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This year has been a doozy for my family, that's for sure. We had a happy start to the year with my oldest home to celebrate New Years with us after 3 years without her home. We were all dolled up and dancing, taking selfies, and sharing our families favorite New Years Eve foods and traditions for one magical evening before she went back to her new home in another state. After she left, we amped up for a very busy year ahead, except no sooner were we reaching an early peak (financially and otherwise), when we faced our first real hurtle of the year. My husband got hurt and was out of work for an undetermined amount of time. It was a big faith moment for me. It has required a level of faith is what I believe and a new level of faith in my God. Faith that He would provide. Faith that He would heal. Faith in the goodness of God throughout this entire process. And through it, my God has been so good. When it first happened. I was scared, and I was doubtful in our community post quarantine. It had been seven and a half years since we had stopped regularly attending church service at the church that we had called home for over ten years after a season of church politics left it feeling unsettling to our spirits. We had transition to attending Sunday service virtually via a church from a different state, one we felt called to move to in a future season of life. Though we weren't attending Sunday service at our previous church home, I had maintained plugged in via women's study groups and vacation bible school over the summers through 2019, but fall of 2019 I had phased out of the women's study group, as it no longer felt like it aligned for me in the season I was in. In the summer of 2020, there was no vacation bible study due to quarantine. It felt like a chapter in a book closing. We were sad, but our oldest had just graduated high school and we were preparing to move her to college, it likely would not have been feasible on the calendar even without quarantine. I didn't expect to wind up entirely disconnected from the community of people we had grown and raised families beside for all of those years, however, some moved, some passed away, some simply grew apart from us in the years since, but we found ourselves okay with a smaller circle while we were in this season anyways. I do strongly believe that sometimes God does isolate us to grow us. Through this season I may not have been connected to study groups or church communities, but I was definitely still connected to God, with my praise and worship music, my independent bible study, and a constant stream of different devotions keeping me learning, and a constant dialogue with God happening in my spirit. I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel guilty that my kids were no longer connected to youth groups and children's Sunday school, because I definitely felt guilt pangs periodically over the years. Except, my kids had each experienced different changes in their own seasons, slowly straying or exploring different beliefs. This was why I doubled down in my own faith walk. Confident in the promises of Proverbs 22, more specifically, the promise of verse six which says, "Direct your children into the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it." - Proverbs 22:6 I fought the urge to lecture or discipline them for exploring their own beliefs, instead I focused on my own walk and modeling the best I could while I prayerfully considered my hopes and dreams for who they would become as adults. This year has confirmed to me so much in my own faith beliefs, and it has also shown me the fruits of the truth in this verse. In the last 6 months, my girls at home have all returned to and/or grown in their faith and faith practices, all 3 choosing to get baptized again, or in the case of my youngest, for the first time, in a beautiful sunset beach baptism ceremony last week. It made my momma heart beam to watch them make this declaration of their faith in Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Since then, my oldest at home began researching local churches to find a vbs (vacation bible school) for our youngest to attend since all of her vbs moments were when she was younger than five, and she has no memory of them. Add to it that her age next summer will prevent her from attending instead of being a helper. My oldest girl at home found one, registered our youngest, and signed up to be a helper at a church she's never attended, simply because she wants to get back into vbs. The Holy Spirit spreads faster than wildfire when it's nurtured and your actions demonstrate that it's working inside of you. By simply raising them with the seed of the spirit planted and nurtured in their younger years, I was doing the directing part well. Setting them off on the right path. Even when we completely stopped going to our previous church home, I was still nurturing my own faith in a way that my children could see it, thus when they became older, they returned instead of leaving it. Now I fully understand that as my girls are still growing, and are at various different stages of growing up, therefore, they may stray again, possibly even further, and now I have fruits from my experiences to remind me of the truth in Proverbs 22:6 and if it does ever happen again, I'll just pray over this verse. I fully pray that something in this blog has given you some hope that encourages you to lean into your faith in this motherhood season, and remember this verse, and the other values found in the Proverbs. Live Dazzling! ~Rebecca Jackson

In full transparency, I started this blog 5 years and 3 months ago before it got put on the back burner, about the time I started a virtual branding intensive program, and I found myself putting it on a hard pause. When I next approached it, a year later, it didn't feel aligned to write at that time, my home was a uniquely new state of unorganized chaos. So, I ended up putting it on an even harder pause. I definitely thought at some points in these last fifty-one and a half months that this blog would eventually end up scrapped altogether. Except, I'm no quitter. It sat in the depths of my blog edits, amidst my many other published blogs, nearly forgotten. Until today! I hope you enjoy it, now that I've finally finished and published it. Maybe you even take some new perspectives away from it, to apply to your domestic duties, and aid in increasing the joy you experience around your home and within your responsibilities. When it comes to balancing the domestic load in your life it helps to do your best to embrace it with... E