Joyful Homemaking

If I could just bottle up how I am feeling right now towards my house, my role as a homemaker, and being back on my blog full time, I believe I could sell it for millions of dollars.

The feeling is indescribable, it's what I was yearning for, what I was thinking of and what I wanted to return to for the past year.

Today was a truly wonderful homemaking day, a day of puttering around, a day of taking care of the home and family, a day that reminded me once again why I am incredibly blessed to be able to do this every single day of my life.

OH what a happy day.

My morning started early with the usual 5:30am wake up, making coffee for hubby and I and then after he leaves for work, I settle back into bed with my laptop and slowly wake up to the day.

While I watched some vlogs and my Portuguese soaps, I worked on a few more crochet squares for the mood blanket.  Oh and Rhonda wanted to know what the pattern was, it's called Starburst and it's so easy.  Let me know how you get on with it Rhonda :)

My morning went pretty quick, filled with cleaning, laundry and some menu planning.

Tomorrow I have to get our usual 2 week grocery shopping done, I'll try to record it again for you all.  One thing I always do when meal planning, is to try and get ideas from my cookbooks and I have so many sitting around that's it not hard to find one to browse through.

Ended up jotting quite a few from the Amish cookbooks above.  I love these, they have good home cooked food and not using any ingredients that I can't easily find in my pantry.

I still need to finish up my grocery list tonight, but the menu is all done.

Haven't been reading anything lately and while organizing my side table the other day, I found this book.  I've read it many years ago and if I remember correctly, I think I even did a giveaway a couple of years ago.

It's such a good book to read, helped me immensely and I feel led to read it again, so I'm going with my gut feeling.

While I worked on the menu, I had my washer running a cycle with hot water and bleach.  I like giving it a good clean every few weeks.

The time I spend in my kitchen is such a blessing to me.  It is the one room in the house, aside from my bedroom, where I feel the most comfortable.  I could easily spend the whole day puttering around in there.

I got a chicken roasting early in the afternoon for our dinner.  I love roast chicken but if I always find that if I don't roast it for quite a long time, then it's just not as flavorful, and you also run the chance of it not being cooked all the way through.

While the chicken cooked, I took the neck and other innards and got a pot of chicken stock going.  Yes I could buy, but homemade is so much tastier and healthier.

It's all a matter of taking the extra step to make something.  I will be honest, the past year I haven't really indulged in any of these things, if I made chicken I would just chuck out all the bones etc because I had no time or inclination to go much further than that.

Just by taking a few extra minutes, I was able to ensure that not only I had a delicious dinner roasting in the oven, but while that cooked, I had a tasty broth simmering on the stove.

Look at that beautiful thing.  Oh my friends, it brings me so much joy to see something like that and know that it's just a part of my role as a homemaker and that I'm doing these things for my family.

I tossed laundry from the washer to the dryer, and then while I waited for that to be done, I made myself a nice cup of tea and enjoyed a little sliver of my Bolo de Mel.   My brother brought it over for me when he visited at Thanksgiving.

It is a traditional Portuguese cake from the Island of Madeira, and it's translated into Honey Cake.  It's spicy and dense, and filled with flavor and different nuts.  Truly divine.

I sat at my dining table and worked on the menu planning a little more, answered some emails and edited some photos.

Set the table, finished up dinner and then we sat down to enjoy a delicious meal.  I hadn't made roast chicken in a while and it was pure heaven, I don't think there's anything quite like a good homemade roast is there?

Just look at that. 

I'm so full but could easily go back and chow some more Hahah

Everything from the beginning of the day, to the end, ran smoothly, felt right, and made me fall back in love with homemaking.

I wish I could put into words how happy it makes me to feel this way again, but I guess the best I can do is just try and show you through my posts.  Maybe it will convey through the computer screen, or my words, who knows, just hope that it helps one of you out there who maybe feeling the exact same way about your role as a homemaker.

Embrace it my friends!!!