Pretzel Day

Maple Glazed Pretzels. (Click image for recipe.)

I had to undo a mind-pretzel the other day, so I thought I would share it with all of you on the off chance it might help someone. I try to stay conscientious of my mindset all the time. I do this because I’m a Christian. I’m working on keeping my thought life where it needs to be, and I do this as a homemaker because how we think about our work and why we’re doing it directly impacts the atmosphere of our home. I believe in guarding and gardening my heart and mind, which requires regular surveillance of my heart and mind.

It was about mid-morning when I realized that I wasn’t feeling calm. I wasn’t frantic. But I wasn’t calm. I felt tense. I felt a bit overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, where I was going, and how I would get it all done. I was having a hard time prioritizing what needed to happen next. It’s hard to focus when you’re steeped in the vague sense that you’ve dropped the reins of the day and it’s madly running away. It’s hard to stay cheerful when you’re unsure if you are being productive or just turning in circles in your living room.

I needed to take a moment to identify the pretzel.

Was my day out of control? Or was my sense of it off-kilter?

One of the things I’ve learned about dealing with issues is it’s best to identify the issue first before you move into action. This seems obvious, but it’s important to sit with what you’ve identified for a bit. That’s the only way to make a wise choice of action. This is true about character issues like laziness and procrastination, as well as skill growth and pretzel mornings. The problem required a label and an explanation if I was to judge it properly. I jumped on Marco Polo to think out loud and brain-dump about my morning with some other homemakers. (Get a knitting circle! A layered knitting circle.) As I talked, I realized what had happened and why it was messing with me.

I had tangled, with great verve, my morning chores, my tasks and projects for the day, and swapped things from one day to the next. I had things coming and going and flying and falling. I had disarray…but only in my head.

I tend to think about my day in batches: writing/coffee, animal chores/Bible study, breakfast, opening chores, the day’s appointed tasks, closing chores, dinner, recreation/rest, finishing tasks. I don’t wear these like a straightjacket. All of them are just rough outlines to hang the day on. The opening chores are those things that I do first to set myself up for a pleasant day. I gather up all the things that aren’t where they belong, make the bed, hang up clothes, fluff pillows and throws, log any receipts in the budget, take note of dinner, clean anything that’s not going to make it to cleaning day, and do the dishes. In a perfect world, I would do all this before actually getting to whatever I have planned for the day.

Side Note: This is a great place to start when you’re trying to figure out what your home’s baseline of functionality is: what are the chores that must be done every day without fail?

Toffee Pretzels. (Click image for recipe.)

On the pretzel morning, I had decided not to start the day with the opening chores, but with part of the day's appointed tasks, but before I could even get started on that, I discovered the chicken feed I was fermenting had leaked and started soaking into my einkorn flour. I had to rescue my flour before I could do anything. I stemmed the tide of destruction, then started the laundry and ran a small handful of errands. By the time I got back home, the laundry needed to be cycled, the chickens wanted out, stuff needed to be put away, I needed to deal with both the leaking fermenting chicken feed and the now-bagless flour, and my bed still wasn’t made. I also returned home with a plan to visit my mom the next day. This meant I needed to move making wassail and cleaning the coop to today if possible because I wouldn’t be home to do them tomorrow.

Pretzel day.

It was about this time that I felt completely flummoxed by my morning which was quickly turning into afternoon.

It was not so much in what I was doing that I was feeling discombobulated, it was in my thinking. I had failed to stop and think through why I was doing what I was doing so that I could go slow and calm. I had failed to properly label the labor. The few minutes it took me to work through my morning revealed to me that 90% of my off feeling was in my head. The chores and projects were fine. The day was a messy day. Things were going to get messier before they got cleaner, but it wasn’t out of control. My sense of it was.

With this realization came a sense of peace. I could now see the path clearly. I could see how I had jumbled the opening chores, the day’s tasks and projects, and the wants of tomorrow until the whole house felt like a disaster. I could see where I needed to move some of today’s tasks to tomorrow and some of tomorrow's tasks to today. I took a deep breath and returned to the dance of the day, now understanding the dance I was dancing.

What is the grand take-away from Pretzel Day?

First, sometimes our feelings are wrong. It’s important to examine them and get them back in the right spot before we start throwing out the day. The day might be just fine. It is wise to sit down and sort through what is true and what is not true in this moment of our work. My day wasn’t out of control. It was a bit messy, but laundry day can be that way. It is okay.

Soft Pretzels. (Click image for recipe.)

Second, correctly identifying and labeling the problem can sometimes solve the biggest part of the problem. Identifying that I had woven together the opening chores, the flour problem, and the day’s tasks helped me see the individual threads. I didn’t undo the weaving, but I could now see the pattern. Seeing the pattern lessened the feeling of chaos. This in turn helps us be calm even on messy days.

Third, having women also all-in on homemaking who are willing to listen to you makes the work so much more delightful. Don’t lose heart developing your knitting circle.

I hope this was helpful in some way, or that maybe it made you laugh as you also know what it is like to have Pretzel Days. I know we all have those days where things have to get messy before they get clean and it’s a mad dash to the finish line before the day needs to be done. So, I hope this made you feel like you have sisters-in-arms and that you’re not alone.

We’d love to have you join our knitting circle! Click on the image above to connect with other homemakers.