Let’s face it: we are all “homemakers” in some sense of the word.
We all live in a home and try to make it a place that is comfortable and even beautiful for ourselves and our families. It is a place where we want to invite friends and family to visit. It could be a place where we spend a lot of time if we’re in a season of life that find us at home – perhaps raising small children or in retirement. Or it could be the haven that we come back to after a long day at work.
In any case, there are things we have to do to maintain our homes, and some of those things can be not so fun!
I’m the first to raise my hand and tell you I don’t love cleaning or cooking. I don’t love the repetitive nature of being a stay at home mum – washing clothes that get dirty again, creating meals that get eaten and need to be cleaned up – and later created again, picking up seemingly endless stuff that has been used and left around the house, even the need to go grocery shopping again and again and again! These have all been things that have frustrated me at times and made me feel like my job was kind of pointless.
Thankfully there have been other times when I have been able to feel like my work in our home was creating a haven for my hard-working husband to retreat to where he would find relaxation and order. I have been able to be thankful that those repetitive chores would not even be there if I didn’t have our home and our children, and I’ve been able to see my kids develop skills and responsibility as they’ve watched and started to learn how to run a household one day.
Much of the way I run my home is the way my mother ran her home. I watched and learnt from her over my years at home, and I do many things exactly the way she taught me without even thinking about it.
But there are things that I learnt from other sources. There are tricks that I picked up from friends or reading books. I’ve read tips via Pinterest, and sometimes gone searching for information on particular aspects of my homemaking to find out how others do it.
So when I saw the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle coming up I had a mixed response. Part of me feels like our home runs just fine and I don’t want to change things – that takes effort! Another part of me wondered whether there would be some wisdom in there to help me tweak things now that I’m back at work part-time and still juggling my online job as well?
So as an affiliate I grabbed an early copy and checked it out. There are 100 eBooks, eCourses and Bonuses in this bundle so I have not had a chance to review them all. But those I have reviewed have made me feel like it was well worth my money.
I’m only going to talk about two items today but I assure you there are plenty more that are worth looking at.
The 4 Simple Steps to Stress-free Homemaking mini video eCourse was a quick way to check out the calibre of this bundle and I liked it. The 4 videos are fairly short. I watched them as I was cooking dinner one evening. They are easy listening and not all earth-shattering content but they made sense to me.
What I Took Away: I have changed the way I am doing the washing (you might call it “laundry” where you live {wink}). I’ve always been pretty good at keeping up with washing and drying clothes but ironing is the part I put off. I even have a designated “ironing basket” to store the stuff waiting for me to iron it! That basket is the one I want to hide and ignore, but which also makes me feel guilty. It kind of hangs over me… waiting… sigh. But after watching these videos I am trying out the idea of completing an entire load before I move on – yes, all the way to ironing and putting away in drawers. So far? Awesome. Nowhere near as hard as I expected. Phew! My ironing basket is now empty except for he couple of hours between when I fold the load of the day and toss the couple of ironing items into it and when I iron in front of the TV in the evening for 10 minutes.
Must Watch: The last video talks about some simple 5 minute things to do each and every night to set yourself up for coping with the next day. So simple but for me a “lightbulb moment”! I’m not going to share the details here, but if you decide to grab these, don’t miss that last video.
But what else will you find in the bundle?
Here’s some collections to give you an idea:
While many of the items in the bundle are eBooks, there is also a collection of audio files and eCourses. I’ve been finding these are great to listen to when I’m doing chores, especially folding, washing up and cooking. I like feeling like that time doing something a bit boring is also time when I’m learning something by listening.
With the back to work thing happening to me this year, I’ve had to really think more about dinners. I’ve never been one to plan a week or more of dinners ahead of time, preferring to see what I feel like on the day. But I can’t continue to do that. It is causing me stress each day when I realise that I have nothing planned and have to make a quick decision late in the afternoon! So I’m looking forward to spending some time reading about meal planning and hoping to get inspired.
Having a family at any stage of life requires organising in your home, so these titles have got to be “must reads”. I’m thinking that “one bite at a time” sounds like the way for me to start.
There also these categories:
- Self-care
- Pregnancy & Baby
- Planners & Printables
- Motherhood
- Marriage
- Homeschooling
- Holidays
- Cookbooks
- Finances
- Faith
- Faith for Kids
- DIY & Homemade
- Cleaning
In this last group is the one book that I have actually read most of already – in only a couple of days. Ruth Soukup’s How to Blog for Profit without Selling your Soul has been on my “must read” list for a while now but I hadn’t gotten to it. When I saw it in this set it was the first thing I downloaded and read. In fact I was so inspired by it that I went and signed up to her online blog academy! But that’s probably a tale for another day.
For now, if you’re looking for a bundle of books (and more) that is great value for money and comes recommended, then take a look at these. Yes, I am an affiliate so I will get a small commission if you buy through my links – at no extra expense to you, of course – but I only become affiliates for things that I feel are worthwhile and valuable to my readers. There have been other Ultimate Bundles that I have not written about because I didn’t feel they were going to be of interest to you, but I think this one will be. It is only available for a limited time – that’s just how these bundles work – so take a look and enjoy!
Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post.
