“Holymessaphobia” and other homemaker disorders.

Since you have last heard from me my to do list grew, exponentially, voluntarily, and frankly exhausting!  I have also added a non voluntary to do called “dealing with the worst spring allergies I have ever experienced” which takes up way more time than I can spare.  Grant it the voluntary to dos are a lot of fun: the community theater play, wearable art show, and a walk/run for cancer in memory of a dear member of our community!  My house is suffering the consequences!  So why can’t I take my own advice and weed my to do list?

I believe it is “todomanicism”, a understudied disorder of the chronic volunteer and underemployed mothers that also suffer from “domusphobisplasia” (the avoidance disorder that causes women to volunteer to be away from the reminder that they need to do the dishes from yesterday still because they have perpetuated a cycle of to little time in the day) a very difficult disorder to dig out of.

On top of all this, it has been unseasonably nice out and I have been easily sidetracked in the ‘spare’ time I have to play outside, fish, and garden. Build a ‘greenhouse’, install address signs for the volunteer fire department… You get the picture.  I am getting buried by the home I am supposed to be cultivating, yet again!  Am I alone?  My dearest friends also suffer from the same disorders, one of them somehow manages to get her home neated up daily but she claims that is made possible by ‘holymessaphobia’.  Something else I find that we also suffer from is the procrastinated shower which makes us fresh and nice smelling in the afternoon and evening, having to ‘wash the mom off’ before our evening adult contacts, giving the illusion that we are fresh and rested when in fact we are frackin exhausted!

Add on to this the list of concerns and worries with no solution in sight pingponging back and forth in my overwhelmed brain and voila!  I have “brainfartstotia”, the side affect of all above disorders. So my dear contacts in the world around me, I apologize for forgetting about the details of your lives as I can’t seem to keep track of mine. That being said I am very proud of the fact that I have not forgotten my csa fruit/veggie box pickup for 4 weeks straight!  So proud of myself! Not to mention my potatoes are planted and I have that one haven in the yard that is winter waste free.

On top of my ‘brainfartstotia’ my daughter also suffers and told me an hour before her school music program that she needed a white shirt (never to be found in my house as the quickly become destroyed since I am just not a white shirt capable person) a black skirt and black tights, also not in the home as my daughter is a bit rough and tumble with the outdoors.  Solution?  The shopping options are limited here to basic mercantile supplies so the white shirt and black tights were a quick fix.  The skirt?  Well I happened to have a lace and satin tutu type skirt with an elastic waist that came with another, uh, item that I purchased for myself, eh hmm.  Worked like a charm and appeared totally appropriate on my ten year old sweety pie whom I will tell her at her bridal shower someday what that skirt was supposed to be for.  I can hear the laughter now.

Thinking outside the box at the last moment seems to work for me, I just wish I didn’t have so many of those moments in my life! I also wish I could take my own advice!  Every time I make a resolution and I am just starting to really get going with it some disaster derails me and sends me off course and finding my way back through the piles of to dos is daunting at best.  It seems so easy to walk outside and play in the dirt, a gardeners way of putting her head in the sand that eventually bears edible fruit.  If only the laundry and dishes weren’t the most productive growers around here!

Weed your to do list. Include sun in the daily forecast.

The sun warmed my face as I woke up this lovely Sunday morning. I stretched as I opened my eyes to find I had been joined on the bed by the little lab as she cheerfully implored with happy eyes and wagging tail if we were going to get up and have fun. My dear one softly snoring away having been called into work at 2 am and returning home sometime just before the sun fully rose.  I dose in and out enjoying this rare quiet Sunday luxury and garden in my head.

Each day I impatiently await total thaw.  The birds are singing now each morning and the sun has that extra touch of warmth and each day the sun is up longer and longer.  I am not patient.  I daydream of some sort of magical power to zap my house clean and warm the soil so I can garden my days away.  My list of daily activities contains to many undesirable duties.  I pout.

But today is Sunday and it is a day of rest, so the house is a mess?  Who cares, no one is coming over, I can do whatever I want.  I think I shall gather seaweed by the seashore for my garden and build some planters and plant potatoes, sunchokes, and peas.  The dogs will love it, and so will I.  Sometimes you need a day with no undesirable duties.  Monday is always a good day for those.

The soul’s sun is doing those things that bring you a deep warmth and pleasure, if you look at a new plant growing, maturing, and finally bearing fruit you will see that it requires 75% sun and 25% rest to really grow.  Now if you only ‘sun’ your soul a little bit, on occasion, I don’t think it can grow much less bear fruit.  To truly garden your home you must sun your soul, who wants to be in a home with a bunch of dried up shriveled souls!  Strive each day then to meditate, find peace, create, spread love, do a kindness, witness a moment of beauty and focus it in on your soul.  Weed out those undesirables to just the required, we all have responsibilities in our life that have to be maintained. But who said we need to torment ourselves with perceived requirements?  If it is a burden and not a true you need to do it for responsibility reasons, then don’t obligate yourself to those extras in life.  While I enjoy physical labor and pounding sign posts in the ground so the fire department can find the address faster another person might enjoy hosting bingo.  I might enjoy helping in the community garden while another person finds pleasure in throwing a bake sale for Head Start.

Find your joyful strengths and lend a helping hand with things that feed your soul, not things that drain it.  We don’t need to be martyrs to do a good thing.  One thing I have noticed about martyrs:  they are a pain to be around, not edifying, uplifting, or joyful! I find them down, drained and draining, shriveled up and dry!  I have been one!  Why?!  They are now worthless to themselves and their homes.  They have nothing left to give, so cut out those extras if they don’t edify your soul! Each day let the sun warm your face at some point, and grow well.