Stone Hill Homestead

Habits of a Disorganized Homemaker

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Lisl

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Habits of a Disorganized Homemaker

(Or whatever it is that I am)

I’m actually pretty sure there is a definitive set of skills that I should have been able to master by now. Like, getting out of bed in the morning at the same time and keeping the one bathroom we have in the house clean.

I should be able to cook a meal in thirty minutes flat and know how to effectively menu plan. Also, in spite of social media’s confirming that the laundry struggle is real, I still think I should be able to mind over matter on that one.

I KNOW how to mop a floor. But I don’t do it nearly often enough. Probably—no—most certainly. I certainly should mop more often.

I have a couple theories. One is that my kids should do more chores than they do. We’re working on that. They’ve all been assigned their own zones. They’re actually not so bad at cleaning up when I tell them that they all need to go do a pick up in their zones. They can also all do their own laundry.

My other theory is that I need to keep working at it. I started a book. “Atomic Habits,” by an author that you probably know the name of because you’ve read it entirely already. I have a tendency to try changing it all at once. That’s not going well for me. Apparently that’s a given. I’m working on piggy backing habits. Well, working on working on it. Someone of it’s sticking. But it got kind of muddy this week.

I hope that once Freyja demands to be milked every day it’s going to set some routines in stone that the rest of my life will revolve around. I’m not sure if I’m dreading this or if I’m looking forward to it.

I’d like to start writing. That’s a habit I’d really like to establish. I used to. Now whenever I sit down to write I feel like something that felt very thingish inside of me looks a lot different when it’s out in the open for everyone to look at. But here it is. Just kind of messy and thrown up there. Like a lot of my life. I guess that’s real enough then.

Also, I’m perfectly aware that farm animals and puppies have very little to do with laundry and mopped floors and habits in general. Or maybe they have everything to do with it. Anyway, there it is. There they are.

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Hello,

I’m Lisl

Herein lie the events, ponderings, people, and animals that make up the cacophony of our life.

Pictures of farm and family

Just happy things. First pic is Rennie helping his dad with opening an old floppy desk using Rennie's raspberry pi computer. The next one was last night while Dru took the rest of the kids skating Rian and I watched Ruthanne Zimmerman make egg noodles while we ate soup in mugs. It's been a very full and happy Christmas season. I didn't take pictures consistently. I miss doing that and want to try harder. I don't have any pictures of my own family's gatherings. But here is a smattering of photos from our busy holiday. My favorite is of Ray sneaking ham to the cat in the kitchen at my Mother in law's house. No, actually it's my boys playing together. The giraffe at the mall, wondering why he is sharing this little bench with a grown man, also cracks me up. I feel like I've learned how to burn coal in my cookstove. There was the day I was rather discouraged about it and put the project on hold for a weekend--it was a warm weekend anyway. It's a different animal than burning wood and I'm still figuring it out. How big I had planned for Freyja's "patio" versus how big it became when too much concrete was ordered. Nobody heard me complaining about it. Somewhere Dru has more pictures of the concrete operation but I was busy running circles that morning. Super thankful for Havilah and Jube helping me hold down the fort while we babysat and did projects all weekend. The men in my life are distracted by a new game. So much so that when we took the male pigs to the vet for castration (I won't do it myself when Dr. Metcalf will do it for 25 dollars and some odd cents) Rian brought the instructions along to read. And Jube had to be planted next to the cookstove to study because sitting in Dru's chair was way too close to his brothers playing the new game and was very distracted. And then Dru came home with intentions to turn in school evidences to Hacil but they had the game set up and here we are. Gleanings from the flower beds. Picked yesterday. Tonight I think we will have a killing frost. Big week on the farm. Two new pig families. And that's me after pulling an all nighter with one of the new mammas. And that's my hill billy barn there. Someday I will do better than cardboard. But for now I embrace hill billy. And I still have flowers ... Not complaining. Tonight it freezes. I picked flowers til I couldn't see anymore. The cats were not helpful. Clingy with a side of zoomies. Daliahs are happy and frost comes soon.