Desperate Housewife

No, I'm not talking about the TV show, which I do not watch, but about little ol' me! It seems that this whole having-five-children-and-an-etsy-shop-and-attempting-to-make-a-new-wardrobe thing got a lot harder all at once! I don't know where the time goes! I wish I could be like this woman in the pictures, blissfully and serenely making her house beautiful calmly, all while wearing a plethora of colorful aprons, but the reality is, I am often frazzled, harried, annoyed, panicked, and most of the time wearing a layer of baby food, flour, or something worse over the outfit I choose hopefully in the morning. There are a few things I insist upon, one of them being that I get fully, fairly nicely dressed every day before taking my boys to school. I just feel so much better about life when I can at least put on some lipstick and go out into the world. I know lots of mothers who bring their children to school in pajamas, and think nothing of it; I don't judge them, in fact I admire their ability to "roll with the punches" and adapt to whatever is going on that morning, but for myself, I just can't mentally go there. The other thing that is important to me is to have my house looking as clean and inviting by dinnertime as I can make it. Now, I'm not married to a tyrannical, oppressive husband, and I know James would never fault me if he came home to a topsy-turvy house, but I feel as a homemaker, this is my foremost job, and I just wouldn't feel like I accomplished anything if I hadn't made significant progress on the home front by the time James got home. The sad truth is that the house often starts out looking great in the morning, and becomes progressively worse as the day wears on, despite my frenzied efforts to the contrary, and this bothers me. It seems like I should be getting somewhere for my efforts, and I guess staying ahead of the mess five children can make is a difficult task, but really? As I said in an earlier post, it is often close to midnight before I feel my job is done for the day, which gives me exactly seven and a half hours in which to sleep, sew, and make soap. Hardly enough. I need to either get on a better routine, or clone myself! I think I will start by allowing myself the breaks and the rest I need, because I think I will be much more effective if I start getting more rest. That brings to mind an old saying, which I recall from 'Mary Poppins', but I'm sure is much older than that, "Well begun is half done". I can hardly begin things well if I am not getting enough rest, so I vow to go to sleep no later than midnight from now on! EEK! That will be a hard one to stick to!