, it's on purpose, not because I'm at work too much.

Got to watch O growing up.  That's almost continuous, but we had some great milestones like his Jr. prom this year.  He looks great in a tux.  He's poised on the verge of setting out on his own.  Scary beautiful.  He started his senior year in 2008.  He's thinking about joining the military, and he's getting tall and strong.  We had fun playing video games yesterday.  I'm sure going to miss him when he decides to move out and on.

Got to watch A growing up and survive some knocks.  (BTW, her hand was broken and she did get a cast.)  She's an amazing, creative, beautiful young woman and I should have taken more pics of her in Victoria where she really glowed with maturity.  The music concerts she's been a part of were amazing.  Did I mention that she loves math?  Ah, how my heart swells.

ABBB was weird but tons of fun.

I got a Writers of the Future honorable mention.

I had a pro short story sale!  At last!  Huzzah!  

And we had two amazing winters.  Remember, snow in April?  And December was incredible.  If you're a weather watcher, click on the weather tag.  May 26th I posted about an amazing storm.  I'd forgotten all about it until I clicked the weather tag.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

The New Year Approacheth

I'm not a big New Year's Resolution gal, but I do review the previous year and try to do some planning.  As we approach January 1, 2009, I'll be thinking about where I've been, and where I'd like to be by January 1, 2010.  As radical as 2008 has been, 2009 has the potential to test me even more.  I hope I pass those tests.  Skating along is great, but facing challenges, meeting them, even surpassing them, is something I look forward to even though they're intimidating.  I'm not dreading 2009.  I'm hopeful, and I'm gearing up.  

2009 won't just be a big year for me.  We'll have a new President, and the Democrats will be in charge.  Will it be chaos, or choreography, to quote Heather Alexander?  

The woodstove warms the downstairs and the cats lay, molten, in cushioned nooks.  The house is soft and comforting.  It's an illusion, but I do feel sheltered and safe here.  Snow may sift endlessly from towering clouds, I may demand more of myself as a writer, face the possibility of O going out into the world to make it on his own as best he can, dream bigger than ever while downsizing as much as I can, get caught up in storms of political and economic change (hopefully they'll be awesome rather than awful) ... but I'm starting from a place of wellness and comfort.  Thus rested, hopefully I can handle just about anything.

I hope everyone has a great winter, and that the lengthening days will lift your spirits to new heights.  Happy Holidays!

To my beloved far away, blessed be.  We're going to have crazy fun this year.  Are you ready?  I am.