I had to put all my writing and designing work on pause yesterday. It was a totally domestic day.

Domestic – adj. – of or relating to the household or the family or devoted to home duties and pleasures

Since getting married, I’ve grown to hold a new respect for my mom and all moms out there. Keeping a house is a lot of work! Anyone who looks at a Stay a Home Mom (or Stay at Home Wife) and thinks, “Boy they must enjoy just laying around at home all day.” THINK AGAIN. Keeping a home is a never-ending job!

My day started with scouring the internet and mail inserts for coupons. I am all about trying to save where I can when I can. I’ve not totally mastered the art of coupon-shopping, but I think I do a decent job nonetheless.

Then I checked the account and figure up how much money I had available for groceries and fuel for the truck. After a quick bowl of cereal, I was out the door and off. Three hours later, I came home having only broken my self-imposed limit by $10. Not bad; thanks to the calculator I’d tucked in my purse. Tax always throws me here, though. In Texas there’s no tax on groceries. Here, the tax is different on groceries than from other items, and its that discrepancy that got me.

I had a hard time getting motivated to tackle my next task: clean the house from top to bottom. I liked too many shows on TV tonight, and they kept beckoning to me to come sit on the couch instead of work. Instead, I took a break to fully watch one show. All the rest were background noise.

Bathrooms have been scrubbed, all floors cleaned, kitchen clean, guest bedroom vacuumed and fresh sheets on the bed (I have guests coming!), my own sheets cleaned and put back in place, office relatively clean (as clean as it’s going to get), and a million other little tasks that have been needing to be done… got done.

See, I generally save my cleaning for when my husband is on the road. And even with that, I usually leave it for Friday or Saturday. However, as I said, I have guests coming, and the job had to be done early.

It feels good to be lounging on the couch with my laptop, sipping a glass of wine, looking around at my clean house knowing it looks good. Knowing that now I can relax and enjoy my company. Knowing that its one more thing off my to do list…

…until next weekend. When many of my tasks will come due again.

It never ends. My hats off to those women who keep a clean house while raising children and holding down a full-time job. I know you can say its a labor of love. I know what I did today is because I am both proud of my home, but also because I want to open my home to the people I care about and know they’ll feel comfortable.

But I’m beat! Kudos to those who juggle all angles of domesticity.  It’s a lot of work, and I admire every one of you.