In the Need of Some Homemaking Inspiration?

It's hard to be a wife, mother, and homemaker sometimes. At times, I really enjoy my calling as a wife, mother, and homemaker, but at other times, I just feel plain burnt out.

And I really appreciate an honest, encouraging word every now and then. Sometimes I feel kind of lonely in my struggles as a wife, mother, and keeper of our home. That's why I appreciate resources that support our family's decision to keep me at home and encourage me in my role, my calling.

I had found Darlene Schacht's inspiring blog, Time-Warp Wife, sometime last fall. Instantly I was drawn to the vintage-inspired look of her blog. And then I began to read and browse her blog and was amazed at the massive amount of sound, Biblical, encouraging information she had written.

From encouraging posts on being a wife and mother to great housekeeping printables, Time-Warp Wife blog became a great source of motivation and inspiration for me as a wife, mother, and homemaker.

And I was greatly excited when I saw that Darlene was planning on releasing an e-book on being a godly wife and homemaker. And then one day I saw on Twitter that she was generously giving away copies to her readers to review on their blogs. Of course, I jumped right in on that opportunity!

I read Darlene's book, The Good Wife's Guide: Embracing Your Role as a Help Meet, in a couple of sittings. Not because it was a short book (it's actually 166 pages), but rather because I found it so inspiring and interesting. I have always been a sucker for books on homemaking. They have always seemed to re-motivate me to embrace my role as a homemaker, and that's exactly what this book did for me.

When I am looking at purchasing a book, I always appreciate good, thorough reviews that enable me to really see what the book is like from someone else's perspective. I also always really appreciate when the reviewer includes some of the specific content covered in the book; this always seems to help me decide on whether or not I think the book will be something helpful to me.

So may I share with you all some of the content included in this wonderful e-book?

Chapters include:

* Learning to Manage Ourselves
* Being Selfish Is Not Okay
* Group Your Life Inventory
* Time Well Spent
* My Desire For Curb Appeal
* Domestically Challenged
* What Will They Take Away?
* Repetition, Patter, Order
* Laughing Over Spilt Milk
* Biblical Submission Defined
* No Need of Spoil
* Living in Unity
* Toss Out 25 Things
* Organizing Your Home
* Housekeeping Schedule
* Deep Clean Your Kitchen in 5 Days
* Deep Clean Your Bedroom
* Deep Clean Your Bathroom

One of the things I really love about this book is how Darlene discusses discipline as an important factor in our success as wives and homemakers. There are going to be times when the last thing we feel like doing is another load of laundry or another sinkful of dishes, but we must remain disciplined so that we fulfill and complete our tasks so that our homes and our lives remain in order.

Along the lines of self-discipline, Darlene discusses the importance of prioritizing our lives and our days. She emphasizes the importance of prioritizing our individual relationships with God as a key factor in our success as wives, mothers, and homemakers.

Another great chapter was the one on time management. There are many distractions tempting us as homemakers. We must be very careful in how we spend (or waste) our time so that we can fulfill our roles to our full ability. In the days of Internet, homemakers have a big temptation right at their fingertips at any given time of the day. Darlene discusses managing our time wisely and how that benefits us in our daily lives.

In the chapter What Will They Take Away, Darlene devotes a section of the book to discussing our impact as mothers on our children's lives. What will our children take away with them when they one day spread their wings and leave the nest? How are we as mothers positively impacting our children and their lives? Are we approaching our roles as mothers with a good, positive, godly attitude? One of my favorite things about this chapter is that she includes Scriptures for each room or your house. For example, the verse for the laundry room is from Psalm 113:3 ~ From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised. I know that that is a good Scripture for me to meditate on as I stand, once again, in a mountain of laundry on Monday morning. :)

A chapter that I think a lot of women would be interested in is the chapter on Biblical submission. I have found that many women are confused as to what Biblical submission to our husbands entails. Darlene does a great job of clarifying this command for us as women to submit to our husbands.

The second part of her book is entitled "Practical Application." I loved this part of the book!

Basically, this part of the book included information and checklists on how to take control of our households. This is the part of the book where Darlene gives her readers tips on how to organize and clean.

I loved her very detailed cleaning lists. As I have discussed on here before, my time as a homeschooling mom leaves little time for the weekly deep cleans that I used to do before I had children. Although Darlene does include a weekly cleaning schedule that I probably wouldn't use at this point in my life, I did reap some information from it that was helpful. And her detailed cleaning lists for the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom are awesome! I mean, really truly awesome and something that would be a great tool at spring-cleaning time! I really love these lists and will definitely refer to them in the future!!!

I also really appreciated all of her little tips and tricks on how to organize and store items in your home. Most of these were ideas that I either had already read about elsewhere or already utilize, but it's very helpful to have the ideas all together in one area to refer to as needed.

This was a great, encouraging book on the topic of being a godly wife, mother, and homemaker. I really enjoyed reading it, and I found it very motivating and inspiring!

You can purchase this book for your Kindle through Amazon.com (The Good Wife's Guide: Embracing Your Role as a Help Meet) or you can also purchase it as a downloadable PDF here.

Have a great Friday!