Housewifery
“Practicing the Art and Mystery of Housewifery”
We took a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia in the summer of 2012. Standing in the hot kitchen building where the cooking hearth fire had just been extinguished, the living historian explained the duties of the woman of this house in the 1700s. She oversaw all the domestic activities and practiced the art and mystery of housewifery. I asked him to repeat that. He repeated this and added, you didn’t want everyone to know all your secrets. I am, however, willing and glad to share mine here.
My definition of Housewifery encompasses mothering, housekeeping, gardening, and cooking. And includes decorating, diapering, and ridding my house of squirrels.
Click On These For The Stories
On ‘The Good Mother’
Or read ‘Mommy’s Thought Thoughts’
On ‘Raising Fair Fiona’
Or read ‘Oopsie Daisy Mommy
On ‘Son Shine’
Or read ‘Ready or Not, Here’s Mommy’
On ‘My Joy of Cooking’
Or read ‘Beautiful Buttermilk’
On ‘How Does My Garden Grow’
Or read ‘My Brown Thumb’
On ‘To Clean or Not to Clean’
Or read ‘New Year’s Urge’
Stillness Thoughts in a New Year
The stillness of the house is like a pond in a winter’s morning. It beckons me to sit and just listen to the tick of the clock like a cricket in the weeds. Instead of leaping up and jumping in, I sat down and napped in the yawning silence. I haven’t had time to myself in a week and a half. I organized my linen closet yesterday because I asked for new towels for Christmas. I filled three trash bags full of stuff I don’t need anymore or maybe never needed. A white matelasse bedspread I’ll never use as well as old towels...
read moreThe Minutia of Christmas
( From December 2014 and last year, I adore this look back ) The sound was a thwap and a roll, hollow plastic bouncing and traveling across the floor. My new Christmas tree balls were this moment’s entertainment. The “ball balls” were being extracted from their big clear box and thrown while I hurried to put my laundry away. Although that’s exactly why I bought those, I underestimated the little monkey’s reasoning skills. Every day is jam-packed with holiday fun. Not unlike any other day in my life, I’ve been cramming...
read moreFits and Spurts of Holiday Happenings
Christmas gives me such clarity. Doing all the necessary Christmas tasks and I feel plugged in and purposed. It gives me a legitimate excuse to not dwell on all the career procrastination I’m doing. I just want to decorate and cook and entertain. I notice though, that even in my holiday frenzy and event planning, I hit walls. I lost energy and inspiration while decorating the house the other day. And I wanted to feel bummed until I remembered that this has happened before. We have only so much energy and inspiration to spend in one day....
read moreMy Christmas Tree Fell Down
I was so proud I got my Christmas decorations up in enough time to enjoy them for two weeks before Christmas proper. But I plum forgot that I had intended to redesign my Christmas tree. So that when the decorations came out of the boxes, I was less than thrilled. “Oh those”my inner child said. And so I dutifully dressed the Christmas tree in last year’s already tired frocks and said,”Good Enough.” I felt kinda growly about it but I know no one else will see what I see and isn’t most of this for everyone else anyway? So imagine how...
read moreWe Are All Event Planners for Christmas
If you were told you’d been volunteered as an event planner and decorator for a royal ball, you’d laugh your butt off right? But regular people across the globe will do their best to plan and execute a special event all on their own this month mostly without professional help. And I’m darn proud of all of them for their upcoming efforts. We pull it off, you and me, every year. That once a year special event for which we have to send out a hundred invitations, cater quantities of food, and decorate huge floral centerpieces...
read moreMy Cup is Half Full
A cold rainy day has driven me to light the fire and my favorite smelly candle. My first cup of earl grey tea for the season has been brewed. There’s a lull between holiday storms. Thanksgiving is only leftovers and memories and Christmas is still contained in lists. And I am maintaining a ‘be here now mindset’ as the calendar moves ever onward and may to try to hijack me and my anxieties with “all the things” to come. Gratitude and appreciation keep us grounded. I am grateful that this old gas fireplace is still...
read moreHail to the Hearth Keepers
Our home fires are both necessary and symbolic. Religious mythology include kitchen hearths and their keepers because the hearth is the place where life and family begins and ends. Heat and life begin within the womb and warmth of the family. And I have always known that my job is to tend that warm place. I love making fires. I saw an Indian gentleman show the true way to make fire out of forest fodder and I swore I would do that too. What a skill to have. And then I had Fiona instead. She is our “fuego rojo”, a fiery red-headed daughter....
read moreYes You Have Too Much To Do
Yes you have too much to do. Or should I say, I have too much I think I can do. The emails are piling up. There are stacks of unread magazines. There are outdated frozen soups in the freezer. And there are items in my closet that just don’t fit me well. There are dust bunnies with bad attitudes under our beds. And there were more important tasks than these looming in my future too. As long as I’m still terrified of doing what I’m already putting off, then all those tasks get pushed back further because I have a priority...
read moreWhy I’m OK Teaching a Creativity Workshop
If I had a dime for every time I heard, “Oh Shalagh you are so creative”, I’d at least have five bucks. This became one of those phrases that made me twitch perhaps because I didn’t think of myself as having any kind of creative superpowers which was obvious to them but not to me, until it finally was. I think perhaps what they meant was they wished they knew the secret creative permission spell too. Fast forward to the past several years when I intentionally indulged myself in creative challenges to gain creative confidence. I followed many...
read moreJoin my Second Creativity Workshop Happening in November 2018
Last year in November of 2017, I conducted my first Creativity Workshop. My passion on the subject of creativity comes from my experience of uncovering my authentic self by respecting my inner creative needs. This was a very rewarding and enlightening experience for me and my attendees. And this year, on November 10, I’m conducting the workshop again. The first Creativity Workshop wrap-up post can be found here. The people who came all recognized the importance of creativity in our lives but it was as if we all needed to hear this from...
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