mpathy (for yourself & others) a M otivated spirit B oundaries (you hold) R ules A ccountability C ompassion E xcitement Everyone has domestic responsibilities, but women definitely seem to carry the biggest load, with moms carrying the top 1% of the biggest loads. Fighting or resisting these domestic tasks and chores only makes it harder for you, in inevitably, worse for your people. This is why the key to achieving Domestic Goddess standing is embracing the load. It all starts with an embrace. I'll break it down a little further. I know that empathy may have confused you at first reading, because by definition it means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, so how can you practice empathy with yourself? You can do so by remembering that you are not just wife and/or mother, you are daughter and friend. Would those people in your life truly look at you with the same condemnation & judgement of the job you do attempting to successfully navigate your domestic responsibilities? If you can easily assume that you are capable of providing them empathy, then you should turn that empathy inward as well, looking at yourself as your best friend. Balancing an impossible number of tasks and responsibilities is no simple feat. You deserve to give yourself empathetic grace just as easily as you would give it to others. Considering the things that overlook for the ones you love and care for, and the grace you freely give others, I think it's necessary you treat yourself to the same heaping amounts of grace and kindness darling. If you won't, who will? Next, a motivated spirit can make all the difference, but motivation can be so hard to grasp hold of for many. In the event that you are one of those people whom motivation frequently evades, then here's a few things I do to kick my own motivation into overdrive. First, I like to remind myself of the why behind the tasks I'm unmotivated to do, Then, I like to bribe myself a little with a post task reward, something as simple as watching the most recent episode of your favorite reality show, just give yourself a prize at the end of the process. Lastly, I try to celebrate my accomplishments upon completion, even if it's no more that telling myself good job and admiring the finished product. Boundaries are an obvious one, except if you don't hold the boundaries you set, then the boundary isn't even a boundary. This is why the next one is, boundaries that you actually hold. Holding a boundary firm is the only way to use this one effectively, and if you don't hold the boundary, you'll find the same people breaching them over and over. When it comes to your home and your family you have every right to set and hold boundaries, not to block yourself off from the world eternally, but to protect your peace now. When it comes to the domestic duties in your life, having rules that you apply to them, can help you accomplish them easier. Simple rules, like emptying the dishwasher promptly upon its completion so that you and your people can fill the dishwasher instead of the sinks new dishes accumulate. Or folding and hanging your clothes once they finish drying, so they won't get wrinkled and stall future loads. Maybe you make a rule that the lawn gets mowed every Monday, or that your fall cleanup of your yard must be done prior to Halloween, or that the trash cans get to the curb every evening before pick-up prior to it being dark outside. You know which duties make your life the most challenging. Take some time to assess and assign. Assess your tasks, assign rules wherever it makes sense. These rules become "house rules", not just "your rules". Make sure that those in your house know these rules will apply to everyone moving forward. This way, when a chore is assigned or a task is delegated, there can be no excuse when it's not done according to the rules, and this will help spread the responsibility around. You're not the only one living in your home. With rules in place, this next one becomes handcuffed in importance to your rules, and that's accountability . If you set rules, if you assign chores, if you delegate tasks, then you must be sure to hold yourself and the others in your home accountable to them. It's not enough to make the rule, just like it wasn't enough to set the boundary. You must have follow through for it to work, accountability ensures that the rules you set are taken seriously and applied to. If there is no accountability, then your rules will fly right out the window, whether you mean them to or not. Hand in hand with empathy, I consider compassion to be a great one as well. There will always be unexpected things, trials, tribulations, and sadly even traumas. When these things happen, duties will slip, and when they do, ensure you lead with your compassion, for yourself and/or others. When grief comes, chores go by the wayside. When pain happens, some duties aren't possible. When shit hits the fan, the fan doesn't always get cleaned up right away. THIS IS OKAY! Life happens without any care about our plans, or rules, or intentions, and giving ourselves an easy pass in these instances keeps your guilt from returning to them and repairing wherever possible. Excitement makes many things better and this is no exception. When you look at your domestic duties out of a place of obligation it snuffs out any excitement you could possibly encounter right out the gate. When you look at your domestic duties out of a place of blessing it's like creating a spark of excitement in your soul that can only ignite further or inevitably get snuffed out again by obligation. My recommendations for sparking excitement in your soul begins with how you start your day. Do you roll out of bed frustrated and tired, or rested and ready? Do you spend your day complaining in chaos, or dancing through the craziness? Do you end your evenings drowning it out with your guilty pleasures until crashing, or do you end your evenings peaceful and calm, counting your blessings? Your mindset and how you set your days up matters. Look for ways to focus on blessing and create excitement in your days and the duties will drift into play, making your days feel less like surviving it and more like thriving in it! My advice is to Hustle & Grind your way to Domestic Goddess standing! H ousework schedule U nique purpose S cheduled obligations T o-Do list my tasks L egacy focused priorities E xercise or physical activity & G o to supplies R ituals: daily-weekly-monthly I ntermittent R&R N ecessary planning D elegating These are going to be shorter blurbs, because I feel many of these are somewhat self- explanatory. I don't buy into traditional