{"id":1083,"date":"2009-01-23T10:18:38","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T17:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2009-01-28T10:02:04","modified_gmt":"2009-01-28T17:02:04","slug":"me-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1083","title":{"rendered":"Me First"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t really make a New Year Resolution this year. \u00a0They tend to be too lofty and unattainable in the end. \u00a0But then I read a book called “The Gentle Art of Domesticity<\/a>” and it got me thinking. \u00a0As a mom, I often find myself getting worn down by the mundane tasks of life. \u00a0The best way I can describe it is to think of a hotel. \u00a0You know those ladies walking around pushing those huge cleaning carts? \u00a0That’s my life. \u00a0I come in behind people (or kids) and clean rooms, scrub toilets and tubs, change the sheets, clean up the trash and vacuum the dirt. \u00a0Right when I get it all nice and clean, I walk out and watch it get used and abused. \u00a0The \u00a0I pull out my giant cleaning cart and start over. \u00a0Every single day. \u00a0In hotels, the cleaning and kitchen people are called the domestic staff. \u00a0It’s a dirty, icky, horrid job but someone has to do it. \u00a0And, to be honest with you, after 5 years of cleaning up after everybody else, my spirit is low. \u00a0Very low. \u00a0Domestic work is hard and boring and dirty. \u00a0And, in my case, totally unpaid!<\/p>\n

Up until now, this has sort of been where my thinking stops. \u00a0It’s awful and I have to drag myself to do it. \u00a0But this book I just finished has the basic premise that there is a vast difference between domestic work and domesticity. \u00a0Domesticity is what makes a house a home. \u00a0It’s the difference between a hotel room and your own room. \u00a0It’s the little things that you see or touch or hear in your house that relax you and sooth you. \u00a0These are just as important (if not more so) than the clean toilet bowls and wiped counter tops. \u00a0Domesticity is fresh baked bread, a hand made quilt on the sofa, \u00a0flowers from your garden, kid art displayed on the wall. \u00a0For a home mom, it’s what keeps you sane after spending all day cleaning dishes you know will be dirty again in twelve hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I’ve decided to try and put me first a little more around the house. \u00a0Kevin and the kids are big enough to fend for themselves a bit. \u00a0Right? \u00a0I’m going to try and make sure I don’t drown in the horrors of domestic tasks. \u00a0I’m going to try and make domesticity more of a priority for my own mental health. \u00a0A girl can only wash so many loads of laundry in a row before losing her mind! \u00a0Lately I’ve been walking around the house and eyeing everything. \u00a0Tossing what is old and tired. \u00a0Marking blank spaces on walls for pictures or artwork. \u00a0Planning a new throw quilts to snuggle under. \u00a0I’ve rounded up the masses of candles I’ve bought but never used and I’m finally lighting them every day for no reason. \u00a0 Throwing a bunch of flowers into the grocery basket or shining the windows so the sun is welcomed in are all high on my list now. \u00a0It isn’t easy to keep a balance between what needs to be done and what can be done but I’m trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t really make a New Year Resolution this year. \u00a0They tend to be too lofty and unattainable in the end. \u00a0But then I read a book called “The Gentle Art of Domesticity” and it got me thinking. \u00a0As a mom, I often find myself getting worn down by the mundane tasks of life. \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chrissie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-ht","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1087,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions\/1087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}