EXPLORE.

Cleaning my room, when I was a kid, was a major event.  I couldn’t just straighten things up.  Oh no.  I had to do a major overhaul – every time.

I’d start by dumping all of my drawers into the middle of the room – clothes, papers, books, pencils, dolls, you-name-it.  It all found it’s way onto the floor of my bedroom.  I had a knack for turning a 15-minute job into an all day affair.  There were days I never did make it out to play with my friends.  I spent so many Saturdays surrounded by mess I can’t even count them.  But that was when I was a kid.  You know, little, without any knowledge of how to properly clean a room, let a lone a house.

Then, just before 7th grade, my parents got divorced.

At that time, I was almost 12 and over the next six years, all of the life skills I should have learned about cooking, cleaning and caring for a home went out the window.  My mom was off in various locales.  My dad, who we lived with, felt so guilty he did everything for us.  He also only knew how to cook about 5 things so those 5 things were in heavy rotation for several years: steak, nachos, tuna melts, and a couple of others.  He tried to whip up new dishes but they were always a disaster.

Then he got remarried and the whole blending of the families happened.  He thought I should learn all this stuff from my new step-mom but that was so far out of my realm of possibility it wasn’t even funny.  Teenagers.

Someway, somehow I gleaned a few skills, like how to do laundry, boil water and clean a toilet.  The basics.

When I graduated from college and moved into my own place I did okay.  I have an amazing aunt who was always available to answer my cooking questions, like how hot does the oven need to be for baked potatoes and how long do you cook rice for?  She pretty much saved my bacon in those early years and kept me from starving to death – or at least from killing myself by eating only Ben & Jerry’s and cereal.

When I got married I hit the jackpot.  The first year of my marriage I didn’t cook one single night.  Not once.  My new husband was a kitchen wizard and I ate like a queen.  During year two I cooked a couple of times and by then the cat was out of the bag.  I wasn’t a total kitchen reject and so I had to start cooking more often.  Sometimes I wish I could go back to those “salad days” in our little moldy apartment.  Ok, maybe not.

Now I’m ten years and two kids into this thing and for the better part of the decade I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants.  Meal planning – what is that exactly?  A cleaning schedule – huh?  Laundry day – I don’t see that printed on the calendar I bought anywhere.  You get the idea.  I’ve just been winging it .  Seriously.

I have always felt like that little kid, cleaning her room – every project is a major ordeal.  Vacuuming is all floors, all rooms, every inch of carpet, every time.  Bathrooms is all toilets, mirrors, sinks and floors at one time.  Cooking is – well, cooking is just a major free-for-all, with all the different dietary needs and wants and my disastrous time-management skills.  Don’t even get me started on laundry.  Oy!

EQUIP.

Just after Christmas, last month, I stumbled onto a website called The Confident Mom.  Oh great, was my first thought.  Another planner for moms.  I’ve tried so many of those already.  But I was intrigued (by the testimonials) so I went ahead and forked over the $9 for Susan’s 2013 Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner.

Ok, seriously THINKING GIRLS, this is all the stuff I should have learned from an adult, but never did, growing up – How to be a Stay-At-Home-Diva, successfully!

This is so not rocket science, but it is a life skill that I have been missing.  For whatever reason, Susan’s format is perfect for me: Not too many things, chipping away at an area a little at a time, repetition and results. 

I don’t really know how I got to be 40 something years old without learning this, but due to my life circumstances, I did.  Now I’m learning a bunch of new stuff.  I like to learn new stuff.  It’s cool.

ENGAGE.

1.  I highly recommend The Confident Mom and her  2013 Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner.   It’s a $9 download and it works.  If you have struggled like I have, this may just be the answer you’ve been looking for.  I know, for some people this is going to seem like a no-brainer, but for me it was a super-brainer and now I feel like I’ve got a handle on my homemaking skills.  What a relief!  I love being a Stay-At-Home-Diva!  You wanna be one too?

2. I have some friends who are getting married soon and others who just got married recently.  Guess what my new go-to gift is going to be for newlyweds?  You guessed it.  What a great gift for $9.  Put it in a cute binder and add it to a basket of cleaning supplies and you’re good to go!  Yes, I am creative that way!!  You wanna steal that idea don’t you?

3.  Tell me your best tool for being a Stay-At-Home-Diva.  Inquiring minds want to know.

Tweet