Happy Homemaker

I think I can say, in complete honesty, that I've exceeded many people's expectations of my ability to hold down the home as a wife. This isn't a shot, this is reality. If you know me before I married Tom, you would not believe that those meals, produced in that apartment, were mine.

My place used to be a terrible mess. Terrible! I lived like a total bachelor - clothes were all over the floor, dishes were piled up. The kind of conditions that you would seriously have to dig through the clothes on the floor to find something to wear and wash a dish in order to use one.

I distinctly remember the start of a turning point - it was about two years ago. My friend Lyla came to pick me up for a girls day out. She came up to my apartment - something that I dreaded anyone doing! (I would just meet them downstairs so they didn't have to see my sty). When she walked in, she was like, "What!" and I was like, "What?" She told me we need to glorify God in everything we do. Including taking care of our homes. I was like, "Oh?"

Time passed and I still didn't think it was worth the effort. What for, really? Why make the bed if no one is going to know the difference? It's just going to be slept in again the next night. I figured it was a futile effort. And for the clothes? Closets are so hard to see into anyways.

The next distinctly embarrassing moment occurred nearly six months later. On our third date, Tom came to pick me. And, as usual, I met him downstairs (there was no need for him to be subjected to the apartment yet). I jumped into the car and obliviously chucked my jacket over my shoulder in the back seat - then I heard the sound of crunching paper and plastic. He said, shyly, "Those are for you". Huh? Then I looked in the back seat. There lie a bouquet of flowers. "I would have brought them to your door, but you haven't told me what your apartment number is yet." (Little did he know that was for his own safety and the protection of our relationship.) He asked, "Can we put them in some water?" I wanted to melt, for two reasons - he brought me flowers and I was about to be exposed for being a slob.

Oh, nuts!

Not only was my apartment a disaster, but I didn't even own a vase. So I had to oh-so 'classily' put them in a drinking glass (which I had to clean first, of course!) and then had to shove them into the pantry because my crazy (and sometimes smelly) cats would eat them while I was gone out for the evening. Ugh!

Thankfully, he didn't give up on me.
And, thankfully, my cleaning habits have changed.

I now understand the value of a clean home. I think that has changed because now I have a *home*. Before I used to just store my textbooks, cats, and clothes in a hole in the wall that I could afford and try to ensure no one saw it. Now, I have a family to care for and a 'nest' to build. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the help I get in keeping our home clean, but cleaning is now a part of caring for my spouse. And, I don't think I'm the only one around here who cleans for that very same reason.