hustle & grind culture, and I don't think you should either. I believe it's a patriarchal concept that doesn't benefit us women at all, not in mind, body, or spirit. It just creates stress and often times it magnifies the chaos needed to be coordinated. I'll break it all down a little further. I believe that having a housework schedule can help you feel less overwhelmed and stressed with all the things that we need to get accomplished around our home. There's no need to do all the things all of the time. Schedules can help us get it all done while still spreading it out across a month or a week without feeling the pressures all at once. We all have a unique purpose , and so do many of the things that need done in our lives and our homes. Each task has a unique purpose. When we remember to tap into the unique purpose of our tasks it can make them feel less annoying while helping us appreciate the purpose of the task so we can appreciate its completion with more joy and less frustration. Plus, when we recognize the purpose no longer aligns, it helps us eliminate waste in our tasks. As chores aren't the only responsibilities included when we think of domestic duties, I want to touch on scheduled obligations and how they can make our calendars more organized and also allows us to manage our schedule in a way that spreads out the obligations when we are doing so on a calendar or in a planner. There will be no more double bookings or rushing places last minute because you forgot something else and schedule things too closely when you do keep your obligations scheduled well. I like to keep a running to-do list of my tasks because then I can always reference it and update it. Plus, I absolutely love checking things off of my to-do list. When I to-do list my tasks , it helps me feel more on top of all the many layers of my domestic duties and it helps it all feel more manageable. I also feel less likely that I'm going to forget something, because my list helps me remember. When it comes to putting things on our calendars and schedules, we can easily minimize the stress and pressure by prioritizing things that are legacy focused priorities . Not everything we convince ourselves matters actually does matter in the big picture. When being the CCO (chief chaos officer) of your home, it helps to gauge tasks, chores, and activities that actually matter for your family's legacy and not just help and encourage you to keep up with the Jones As for getting everything done, you may feel tired or exhausted, and I find that in my experience, when I am intentional to include exercise or physical activity in my days, I benefit from it two-fold, neither having to do with weight loss. First, I find that it increases my energy and helps me feel younger and more capable of accomplishing my tasks, and second it helps me to be tired enough to get to sleep earlier, allowing me more rest, so I can wake even more energized to tackle a new day of tasks. & When I have chores to accomplish around my home or my yard, the first thing I do is head to my go-to supplies for the chore. Having some go-to supplies on hand can make tackling tasks so much easier because you know where they are and can go to them promptly and reliably to help you get the task done. There are a few keys to making this work for you. To start, you have to have the supplies on hand, then you also need them to be in a reliable place where you intentionally store them, and lastly, I encourage they be in a convenient location to the task at hand, so you don't have to travel far to gather them. A cleaning caddy, a supply closet, etc. Taking the house schedule and scheduled obligations a little bit further, rituals -daily - weekly - monthly , create a deeper connection to your schedules, transforming some of them into ritual practices instead. The difference is that a ritual is a series of actions followed without change or wavering. Typically, people consider rituals solely religious practices, but I believe much of our self-care and our domestic responsibilities can be executed ritualistically as well. You can have a shower ritual just like you can have a bathroom cleaning ritual. It's about finding the most effective and efficient way to execute the task, then applying those steps in a ritual way, without veering or even thinking in some cases. Taking time in your days for intermittent R&R can be a game changer in productivity. With intermittent rest and relaxation in your days you are giving yourself permission to not always be on, even in your waking hours. When our brains are constantly firing, we are significantly more likely to burnout and become entirely unproductive altogether, with potential for a lengthier recovery time. Just scheduling in a few breaks into your day. like when we were in preschool, where you stop all the tasks, stop the brain wracking, and stop overthinking, you can give yourself a refresh in the middle of your tasks, making returning to them less annoying Now, I've cover scheduling in a few different ways, and scheduling is a huge piece of navigating all the domestic demands with less confusion, except scheduling only covers part of the equation when it comes to more peacefully tackling tasks and productively getting things done. The other part of the equation is necessary planning . You can have it on the schedule, you may even have some home rituals in place, but if you reach for the go-to supplies and they aren't there, you're stuck. This is why you must also factor planning the necessary parts of the task or chore, to ensure you can accomplish it once you begin. To close it all out, I saved the BEST one for last. It is the single step that makes all of the rest even easier to navigate and manage. Souper magical, almost like waving a wand and saying, "Wash the dishes", delegating is a vastly under used option. As moms I think we often feel like we have to do all the things, all of the time, except that's completely wrong, and impossible. You physically can't, and trying to really only punishes your home, your family, and also yourself. Delegate some of those tasks, chores, and even obligations. You deserve some help, even if you have to bribe (your children) or pay (for a professional) to get it done still! Hire some help! Expect your husband and your kids help too! If you made it to here, thanks for reading and let me know what you think of my concepts and ideas. Will you try them? Do you already? Have they helped your domestic load? I want to know! I want you too, to become a domestic goddess darling! Live Dazzling! ~Rebecca Jackson

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