How I Manage...my attitude.

I was thinking about these "how I manage" posts that I really do want to finish writing - but I think the first thing I have to address is how I manage my attitude.  Pretty much everything else stems from how I look at my life, my situation and my to do list in the first place.

I used to hate cooking.  And cleaning.  And being organized.  Seriously.  I feel like my poor husband had a wife with a huge learning curve when we got married.  I am a pile maker - meaning I put stuff down in an "organized" pile...and there it sits.  My mom did a great job teaching me to cook but frankly, lack of practice or interest put me a little behind when it came to cooking for my man who is a secret foodie.  I felt overwhelmed, embarrassed and kind of like I was faking this wife / homemaker gig.

It really was quite a struggle for me until a couple years ago.  When we moved into Harvest House I realized that if we were going to share our home with other people I HAD to get these things under control.  I decided that mainly, my attitude needed to change before my habits or skills would follow.  My new attitude?

My work at home is my ministry, not drudgery.

Simply changing the way I look at cleaning changed how I approached it and how I accomplished it.  If I took the focus off the cooking, but looked at the end result of a family meal (even if it was slightly burned and under seasoned) it made it easier to keep going.  There was a lot of trial and error, but there was also a lot of grace.  My attitude was "I want to serve my family" rather than "I have to make dinner / clean that / plan this AGAIN?!?". 

I'm still a work in progress.  Some nights dinner just isn't good.  Sometimes cooking meat still makes me cry.  And yeah, I still make piles but fewer and much smaller :)  I'm not perfect but I am happy with where I am because I know that my heart and my motives are finally in a place of serving rather than a place of keeping up or even trying to impress the people around me.