Welcome to Weird Wednesdays, hosted by It’s OK to be WEIRD!

It’s no surprise to my readers, friends and family that I am a weird mom. Equally obvious is the fact that weird is never a bad thing at my house.

However, there are some weird things that I do, or some weird things about me, that I must confess.

I confess that, though I am a singer and love to sing, I rarely sing in the shower.  I do often pray in the shower, though.

I confess that I still wear shoes indoors, and have a special pair of ‘indoor shoes’.  (This will make sense to Canadians since we remove our ‘outside shoes’ when we come inside!)

I confess that I almost always walk from my house to my car with only one glove on.  I can’t lock my house door or unlock my car door with my heavy gloves on so I usually just wear one glove and carry the other one.  My neighbors must think I’m nuts!

I confess that I am not a housekeeper.  People who know me often find this difficult to believe – I seem so organized and ‘put together’ in public, apparently.  It’s not even that I’m unorganized or ‘falling apart’ at home – our home is comfortable, not dirty, and about 1000 times better than any home I lived in growing up.  It’s just that having my home spic-n-span with everything in its proper place has never been a priority to me.  I’ve hemmed and hawed about this for a very long time – and still do.  I’m a work-at-home-mom – I SHOULD be keeping house better than I do.  But I don’t…

I confess that I often recalculate the budget to see if I can hire Molly Maid, only to decide, again, that 1) there is no room in the budget, and 2) if it’s our home we should take care of it ourselves.  *sigh*

I confess that I am unable to discern a proper place for most things.  I usually put things where it seems most convenient, and call it good.  There are times when I feel like I OUGHT to find those proper places, and then I realize that in the house we currently live in, I still haven’t even figured out where those places might be.  And having less space than we did in our last home, there’s more stuff to fill less space.  “Decluttering” IS in my vocabulary, and is a verb I know how to exercise, and often do.  “Tidy”… not so much.  I have heard it said that “a creative mind is seldom tidy.”  See… there ya go!

I confess that I have 7 large bins of fabric, and 4 or 5 small ones, waiting to be made into quilts.  SO many projects, so little time!

I confess that I LOVE to plan parties for my kiddos, and celebrations for our family in as many ways as possible.  I think this is where my housekeeping energy must go.  I spend time thinking about and preparing fun meals, or decorating something, or making something to decorate with.  This energizes me.  I make great memories with my family – I just wonder if they are good enough to offset the nowhere-near-perfectness of the aforementioned lack of housekeeping wizardry.

I confess that I’m never sure I’m doing enough of anything for anyone.  While I might be good at being intentional with my family for celebrations and marking special occasions, I fall short on the ‘day-to-day’ things – play dates with the kiddos friends, consistency (routine is sometimes hard for me so I forget everyday stuff), getting the children to help me with things around the house daily instead of letting it all pile up and becoming Nazi-mom when it really needs to be done, paying bills (thank goodness for online and automatic payments!), … It’s THESE things (or the lack thereof) that always make me feel like I SHOULD be doing more, I SHOULD be doing better…

I saw a sign once that I think I need to make for myself.  It said, “I will not SHOULD on myself today.”  Those ‘shoulds’ do get in the way of me letting myself (and my family) be who we are.  There is a LOT to be said about discipline, routine, training, etc…. I confess that I have a hard time finding the balance between those things (that I don’t do terribly well) and the things that I can do relatively well but seem in some ways to be of lesser value in today’s society.

I confess that this is an ongoing dialogue I have with myself – one moment embracing my inner weirdie and throwing out all expectations, the next moment striving to get my ducks in a row according to someone else’s pattern.  I go back and forth a lot, even as I continue to WANT to believe that it’s OK to be me, and to figure out how that ME fits in life as a wife, mom, friend, etc.

So, this will become an ongoing series of posts, too, I think, while I keep processing and thinking and being weird.

I confess that I’m a weird mom, and most of the time, I’m OK with that! 🙂

*** Join me in the weirdness, too… I KNOW you’ve encountered SOMETHING weird somewhere this week!! Leave me a comment and tell me all about it!!  And have a look around for more Weird Wednesdays here on my blog!***