Becoming a Proverbs 31 kinda gal, step 1: Admitting that I have a problem and taking steps to fix it

May 14, 1:25 AMAnchorage Family ExaminerKellie Davis

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Since I have decided that I want to enter either the Mrs. Alaska America Pageant or the Mrs. Alaska United States Pageant in 2010, I have been giving a lot of thought to what I spoke of in that post. What matters to me? What do I want? I realized after the last pageant that I was in that I, in my overwhelmed and frazzled state seemed more like a poster girl for Planned Parenthood that of a happy married woman. Do not get me wrong, I was happy, but when I said how many kids I had and I was asked their ages, people cringed. I couldn’t understand why. My kids were great! The truth is, at that time, people knew that I was worn out, but I didn't know that. I was seldom on time and I was always forgetting things. They knew I was tired-and-wired, the wired part being why I never slowed down.

Before I started investigating pageants, I had started to think about what was a good way to be projected as a married woman and what pageants were trying to get out about us. Two close friends are very religious, one being a strict Muslim and the other an Orthodox Jew. I asked them what they thought about how I should present myself in the pageant, and while they don’t agree with my pageant wardrobe, they both (not knowing of each other's idea) suggested that I read Proverbs 31 and model myself after that. Read Proverbs 31 out loud! Even if you are not a Chrisitian, a Jew or a Muslim, you can apply it to a general term of running a house and appreciate the simple wisdom that it contains. The first portion is King Lemuel’s mother advising him how to be a good ruler. The rest of the proverb discusses what it is to be a good woman and wife. My eyes have scanned this a million times, but its' meaning never sank in. Reading this aloud had just as great of an impact on me as when I read the Lord’s Prayer as literature and not just something to be memorized. Just as the Lord’s Prayer breaks down how to pray and the frame of mind one should be in, Proverbs 31 breaks down that a good wife/mother/woman (children are not for everyone) takes care of her house and runs it like a business.

This is what pageants are looking for! A Proverbs 31 woman is savvy, spends her money well, clothes her family nicely and keeps them comfortable, and isn’t a procrastinator.
 

(Pageants also like you to look good. Mrs.--  pageants are not of the same standards and get a slightly different clientele than Miss pageants. Still, you want to look your best and be your best. For this I am working with a trainer. There shall be more on that later.)
 

The Proverbs 31 woman has her act together. I have lived in my home for over 10 years and I have not been able to thoroughly clean my house. I am always busy with something and when I get an area clean, other clutter fills its’ place. I had given up on it, but in deciding to be in a pageant, I have decided to not just get into shape, but to get the rest of my life in order so at the end of the evening I will come home to a beautiful house! Here to help me is Sarah Zeldman of Solutions for Busy Moms.

The first thing I did was write to her and get signed up to get into the program and have her be my coach. She is having a special that only lasts until May 15. Since today is May 15, you will want to see what time it ends. It is worth it.

Sarah Zeldman has gotten certification from Kathy Peel’s group, Family Manager. Kathy teaches that running a home is like running a business and she even forms business statements that have goals set out. Many families have benefitted from this. When I first read this, I thought it was dorky and silly. Then I looked around me at the clutter. Give me dorky and silly over my winging-it approach. Winging it hasn’t been working. I signed up.

After I got my code, I signed in and Family Manger first had me read over their creed:
 

THE FAMILY MANAGER CREED

I oversee the most important organization in the world
Where hundreds of decisions are made daily
Where property and resources are managed
Where health and nutritional needs are determined
Where finances and futures are discussed and debated
Where projects are planned and events are arranged
Where transportation and scheduling are critical
Where team-building is a priority
Where careers begin and end.
I am a Family Manager.
 

They want you to know that this is important. Homemaking is about creating the foundation of society! Women traditionally have this role. I grew up on the 1970’s and my mother was a major executive and ran the house (with some help.) I knew friends whose mothers were homemakers and I didn’t understand why they were not out with jobs, helping their husbands buy bigger homes or adding to the payroll. (My mother had a gift at what she did and worked not to buy stuff, but to accomplish extremely high goals.) Homemaking is hard work and there is a science to it, and I wonder how much was lost in the '70's Women's Movement. (I am not criticizing it, but much was lost while much needed women's rights were being fought for.) While I’ve yet to see the science brought in and so far only I have suggested that there is a science to this, I have started to see how it is broken down.

The program is broken down into 7 manageable areas: home and property; food; family and friends; finances; special events; time and scheduling; and self-management. When I took the assesment a couple of hours ago, it asked me to rate these areas. This took me about 30 minutes. What was hard about it was not blowing things off and giving them a "1" for me not being worried about it to realizing that I was worried about it, but that I had learned to live with it. My youngest is now 3 years old and not as needy as she once was. What I had tolerated and thought that I was content for several years as I kept giving birth and being exhausted chasing toddlers is now something with which I must confront and fix. I don't remember knowing an organized house since living at home with my parents.

I want to really hit home with my readership that this is not about being Martha Stewart of just organizing schtuff. This is about (among other things) getting your time under control, getting your family to work with you as a team and reducing clutter and chaos. One of the most important aspects is in learning to have time for traditions which make life meaningful, no matter what your faith. Once I had paid to get in to the site, I found information on what chores are age appropriate for the kids, and this will be an interesting concept to introduce to mine!

Over the coming weeks I will be detailing how this is going. I am a little embarrassed to take pictures of my clutter, but I think it is important to show it because it will show how far I shall have come.

In addition to regular exercise and eating healthy food, knowing how to spend my money on my home and being able to manage it makes me happier and less stressed. Stress causes premature aging of the face and by eliminating it where you can and maintaining it is a home beauty treatment that you just can't get at a salon or buy at the store!

Forgive me as I shamelessly plug one more article by Miss Sarah. Along with being a good home manager, you have to take care of yourself. The Jews know this! They wrote the Bible, they have it going on! Taking care of yourself is good because it allows the Eishes Chayil ("woman of valor") to do more good things (mitzvahs-- and if you do mitvahs, you get naches! Nachas give you simcha!) Check out this article over at Natural Jewish Parenting. Don't over indulge in yourself, but do make sure you take care of yourself. Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish group, also has some great advice.

The most important aspect of the 2010 pageant will not be in winning should I, God willing, compete and possibly win, but in having achieved the goals that I have set forth and conquering the self-and-circumstance-created obstacles that are in my way.