Riding the Roller Coaster recently started a blog ring for Military Spouses. As I begin to write this post, there are two hundred blogs included! I found out about it through two blogs that I read frequently: Jesstagirl and Her Officer & The Albrecht Squad. In hopes of meeting more great people like them, I’ve decided to jump in on the Milspouse Blog Hop!

RE-Introduction

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Michelle, or Michy. I got married in October to my best friend of 9+ years, who also happens to be in the US Army. He has served for five years, has been deployed to Iraq twice, and is my hero for that as well as for the things he does every day to make my life so much fuller. We don’t have any children yet, and I find that makes me kind of an oddball in the military. It seems that most couples have children very soon after marrying, if not before.

I am a housewife, problogger, Avon lady, aspiring novelist, artist, and more. Most importantly, I’m a Christian, and so is Hubby. We trust God to take care of and provide for us as we face trials. I write about a variety of things on this blog, as you can see from the category list on the left, but all of them are topics that I know personally.

Hubby and I also have a newly created vlog on YouTube.com/ocipura, which we’d love for you to check out. For more information about me, visit the About section of this website. And if you want to keep in touch, please, feel free to subscribe, follow me on Twitter, or visit my Facebook page!

I’ve been brought to a stand-still too many times by the phrase “I should.” It creeps into my thoughts from some kind of deep, dark corner of the blackest abyss of my mind. It hits me hardest in certain areas, making me think that trying my best isn’t enough because there are standards I should live up to. And if I don’t, I’m a failure.

I Should Keep House

This is one of the biggest shoulds that’s been hitting me lately, and maybe some of you can relate with me on this. Especially for me as a newlywed, the shoulds in homemaking can be paralyzing. I feel sometimes as if I should always have a perfect home. I should always have the dishes and laundry clean. And if there is a pile of laundry to do, or a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, I start feeling like a failure. I should always have clean floors, the shoes should always be kept in their assigned place, and everything should at least have the appearance of organization. The problem is that sometimes (or a lot of the time), I can’t keep up with all the cleaning I think I should do.

My husband, loving and supportive as he is, never blames me for this, and always praises me for how well I keep up. He encourages me to do what I can. For those who don’t hear that support on a regular basis, let me say to you that you don’t have to be perfect and neither do I! Our houses don’t always have to be perfect. In fact, sometimes your house will feel a lot more homey if it looks a little lived in. I try my best to keep up with the basics of washing and picking up, and every week I try to throw in some deeper cleaning that I don’t get to do all the time (scrub the areas that sometimes only get wiped down, for instance). And really, that’s enough.

I Should Be Happy

If I tell myself that I’m not entitled to my feelings, I will only end up feeling worse. It’s true! I know, because I’ve been stuck in that rut before – have gotten stuck for way too long at a time, if you ask me. Have you been there? Especially for those of us that have struggled with depression, the idea of something or someone dictating how we should feel can really make life tough.

I’ve had to come to terms with something: It’s okay to feel down.

After I accepted that, I had to accept something else: It’s okay to feel down for “no reason.”

I finally told myself that I don’t have to have anything resembling a legitimate reason for feeling down or depressed, upset or lonely, or anything negative. Why should I have a reason? I don’t have to have a reason to be happy, do I? This is the biggest piece of advice I can give to anyone struggling with depression. Allow yourself to feel all of your emotions, not just the positive ones! I find that if I let myself feel sad, I get over my sadness a lot more quickly than I would otherwise. If I let myself feel sad, I don’t get stuck in a loop of I feel bad BECAUSE I feel bad BECAUSE I feel bad about feeling bad because I feel bad. What?!

I Should Look Like…

Fill in the blank. There are countless ends to that sentence because we all have a slightly different idea of what we should look like. For me, it’s usually something like “thinner,” but no matter what it is, it’s usually wrong. Your loved ones accept what you look like; why can’t you? Everyone is unique, right? I remind myself that there’s no reason I “should” look like anything other than myself. And my mother pointed out to me that you can tell when someone is comfortable in her own skin. On the flip side, you can also tell when someone is self-conscious and too worried about her own looks to enjoy herself. Since weight is an issue for me, I have to remind myself that when I am conscious of and worried about my weight – that’s when other people will notice it.

Trying is Enough

“I should keep trying.” This is the only should that I consistently allow myself to think. I don’t even say that “I should keep trying my best” because sometimes I don’t feel like I can quite do that. But I should at least keep trying. I try to better myself. I try not to settle. I try to push for a little bit more, and, when I can’t, I try to accomplish what I’ve done before. By doing that, I’m succeeding.

Do you agree or disagree? Am I right to abolish “I should” in my life, or do you think we’d all be better off with some more shoulds? Let me know in the comments. You SHOULD leave a comment. Especially since I’ve written the would should so much now that it’s looking like it’s spelled wrong. The end.

Inspired by a xanga post I read earlier yesterday, I wanted to talk a little bit about being a housewife. I love being able to take care of our home. It’s a big job, and I know that if my husband and I both worked full-time outside jobs the house would suffer for it. But being a house-wife or a house-husband is about more than just housekeeping. (Let’s see, there’s budgeting, cooking, decorating, and some other things…  )

When I first read the above-mentioned post, I was really impressed by the author’s insight into things we might take for granted. I am still impressed. I am a pretty big fan of The Sims, starting from the first version of the PC game, which my best friend and I would stay up all night playing, at times (and go to bed dreaming of smoke alarms and green diamond things over everyone’s heads). I never really thought about all the ridiculous things in the game quite as in-depth as this before:

“If I don’t want to be with you anymore,
I simply don’t call you or invite you over,
and our relationship fades without the
drama of breakups.”

“I don’t have laundry and wearing the
same outfit everyday isn’t gross at all.”

Easy Peasy…

Sounds great! It would certainly make housekeeping much easier. I mean, sure there are some puddles to mop up when the sink breaks – or you could just leave them for a day and they’ll dry up on their own. And, of course, you still have to load the dishwasher even if unloading is magically automatic. I like the sound of that. Every meal take the same amount of time to make and creates very little mess and literally no clean-up aside from the dishes from which you eat. Dust is non-existent, as is mud – due to the lack of rain.

But Not So Different…

But that’s just the housekeeping side. What else is involved in being a housewife? In another post, I mentioned that I liked selling Avon because I could make my own hours. One of the important parts of being a housewife is for me to be able to be good company and a good helper for my spouse. I do that by trying to do most my my work while he is doing his work. That way, when he comes home, we can have a meal together, watch TV, play a video game, or just hang out. This applies even if when he comes home he wants to spend some time alone, doing his thing.

This is an area where I find real life to be very similar to The Sims. When I play The Sims, I find that I have to put quite a bit of concentrated effort into initially growing the relationship of the two Sims who I want to marry. After that, I sometimes forget that they still need to spend time together until one of them suddenly pops up with a wish to kiss his spouse or hug her, or woo-hoo with her. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind, even in a game like that, and forget that relationships require time and effort. Actually, they require much more time and effort than taking care of the house.

So To Wrap Up

Are there other similarities you see between The Sims and real housewiving? I didn’t want to include too much in one post, but feel free to bring up other aspects of being a housewife that you find equally important! What do you do to take care of your home and your family?