Happy...at Home

choosing a small world

From my farm I can see most of the world; and if I wait here long enough all people pass this way. ~David Grayson, 1907

I ran across this observation and took a second look at it. It wasn’t specifically written about homemaking, but I think it works.

I haven’t always been a housewife. I spent many years working different jobs and going to school before I got married and settled into a career at home. Back before my life was centered around the home, I often felt a restlessness on the rare day that I spent at home. even when I had a lot to do. I felt like I could go stir-crazy looking at the same four walls. Sure, there was plenty to be done, but I didn’t feel like doing it.

I know I haven’t been the only one. I’ve heard it from many women, even mothers with newborns on a 6 week maternity leave….”What do you DO all day? I’m losing my mind at home; I HAVE to be on the go.”

However, in seasons where my outside commitments have been minimal, I find myself liking to be home to the point that I’m not anxious to leave. I’m not a recluse or a hermit, but I’m happy at home.

Happiness as a Homemaker

How can you learn to be happy and contented at home?

Stay home. It takes awhile to break from the “on-the-go” mentality and to slow down enough to enjoy being at home. You might want to climb the walls for the first few weeks. But now, if someone offered to do all my errands for me I would be perfectly content to stay in my home and yard and leave only on the weekends to go to church and visit family.

It seems that the more I’m gone from home, the more unorganized home life becomes. You’d think the house would stay cleaner the less time people were at home making messes and eating and changing clothes, but it’s not the case. Mail still piles up, furniture gets dusty, food spoils in the back of the fridge, and people have expectations of clean clothes.

Instead of getting bored, I have the opposite experience. The more I’m at home the more I find to do. It’s like a wardrobe that holds an entire world. The work is varied, always challenging, and best of all, it’s never-ending.

A Homemaker in her Home

From my home I can’t see most of the world but I can see most of my world.¹ And that’s kind of a relief some days. I’m sure that was the author’s point.

The modern world is enormous. All the news from everywhere is in our faces. Every opportunity is within easy grasp. Not too long ago, the only way to hear news was through what arrived in your mailbox or what a person standing in front of you told you. It’s hard not to get caught up in it all and feel discontent within your small sphere.

But when you try to embrace it all, life gets overwhelming and becomes too much to manage. Maybe in trying to keep up with everything “out there” we overlook and minimize what’s right in front of us—the actual things that we can influence.

We don’t miss as much as we think we do at times. Maybe that’s why it’s called the fear of missing out and not simply “missing out.” There’s a kind of freedom in limitations and whether it’s a lifestyle choice or circumstances for a season, it’s ok to have a narrow world.

The stuff that’s important and the people that we’re meant to influence (and be influenced by!) will find us.

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I’m the co-author of A Housewife Writes and author of Two Years as an Amish Schoolteacher, available on Amazon. (affiliate link) I love history and learning about the lives of our grandmothers who loved their families and managed their households. I share their stories and wisdom that are still meaningful as well as ways of keeping a modern home in the spirit of past times.

1. I need to give a shout-out to a woman who passed away a few years ago but used to leave the BEST comments on my blog. While she appreciated this quote, she said that she’d been waiting and watching her whole life, but George Clooney still hadn’t strolled by her house.