18 Comments Add your own

• 1. Marie  |  February 7th, 2008 at

  I think everyone can relate to that. The thing that intimidates me most is that I have committed to homeschooling my children, all the way up to college. Max will be starting kindergarten around the same time his next sibling will be born. Thank God I have my mom to help me.

• 2. Rebecca  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  Only one problem facing me?? So it’s not *all* bad but with two little ones my hard work doesn’t get long lasting results. I do the bulk of my cleaning while they’re napping or in bed, unless it’s picking up their toys - they help with that. When they get up it’s like a whirlwind slowly comes through & reverses my progress. Of course things like laundry & dishes will *always* be there no matter what I do.

  Another challenge I have is managing my time. With my husband gone it’s all on my shoulders - the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, budgeting, etc. I still want to enjoy myself & do some fun things with the kids also. And with my business picking up & making more commitments to that I’m being stretched in many directions. Sometimes cleaning just isn’t at the top of my list.

• 3. Steph W  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  I love this post! In college, I called it the “Cinderella Syndrome” that our society professes. Girl gets married and lives happily ever after. What they forget to tell us is this: That happily ever after takes long hours of work! But it is worth it.

  The biggest home dilemma I have is this: I’m a pretty neat person and I’m married to a guy that, while organized, is a packrat - AND a pile maker. So letting go and making space for his style and my style to coexist are my main struggles. I’ve come a long way and still have road ahead of me! ;0)

• 4. Laura  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  I agree with Steph…no one ever bothered to say anything about all the work “happily ever after” takes! My biggest issue is that I can straighten up all I want, but when I get home, all my work is demolished. My 1 yr. old and hubby (as much as I love them) somehow manage to destroy an entire weekend’s worth of work in 1 day. Somehow, the elves that were supposed to be helping me at night went on strike, and now I’m stuck with it all. I also feel pulled in so many directions when I get home…I have to divide my time between my son, hubby, chores, and myself after work (I’m a full-time working mom) and I have yet to get a handle on successfully balancing everything.

• 5. Solwerlad  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  I think my worst problem is that I do like doing household chores, but I must be in the right mood for that. And the mood I’m in after 8 to 10 hours of teaching university is not it. So serious cleaning is left for the weekend, as is serious cooking.

  On the other hand, that’s why I’m looking forward to my free days: time for sewing…baking…shopping…

• 6. Jamie  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  Cleaning, without a doubt. My mom had my sis and I helping with and actually doing housework from a young age, but I am just not a natural “neatnik”, and there are many days that it’s a struggle just to clean the kitchen after dinner (I work all day, so anything from breakfast/lunch gets left until after dinner too). I actually feel pretty good about myself if the house gets vaccuumed once a week, and tables/counters get decluttered once a month. My hubby isn’t any neater than I am, and it’s not like I can blame him while I’m leaving the same sort of clutter trail behind me.

  I will admit that I *did* realize from a young age how much work it would be to keep my own house, but that’s because my mom worked while she homeschooled us, so I’ve been keeping house since I was a pre-teen (my dad never was the helping type). So I just sort of go with the flow, knowing that there are more important things in life than a clean house, and when I get the occasional burst of organizational energy, I do as much as I can to make things more efficient and *easier* to keep up with (for example, last weekend I cleaned out my kitchen cupboards…something that already makes dinner prep and putting dishes away quicker and easier for me).

  I worked with children of all ages for over 10 years when I was younger, and absolutely realized how very difficult & time intensive it is to raise good children. That’s one of the reasons I don’t/won’t have any - not a project I want to take on in this day and age, no matter the rewards.

• 7. Kim  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  I work outside the home and have 2 hours of commuting each day I work. There is NO time to keep things clean/tidy/pretty if we want to attend our son’s sports activities and do anything fun as a family on the weekend. My husband does the grocery shopping and much of the cooking. I plan the meals, do the laundry and keep everything organized. We clean together - all three of us - we’d never have any fun time if we didn’t do that. I take time for myself and insist my husband do the same so we don’t get burned out. So, sometimes the house is clean and sometimes it’s not. We always have clean clothes and food to eat, and a bit of time for ourselves, so we’ll survive just fine.

