I have always thought of myself as a writer. Ever since I started journaling at age 8. Unfortunately I am very limited in the English language, which is also the only language I know. I think my limitations with English made it impossible for me to ever really understand the other languages I’ve studied. Its humbling to figure out that you aren’t really good at the thing you imagine yourself really good at. So I guess I’m saying, don’t expect propper grammer, word usage or spelling. Speaking of, its really fun to go back and look at things I’ve written before. Things that I thought were important enough to hand write or interesting enough to save in my outgoing email to other people. I guess a lot of it is self congradulatory. And maybe there isn’t anything wrong with that. Because I’m also pretty good at recalling things that I’m not proud of. And things that are down right embarassing. Its healthy to laugh at yourself while primarily representing yourself as an absolute genius. I think. Anyway I was thinking of things that I wanted to write about. And one thing I’ve been recently congradulating myself about is how I’ve improved as a homemaker.

In the car the other day I said to BJay, “Remember when our room used to be a mess all the time?” It seemed to me a very distant memory. But then he reminded me that it was less than a year ago that our bedroom was such a mess that a dirty diaper sat on our wood floor so long it actually stained the wood. If only the new owners of our house knew that, right? Ha ha. And then I was reminded of when we were first married and the Bishop of our ward called to ask if it was alright if he came by for a visit. We said sure, and then spent every second scrambling to clean up until he got there. Our solution to the disaster that was our tiny apartment was to pile everything into our comforter and throw it on our bed and close the door to the bedroom. This worked out just fine until the Bishop asked to use our phone…and the only phone we had was a corded phone IN our bedroom. So I feel okay congradulating myself for my recent improvement in homemaking. I no longer sweat when someone drops by unanounced. That is big. And not only is my bedroom clean and my bed made every day. My kids rooms are clean too. And what is the difference? Mostly I think, I just decided I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I just didn’t want to be the messy house, messy car kind of person. Also my mother in law gave me the book The Joys of Homemaking by Daryl V Hoole. The book was inspring in a very common sense kind of way to me. So one of my new hobbies is organizing. Plus I went through a very hardcore nesting phase when I was pregnant with my 4th child. I made up all kinds of charts and schedules. I learned a lot of common sense things about homemaking I had either ignored or never understood before. I’m definately not “there” yet. I have tons of room for improvement. But I feel like I’m a changed person. And I’ve grown. So yay for me. I’m 30 and I just figured out how to keep my house clean. Now to tackle the next self-improvement goal on my list…