Make Peace with Housework – The Book of the Blog (Vol 1)
Paperback available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca or to order from your favourite bookshop.
Ebook versions available: Kindle (UK), Kindle (US), iPad, Nook, Kobo, and full-colour pdf.
Spring Cleaning Special - only 99c/77p in the Kindle store!
A book for anyone who ‘has issues’ with housework.
Volume 1 is a compilation of the first 20 months of the Make Peace with Housework blog. Containing the entries from March 2009 to December 2010, including the launch of the blog and the story behind its creation.
Posts include:
• How to keep your head…. when all around are messing up your house.
• How sweet is your home?
• Housework? But I’m a feminist!
• Top 10 ‘Give Yourself a Break’ Tips
• For the Non-Bedmakers
• Why housework is mental
• Hold that Spring Cleaning!
• Readers Top Tips
• A non-washer-upper’s guide to the washing-up
• Feng shui & housework
• Top Ten Blues Blasters …and many more.
A fun and easy read, yet packed with ideas, tips and games to help you cope with the ‘unique challenge’ of keeping a home.
These are strategies to keep you sane.
READER COMMENTS:
“What I love about your blog is finding someone who can express what I have felt so eloquently…and finding out I am not alone.”
“…already making SUCH a difference to how I view housework. Thank you!”
“Thank You for helping us with our homekeeping chores!”
“Feel like it’s written just for me.”
“Love it!”
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Housework Blues – A Survival Guide
How to cope with the mental and emotional challenge of keeping a home
Paperback available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca or to order from your favourite bookshop.
Ebook versions available: Kindle (UK), Kindle (US), iPad, Nook, Kobo, and full-colour pdf.
The Story of Housework Blues
This book was born of frustration.
There was a time when housework (for me) meant fury, angst and a sense of being utterly overwhelmed.
Home had a become a workplace, a source of endless labour and family friction. (Maybe you can relate…)
Yet I sensed, deep down, that there must be a better way.
I knew other women who managed a home without the rage and ranting – some even claimed to love housework! Eventually I realised that the only difference between me and these Other Women was in our mental approach. Could it be that the problem was all in my head?
So I began to seek mental solutions to my domestic ‘issues’. But among the many practical domestic guides that I read, none helped me to cope with theidea of housework – the repetition, the futility, the monotony.
“There should be a guide for women like me.” I announced one day, as I was miserably scrubbing the kitchen floor. “There should be housework manual for women who just don’t do this stuff!”
And since I could find no such guide, I decided I would create one. So, in the hope that there were more ‘women like me’ Housework Blues – A Survival Guide was born.
What began as a few scrawled ideas turned into a eBook and a regular blog. It is also now available in Kindle and Paperback form.
The more I wrote, the more I found that I was brimming with helpful ideas. Not practical, stain-removal advice – but solutions to soothe away the mental or emtional anguish that goes with the home-territory for many women.
However, halfway through writing the book, a funny thing happened. One day, I realised that the anger was gone.
“Somewhere along the way, I’d accidentally made peace with housework!”
Gone was the bitterness and despair. Gone was the idea that I had failed as a feminist if I performed domestic duties. It appeared I had survived, maybe even conquered, my Housework Blues.
I discovered a calm and a sense of acceptance with my domestic commitments. I also discovered, believe it or not, that there is joy to be found in taking care of a home and family!
My first reaction to this revelation was that, without the fire in my belly, I would have to abandon the book. But then a friend helpfully pointed out that – I was living proof that it worked! He told me, “You must finish that book! Think of the all women it could help! Think of all the stress you could banish! Liberating women everywhere from the Housework Blues – it could change the world!”
And so, you have before you, my attempt to change the world – one less-stressed woman at a time. My mission is to share what I have learned, to pass on the priceless gems of insight that I’ve stumbled across.
My journey has included such diverse areas as brian-science, Buddhism, metaphysics, Zen, Christianity, ancient wisdom, New Thought and even, ironically, Old Wives Tales!
Sometimes just a single phrase or idea brought me enormous relief, often followed by a baffled ‘why did I never think if that?’ I regularly wished I had come across these insights years ago – they would have saved many arguments and a fair few wrinkles!
But my consolation is that I found them at all and also that I can now share them. In this book, I’ve distilled all that I’ve found to be helpful in coping with running a home (though many also apply successfully to life in general). I’ve read mountains of books, listened to hours of audio and experienced unpleasant learning curves – so now you don’t have to!
So in this resource I offer you the results of my bumpy ride - in the hope that they will make your path a whole lot smoother.
As Eleanor Roosevelt so wisely put it,
“Learn from the mistakes of others.
You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