• 8. Brenda  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  I have two number one problems I face keeping my home clean; My husband and son (27) are definitely not as clean as I would like them to be. I am a well organized, clean person. They just want to enjoy themselves and have peace at home when they get off work. As if I don’t work a strenuous 8 hour job and I am in the process of opening a children’s party place. Pray for me y’all!!

• 9. christine  |  February 8th, 2008 at

  My biggest problem was realizing that I don’t have to be at a level of organization and cleanliness that is unrealistic. I would heap on unnecessary guilt, which just made my entire home environment depressing.

  We educate at home, so that means that most of us are home - A LOT. Our home is fluid - constantly changing and being utilized. It’s messy. It’s scuffed. It’s scratched-up. As it should be.

  Easy to write. Very difficult to embrace when friends pop in unannounced!

• 10. Stephanie  |  February 13th, 2008 at

  My biggest problem is keeping the basic household chores finished while keeping homeschool on track–so time management? After yelling at the kids in the back bench of the van to keep their tongues to themselves and stop licking each other! I realized why earlier ages did not consider educating girls to be a necessity. Somedays all that comes to mind is ‘I graduated for this?!’

• 11. Eric Novak  |  February 13th, 2008 at

  Thanks for your submission to the Homeschool Carnival. You can find your post at http://ericnovak.com/?p=145

  Eric Novak

• 12. Rachel Wright  |  February 13th, 2008 at

  My biggest problem is that it is never all clean at the same time! I scrub the floors one day, then on the following day the bathrooms get cleaned, while the floors start getting dusty. Another day for vacuuming or dusting, now floors are looking pretty bad and bathrooms are starting to go…I manage to keep the house from falling into total disaster, but it never looks really really nice like it did before I had kids! (and dogs…)

• 13. JHS  |  February 17th, 2008 at

  Nothing prepared me for a husband who would love to decorate the whole house in “Dale Earnhardt.” You think I’m kidding? Come look! He sneaks the crap into every room. I am constantly taking it back down and handing it to him with a one word directive: “No.” I gave him the garage, but he wants to take over the whole house! He even has a Dale Earnhardt alarm clock and phone on his nightstand.

  NOW . . . tell me again about your issues!

  Thanks for contributing this post to this week’s Carnival of Family Life, hosted at Modern Sage — Practical Living Blog. The Carnival will be live tomorrow, so please stop by and peruse all of the wonderful articles submitted this week!

• 14. Deborah Robinson  |  February 17th, 2008 at

  This article has been included in the latest edition of Mom’s Blogging Carnival

• 15. babs m  |  February 18th, 2008 at

  I’ve solved the problem by never looking at the glossy magazines so I have to compare myself. My kids are happy, they get three meals a day, have clean clothes and a roof over their head. It may be cluttered several days a week and the floor doesn’t get swept every day. But I’m satisfied it’s enough. And that should be the only standard that matters.

• 16. Veteran Military Wife at Life Lessons of a Military Wife  |  February 19th, 2008 at

  Cleaning, cleaning and then more cleaning…that takes up most of my time. I know they say, “who’s gonna care when you die and your house is not clean”…..but with pets and two boys, you have to do at least some kind of cleaning every day. I don’t let it stand it the way of spending time with my kids though…I do it while they are in school. Other than that, I take on a lot of projects, and if I didn’t have a day planner keeping me straight, i’d be wallowing in it…

• 17. sunny daydreame  |  February 19th, 2008 at

  I’ll be honest, my biggest challenge is overcoming that inner brat that says, “NO! I don’t wanna clean!” I need to learn to tell her to shut up and get to work. I think she may need to be grounded for a while.

• 18. January Cat  |  February 19th, 2008 at

  Cleaning is a challenge because I have arthritis and a houseful of cats. My solution is a housekeeper for six hours every two weeks. I was my mother’s caregiver for the sixteen years that she had Parkinson’s disease. I learned then that having someone clean your home can make all the difference. My housekeeper speaks only Spanish so having her has also improved my Spanish. She also loves cats.

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