During the simplicity of childhood, I could be easily entertained. I remember my sister and I, along with my neighbors, playing very simple games. We didn't need much but our imagination. Those games usually involved pretending to be an adult in one context or another, and I think I can finally say I've truly lived all those pretend games.
We played house, we played store, we had pretend weddings, and we may have even played school. My first two jobs in high school and college, I no longer played store, I lived it. Oh, how I disliked it! It was much better when we pretended as children. I became a teacher, and taught for six years, one year even in Europe, and it was harder than I had ever imagined. I got married last August :), and that was better than any pretending. And now I'm finally keeping house.
I'm sure people think I have an easy life right now. I don't have children yet and I am merely taking care of my husband and my home. I would have to agree that, yes, this period is much easier than times behind me, and I can guess the years before me. That doesn't mean this period isn't any less important. I believe that God is letting me relax from all the years of hard work, and at the same time, preparing me for what's to come. I am using this time to develop better domestic skills and find my worth not in what I do, but simply in who I am.
I know that people do wonder what I do, and believe it or not, I do stay quite busy. Just as in those days we played house, and I may have swept the deck to undergo the pretense of doing chores, I have plenty of daily household tasks that take center stage. Some are harder here simply due to our lack of appropriate major appliances.
I have a love/hate relationship with doing laundry (only here, not under normal circumstances). Brian lived in this apartment for five years before we married, and he didn't have a washing machine. I was almost in despair upon marriage about having to go to the dreaded laundromat every time I wanted to wash something. In fact, we did go to the laundromat a couple of weeks after our honeymoon, and yikes, the total cost was around twenty-four dollars! We knew that was like throwing money away, so we ended up purchasing a portable washing machine.
This little guy is my best friend. He doesn't hold much, and I have to do small loads frequently, but at least I don't have to run to the laundromat every week. (I couldn't take it because we've got a steep staircase up to our apartment.)
Next is our dryer, which really isn't ours, but our neighbor kindly loaned it to us. It, too, is a small, portable machine.
I only use it one day a week, and that is to dry my sheets. I do that every Friday, and it takes almost all day to get my sheets done from start to finish. One of the reasons I only use it one day a week is because if we do anything else while it is on, like vacuum, or even use a hair dryer or iron, the fuse blows and we have to call our poor neighbor below us to deal with the circuit breaker. So I hang our clothes to dry on our two drying racks, but it is tricky because I can't wash too much at once, or else there's no room to hang it.
(The shower makes a great place to dry Brian's shirts.)
Now on to washing dishes. We do, in fact, have a dishwasher, but it, too is a portable machine, and it hooks into the kitchen faucet, so I can't use the sink when the dishwasher is running. It takes so long, about two hours start to finish, and it doesn't do the best job, so I find that most of the time, it is more simple to wash dishes by hand.
It seems as though I am forever trying to organize this place. Our humble home is small, and it is a bit too small for two people. Many of my things are still in boxes because there's nowhere to unpack them, and it leaves me feeling a bit unsettled. I am constantly trying to rearrange or reorganize, only to feel like I'm not really getting anything done. It's the worst feeling, but I have to put up with it until we get a bigger place. Some things do get accomplished in my efforts, but not as much as I would wish. Right now I'm attempting to reorganize my husband's clothes, so we'll see how that goes. ;)
That is just a sample of the things I do and how I manage each day. It's not always easy, and when I go home for a visit, my mom's washing machine seems enormous in comparison to mine. These little inconveniences may be annoying at times, but I am still grateful for God's many blessings and provisions. I am glad to no longer be playing house, but living it, with all the good and the bad. And yes, it is harder than I imagined as a child. How did my mom make it look so easy? Lord willing, in time, I'll make it look easy to my future children, even though you and I will know the truth.
It'll be our secret. :)
