When You Work Outside the Home (Guest Post)

Welcome back to my series on homemaking. (Catch up by reading part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.) 

Today’s post is by Callie at Through Clouded Glass. I’ve really appreciated her perspective on homemaking and working outside the home. Be sure to check out her blog! 

So, I’ve been a little nervous about writing a post on homemaking. After all, half the time my own house is falling apart, and I have a difficult time mastering the art of homemaking, so I didn’t know how I was going to write a post on the subject.

I’m a dental hygienist, and I commute about forty-five minutes to and from work each day. Thankfully I only work part-time, so I have a few days off during the week, but on the days that I do work, I’m usually gone from five o’clock in the morning until five or six o’clock at night. That leaves very little time in the evening to make dinner, straighten up the house, squeeze in any necessary cleaning, and spend time with my husband before we go to sleep.

When I picture someone who would write one of these posts, I think of Superwoman – a lady who has the perfect balance of work and home, excelling in her career and coming home to a perfectly kept house and whipping up a three-coarse, elaborate, healthy meal.

Well, I’m not Superwoman. I have a hard time just keeping my house picked up on the days that I work, much less perfectly clean with dinner on the table. However, I have gathered a few tips here and there, and I know from observing my own mother that there are certain things you can do to keep the house running, even when you aren’t there every day yourself. 

I don’t apply these six tips perfectly or consistently. I’m pretty newly married, and I’m still working out the kinks. But I do notice that when I practice applying the following suggestions, it makes my life a lot easier. I hope any of you ladies out there who work outside the home can benefit from these tips I’ve compiled here, and maybe even some of you lucky ladies who work within the home can pick something out of here as well.

Without further ado, here are six things that have been helpful to me in my own homemaking efforts.

Make the Most of Your Days Off

When you’re working outside the home all day, it’s hard to get up the energy to come home and work around the house as well. So make the most of the days when you don’t have to work. It’s tempting to just relax and do nothing on the weekends, but take a little time to straighten up the house, scrub the bathroom, or vacuum the floor and it will go a long way in keeping your house in decent shape during the week.

Clean As You Go

It’s easy to just whip up a meal and dump all the dirty dishes in the sink, but then you have a huge pile of dishes to wash all at once, and it takes a while to do. If you keep things picked up and clean as you go, it cuts down on the “big projects” that take time to accomplish – and that’s really helpful if you’re working and don’t have many large blocks of time for cleaning. 

This is something we really try to stay on top of in our house – if we make a sandwich for lunch we try to make sure to put everything away directly afterward and wipe the crumbs off the counter. We try to put our dishes directly in the dishwasher, instead of letting them sit in the sink. We wipe down the bathroom counter after getting ready in the morning to keep it from getting grimy. If you clean as you go, it actually takes alot less time and effort to maintain a tidy house.

Cut Down on the Clutter

It’s amazing how much better my house looks when I just make sure not to leave things lying around. Keeping books and magazines put away, mail sorted, coats hung up, and dog toys put away makes a huge difference in how clean the house feels. Even if there’s dust on the coffee tables, dog hair on the carpet, and crumbs on the kitchen counter, those tasks seem much more manageable if there isn’t clutter to go along with it.

Find Easy Meals

When you’re working, it’s hard to make elaborate meals every night. If you have any sort of commute, there is even less time to get dinner on the table. I think finding quick, easy meals to make during the week is really important when you work outside the home. 

Enter canned spaghetti sauces and boxed dinner mixes! It’s not as terrible as it may sound. Spaghetti and other pastas are really easy to make when you use pre-made sauces, and there are a lot of boxed rice and pasta dinner options out there. 

If you’re concerned about getting vegetables or protein in there, it’s really easy to boil some vegetables or cook some meat while the rice or pasta dish is cooking in the microwave – then you can add that to the meal. Slow-cooker meals are great, because you can prepare it before hand and let it warm up during the day so it’s ready to eat when you get home. Soup from a mix is a quick meal to make in the evening after work, and is especially nice in the winter. Grilled cheese sandwiches or eggs (breakfast for dinner) don’t take long to prepare either.

Just a few suggestions, but you get the idea.

Recruit the Hubby

I don’t know what I’d do without my husband, and I can’t tell you how many times he’s pitched in to help me when my schedule is so crazy that I don’t have time to do some household chore. He’s vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, made the bed, dusted, made dinner – all just to try to help me out. If you’re noticing that something in the house is just not getting done because you’re always away during the day, or if you know you’ll be home a little later and won’t be able to make dinner, let your hubby know you need help – most likely he’ll be happy to show you some love and lend a hand. 

Check Your Attitude

Homemaking is a privilege. The Lord has given us women the task of being the caregivers of the family, and we should consider it to be a privilege to serve our family by taking care of the home. 

It’s easy to start thinking that since we’re working outside the home just like our husbands are, the chores around the house should be split evenly too. But being too concerned with our own rights, and making sure everything is “fair” is not a godly attitude – it should be our goal to be a servant to our families, doing our best to look after their needs before our own. When you have your heart attitude right, everything else comes easier, and everything has a way of working itself out. 

Plus we’re earning treasures in Heaven when we have a good attitude about homemaking – and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have treasures in Heaven than a little more free time here on earth.