Welcome
Meet a Happy HomeMaker
05/07/09
Posted by: martha
from daycare or public school. Her goal for all 4 of her girls was for us to become independent women with well-paying careers. Until I was about 23 I went full throttle toward that goal. I wanted to become a veterinarian, having the obligatory 2.5 kids if I had time for it, and sending them off to the best daycare and private school I could afford. When I got married I had NEVER cleaned a house, besides picking up clutter. The most chores I had ever done was to empty the dishwasher (never had filled it) and used a vacuum cleaner on the carpet. I had never cleaned a toilet, or a kitchen, washed windows, dusted, or hand-washed dishes. I had no clue how to do these things so as the rising career woman I just didn't do them. I am ashamed now to say that my husband had to do them because I wouldn't do them, nor did I know how to do them, nor was I willing to learn (this was before I became a believer).
I had never been taught how to cook besides using hamburger helper, frozen pizza, canned soups, and heating up a TV dinner. Mom wanted us out of the kitchen and out of her way the few times a week that she did cook something real. My poor husband really didn’t know what he had gotten himself into!
I accepted Christ after a bad car accident that nearly left me a widow. But bad habits die hard, so things stayed pretty much the same except that I was actively seeking God's will for my life. When I got pregnant with our first child, His will became screamingly apparent and our lives completely changed. As I felt my son grow inside of me I realized that it was not His will for my child to be sent off to be raised by others and that I would stay home with him and any future children to raise them AND school them. My extended family was freaking out about my choice to give up my work towards my career to take on a new life of staying home. At first my mom kept saying things like “well, you will go finish your degree at some point.” It took her years to finally give up on that one, and I think she still might be holding on to some glimmer of “hope” that I will become a vet after all my children leave home. But my husband and I had complete peace at how God was leading us.
I slowly taught myself everything “homemaking”, starting with the basics of cleaning a house properly and scheduling that cleaning into daily life. I then had a friend come to my house on a bi-monthly basis and give me cooking lessons. She was actually shocked at first to know that I didn’t know even how to make a basic pie crust. When she asked if I wanted to learn how to make a pie crust I said, “People actually make pie crusts? Don’t you just buy them already in the aluminum pan at the store?” Then when my son was ready to start eating baby food I found out you could make baby food from scratch. Again I was shocked and confused “Everyone doesn’t just buy it in the jar!?” So I learned how to do that too. Over the years I learned how to cook healthy foods from scratch, to bake our own bread, canning, then gardening, sewing clothing, knitting, and on and on. I just kept learning everything I could. A real spin was put on things when my daughter and I were diagnosed with Celiac Disease and I had to learn to cook gluten-free, it was kind of like learning all the basics in a new way all over again.
To this day I continue to learn new things constantly. If I find something I want to know how to do I dive right in, get the books needed to teach me, and try to find someone who knows how to do it that is willing to teach me - whatever it takes. And I expect to have some mess ups in the beginning. You don’t even want to know how much food I have had to throw away and how many times I have wasted fabric or taken out large areas of knitting. But I keep trying until I learn what I want to learn. And I am adamant to pass these things on to my children so they won’t have to work hard to learn it on their own the way I have.
My marriage has been renewed in the last several years and my husband is very content with the "new" wife he has. I am so thankful to God that my husband stayed with me long enough to get the wife he always wanted. I am now the help meet to a wonderful husband of 10 years and the happy mother of 3 children, with many prayers for more children in the future. I am so thankful that God called me to be a homemaker; it is one of the best things that have ever happened to me.
Submitted by A Happy HomeMaker to the HMM
I had never been taught how to cook besides using hamburger helper, frozen pizza, canned soups, and heating up a TV dinner. Mom wanted us out of the kitchen and out of her way the few times a week that she did cook something real. My poor husband really didn’t know what he had gotten himself into!
I accepted Christ after a bad car accident that nearly left me a widow. But bad habits die hard, so things stayed pretty much the same except that I was actively seeking God's will for my life. When I got pregnant with our first child, His will became screamingly apparent and our lives completely changed. As I felt my son grow inside of me I realized that it was not His will for my child to be sent off to be raised by others and that I would stay home with him and any future children to raise them AND school them. My extended family was freaking out about my choice to give up my work towards my career to take on a new life of staying home. At first my mom kept saying things like “well, you will go finish your degree at some point.” It took her years to finally give up on that one, and I think she still might be holding on to some glimmer of “hope” that I will become a vet after all my children leave home. But my husband and I had complete peace at how God was leading us.
I slowly taught myself everything “homemaking”, starting with the basics of cleaning a house properly and scheduling that cleaning into daily life. I then had a friend come to my house on a bi-monthly basis and give me cooking lessons. She was actually shocked at first to know that I didn’t know even how to make a basic pie crust. When she asked if I wanted to learn how to make a pie crust I said, “People actually make pie crusts? Don’t you just buy them already in the aluminum pan at the store?” Then when my son was ready to start eating baby food I found out you could make baby food from scratch. Again I was shocked and confused “Everyone doesn’t just buy it in the jar!?” So I learned how to do that too. Over the years I learned how to cook healthy foods from scratch, to bake our own bread, canning, then gardening, sewing clothing, knitting, and on and on. I just kept learning everything I could. A real spin was put on things when my daughter and I were diagnosed with Celiac Disease and I had to learn to cook gluten-free, it was kind of like learning all the basics in a new way all over again.
To this day I continue to learn new things constantly. If I find something I want to know how to do I dive right in, get the books needed to teach me, and try to find someone who knows how to do it that is willing to teach me - whatever it takes. And I expect to have some mess ups in the beginning. You don’t even want to know how much food I have had to throw away and how many times I have wasted fabric or taken out large areas of knitting. But I keep trying until I learn what I want to learn. And I am adamant to pass these things on to my children so they won’t have to work hard to learn it on their own the way I have.
My marriage has been renewed in the last several years and my husband is very content with the "new" wife he has. I am so thankful to God that my husband stayed with me long enough to get the wife he always wanted. I am now the help meet to a wonderful husband of 10 years and the happy mother of 3 children, with many prayers for more children in the future. I am so thankful that God called me to be a homemaker; it is one of the best things that have ever happened to me.
Submitted by A Happy HomeMaker to the HMM