I’m Not a Bad Housewife. Really!

My husband and I have this running joke where we agree I'm not a good housewife. He likes to say he didn't marry me for my housekeeping skills.

Except I was thinking about it as I cleaned the dishes (and so what if they'd been in the sink a couple of days?), vacuumed the carpet (it's only been two weeks–sheesh) and contemplated trying to match my husband's box of socks (not an easy task when the man has a million pair and yes, it's because for awhile I'd just buy a new pack when I forgot to do the laundry).

What can I say? He has very exact standards of which kind of white tube sock should go with the other (mostly the same) white tube sock. Makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

Alright. Perhaps I'm not fastidious (or as dedicated to actual housekeeping as when we were first married, or when our  kids were little) but that doesn't make me a bad housewife. Not really. After all, I'm forty-seven years old with an empty next for heaven's sake! Besides, I still get stuff done.

Dinner gets served every night (and if it's pizza because I've gotten caught up in a book project or blog post—it's food, right?).

The  laundry gets done (and yes, it's usually gotten to a rather mountainous state in the basket but still—it gets CLEAN!)

The dust bunnies are chased off the furniture (eventually).

Okay, so maybe I'm not a good  Betty Crocker-style housewife. All I'm saying is that I'm not necessarily a bad housewife either. 

How do I know for sure? Because while I admit the mechanics of "good housekeeping" do get away from me from time to time (seriously–I don't even read the magazine) it all gets done (sooner or later). More importantly, I know I'm a good wife because I am committed to the covenant I made with my husband (and God) twenty-three years ago on an icy December day in Michigan. And while 1 Corinthians 13 may seem like a wedding cliche to some people, the words serve as a good reminder of how we are meant to live in that covenant with our spouse.

Truthfully, so long as my husband knows he is loved and respected I count it as a win (although making a batch of homemade pretzels doesn't hurt every now and again).