Dear New Matron,

A diffuser softly hums. A small pot of orange slices, cloves, and cinnamon sticks simmers on the back burner. Open windows welcome a gentle breeze. Scents and smells waft around our homes all day. Cookies, roasts, and the smell of a fresh pot of coffee mingle and drift down the hall. Unseen, intangible, incorporeal layers are part of our HearthKeeping, part of how we tend our people. Homemakers get to engage with invisible layers. We straighten sheets and we spritz them with a linen spray. Sheets are tangible. Linen sprays leave an intangible scent behind. As we move cyclically through our homes and our days, there is one intangible that we either befriend or become harried by:

Attitude.

Our attitudes—the bearing, the posture of our thoughts and feelings—are more important and more “homemaking” than all the chores, projects, and aesthetics put together.

We talk about guarding and gardening regularly. It’s one of our weekly prompts. The gatekeeping that we do on our attitude, the weeds we pull from our heart-gardens, is one of the most challenging aspects of our work and the most constant. Dear new homemaker, don’t be caught off guard. You will face frustration, burnout, bad days, grumpiness, and irritation. Right now, it may seem so glorious. You’re thinking about all the details, all the fun, all the ways you will tend your people. You’re visiting HomeGoods (maybe a little too often). The fight to continue to love our people and our work seems like the easiest fight ever, but a day will come when it is an actual battle. If we lose this battle, our work becomes destructive.

This is our great privilege and our great burden. We have the power to make life wonderful or miserable for a small group of people.

The homemaker of the poorest family can make life sweet and cozy. Look at Ma Ingalls and Mrs. Cratchit. They seemed capable of creating much out of little and their families have the air of care and love even in the worst or shabbiest times. The magic wrought by these women starts with a humble and happy attitude. We can’t turn poverty into riches if we have a stingy attitude. We can’t clothe our people in cheering strength if we’re grumpy. We can’t endure hard times if we are snippy. Merry durability requires us to work on our perception of life and our emotional control. That’s how this magic works.

Back in May, I came home fresh from a trip to company arriving. Everywhere I looked, I saw a thousand things that needed doing. Yet I wasn’t stressed. Why? I was simply too happy to be stressed. I was so happy to be home, I didn’t feel anxious. If I could bottle the euphoria of being home that I had that first day back, I’d be a wealthy woman.

Homemaking isn’t so much the work we do as it is the heart with which we do it.

We all cook, clean, and do laundry. We all keep the house. But that’s not homemaking. Those are tools we employ in our great endeavor. Homemaking is a heart pointed towards these specific people and pouring ourselves out for their sake. It’s not just washing our husband’s clothes, but doing it with joy because we love him. It’s not just baking cookies, but baking cookies for a friend because we love them. It’s not simply, never just simply, decorating, but creating an environment that encourages engagement with others.

Nothing in the world will be actual homemaking if our attitudes are off.

A woman with a perfect home may not be homemaking. A woman with what appears to be a disaster of a home may be the truer homemaker. Why? Their attitudes. One is immaculate out of pride. She’s cold, distant, and demanding. The other is warm, welcoming, and engaged with her actual people and people are messy.

Side Note: This is just one of the many reasons I think homemaking is such worthwhile work. It isn’t just chores. It grows the whole woman from the inside out when we engage in the work with purpose and intentionality. Don’t ever allow yourself to think this is small or shallow work.

As a new HearthKeeper, this is your first battle and will be your most constant battle. What you want to avoid is thinking this means you need to remain on some sort of spiritual high so you can maintain this happy, loving, calm attitude. Let’s try not to set ourselves up for failure. Emotions come and go. What we want to do is choose to love our people and from there choose to love our work for the sake of those people. Day in and day out, we should renew our choice to love these people.

This is equally not a call to a life of stoic suffering. There are many ways we can support and help our attitudes. We’re not going it alone and we’re not somehow better than everyone because we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. What are some aids we can use?

Beauty: When we truly engage in beauty, we will find our attitudes in a better spot. This is everything from the way we dress and carry ourselves every day to how we arrange the furniture and set the table to how we tend our yards. Beauty is our playground and our great labor. We homemakers aren’t Rembrandt or Van Gogh, but we are setting our hands to the work of managing beauty. Why? Beauty lowers stress. Beauty welcomes family and friends. Beauty enlivens hearts. Beauty expands minds. Beauty is our great handmaiden in the work of keeping attitudes at the right point. You are not wasting your time when you learn to harness beauty for the sake of your people.

The fun part about this homey expression of beauty is its diversity. The great expanse of colors, textures, plants, art, fabrics, metals, and woods that can be utilized for our people is almost overwhelming. Every homemaker’s home will be different. I want more herbs. You may want more grass. I love the look of an English Cottage. You may be more Bohemian. And we may both decide to take elements of both of those and mix them wildly together. Beauty is the great adventure of homemaking!

Rest and Recreation: Even now, as you get started, make sure you build into your home rest and recreation. No woman is meant to always be working. None of us are designed to go all the time from morning until night. Build in breaks. Play. Rest. Have a cup of tea. Set up times of Sustained Silent Reading. It is impossible to keep your attitude in the right place if you are exhausted all the time. Pick a day of the week and set it up differently than the others and lessen the workload. And for the love of all that is right and good, have some hobbies. No one is expected to work, work, work all the time, and no one is one-dimensional. Homemaking is a high and good work, but we are humans and humans are not meant to only engage in one thing. That stagnates us. So now, when you have this pocket without children or are setting up a new home, set up some engaging hobbies and interests. This may be painting, volunteer work, or modern military history. You will be a better homemaker if you have things that you engage in that aren’t homemaking. Homemaking is to be rooted, not rootbound.

Physical Touch: This applies most strongly to newly-married new homemakers, but nothing can help an attitude issue as much as a hug. Hugs and kisses, as we’ve talked about before, are stress-relieving and they release helpful, feel-good endorphins. If you are struggling to love your work and your home, try loving the one you’re doing the work for. Physical intimacy will help you feel more rooted and cheerful about your work. Don’t ignore this important part of your tending. Wrap your arms around your man and get him in bed! Physicality with your spouse will see you through some very hard times. As for those of you without a spouse, find ways to get hugs. Parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, close friends. You need hugs. They will help your attitude about all of life to improve, which will make you a better homemaker.

Food and Drink: This may seem obvious, but I promise you it will pay dividends in the long run, don’t forget to eat and drink. Nothing damages your ability to stay calm like being hungry and thirsty. Again, build this into your homemaking now so that when children come, or people are over, or your husband is having a rough time you aren’t doing the work from a position of deprivation. Once you start doing this for yourself, you will be able to do it for others. You will see when your husband is cranky and wonder if he’s getting enough water and when he ate last. You will see short tempers in your children and have snack time. Make sure you don’t miss snack time too. Your home depends on your attitude, don’t miss important things like food and water. And! Please make it fun! Beautiful and fun cups. Fun drinks. Fun snacks.

Don’t be a martyr. Don’t try to maintain a good attitude through sheer force of will. There is no merit badge for that. Set yourself up for success not failure.

Dear new matron, nothing will make or break your people, your work, and your goals like your attitude. You can be healthy and healing in your heart or you can be sick and damaging. Now, as you set out, take hold of this so that you can start seeing how beauty, rest and recreation, and food and drink can be managed in your home to assist your heart attitude and help you tend your people.

Love,

A Matron who is quickly becoming a Crone

Practical Thoughts for a Young Homemaker: Attitude

Practical Thoughts for a Young Homemaker: Your Kitchen

Practical Thoughts For a Young Homemaker: Time