I so enjoyed Mrs Chancey’s replies to the questions readers posed here.  I share many of her thoughts. Some favorites:

"A child left to himself brings shame to his mother."  Prov 29:15  This one has always rung true.  Though another truth is that children who are supervised will occasionally do horrifically embarassing or undesirable things as well. Still, many small troubles can be avoided by your presence. Which brings us to her next thought:

"99% of our frustration with our children comes from the fact that we ourselves are selfish and do not want to set aside our own plans for the day to deal with foolishness."  And lets face it, who DOES want to deal with foolishness?  But children (and puppies) respond best to immediate feedback. Mrs Chancey says, this means "being willing to drop whatever it is we are doing (the phone call, chores, gardening, –anything) to deal with the trouble."  It does not mean making the children stop bothering us which is a huge clarification. It means "Nothing is more important than training the children."

These ideals are consistent with the Montessori admonition to observe, observe, observe. We can’t observe when we are on the phone, at a meeting, or on the internet. Did I just say that?  Yes.  That is the hardest truth of all.  I have nothing but admiration for a dear gypsy woman I adore who has made selfless choices to ensure that nothing sidetracks her from this vocation. We can surf for schedules, we can print endless chore charts, we can attend innumerable mom’s nights out.  None of it is worth beans if we aren’t here, face to face with the little people entrusted to us.

I am not "super mom". I have children with behavior challenges, some more than others. I have no "super" answers. After 21 years of mothering, in fact, I still have only one simple answer – be home, be involved, be content. This year has stretched our family in ways I could not have foreseen. It has served to drive home yet again what my priorities are and they are all under this roof.  As I was reminded yesterday if these difficulties served to bring this conviction back to the forefront of our minds then they were not for naught.

"We tell ourselves that nothing has changed. That we have achieved very little and our goals are as far off in the yonder as they ever where. Because we  are haunted by the sentiment  that life must move on, we suffer a shiver of disappointment when we look back and see that despite monumental daily
effort, life today is just what is was then and life tomorrow will be exactly the same because we do not have the will, the money, or the wherewithal to make it different.

But we do ourselves an injustice when we fail to stand back and look at the minutiae of our lives from a different perspective. When we do not recognise that every teeny weeny teeny step towards our domestic goals are steps in the right direction." –Brocante Home Chronicles 

She is right, you know. It is all too easy to convince ourselves that nothing is really changing despite herculean efforts to improve our lot.  I believe much of that is due to our season in life.  Dorcas Smucker wrote about her love of fall harvest time in her book Ordinary Days. (love it! love it! You must read it and tell me what you think!) She speculates that part of the draw is the fact that while gardening, unlike the rest of her life while in the throes of childrearing, she is able to actually see her work reach completion.  Completion does, in fact, elude most of us mothers on many days. Our children and our homes are works in progress at this stage. This can be demoralizing for homemakers and mothers, both of whom thrive on seeing a job well-done.

The secret is to look critically, to find areas of progress. We may not have every drawer of the kitchen sorted right at this moment but the appliances, backsplash and floors are scrubbed – at least until the next rain – and we finally hung our crochet valances.  The hall closet sports tidy stacks of sheets as I type.  The living room book shelves are in order. The laundry room has been emptied, dusted, mopped and reorganized. The girls have nice new comforters and sheet sets since we retired the old sets. I won’t describe my bedroom closet nor the teens’ room, nor the new school room, not just because they inspire far less contented thoughts but because my goal here is identify progress. Every day we make some. To modify the full/empty glass cliche – the house is halfway perfect or halfway messed at any given time. I am choosing to focus on the areas of near perfection while acknowledging, one area at a time, those that are next on the to-do list. I will not be discouraged into inertia by the impossibility of completion in this season.  Instead I will heed these additional words from the Brocante Home Vintage Homemaker:

"Inspiration doesn’t come from that which through utter boredom our mind’s eye chooses to ignore. In every aspect of our life we need to  keeping moving, rearranging, seeing things anew and drawing from that, reason to KEEP seeing things anew…"   

Challenge:

Move something around this weekend. Surely there is something that might work better in a new place. Set at least one goal that can be completed each day, whether that is filing your mail or filing your nails.

"When worry manages to work its way into my life, I’ve learned to clean away my troubles or put a polish on my let-go by mopping my floor or hanging high my laundry. For some reason, the utilitarian act of being on my knees or hanging garments on a line changes my brain chemistry. I become a better problems solver. I remember to step back." MaryJane Butters

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore MaryJane Farmgirl?  She says it just right. My ‘let-go’ has been in need of polishing as have my floors and woodwork so I have spent the past several days tackling all of the above as well as a few closets and pantries.  My brain is decluttering along with the corners of my house.

I read an inspiring article in Country Living this month about a family that turned a mobile home into a Shabby Chic paradise. The wife had purchased the home years earlier with as few interior walls as possible. She later married and the couple built a new home. Later they decided to throw themselves into their antiques business so they moved back into the now paid off mobile on two acres. See what they pulled off here!

Here is a totally different look but the same type of structure. Deep colored walls and warm country pieces transform this mobile.

How about Santa Fe style?   Or contemporary country?  Beach cottage?

These homes exemplify thinking outside the box and showcase what can be done with very modest homes. It doesn’t take a mansion. Just creativity and vision.