Making Your Home Sing Monday: What's YOUR Mom Uniform?

Welcome to the Making Your Home Sing Monday meme! Every day you are doing something to make your house into a home for yourself and your family (if you have one). My point with each Monday post is, what are you doing or going to do today to make your home sing?

It can be an attitude or an action. Motivation, our attitude, baking, encouraging our husband or children (if we have either one), organization, cleaning, saving money....the opportunities are endless.

What do you think of when you hear the words "mom uniform." What image comes to your mind?

If I dropped by your house for lunch today or tomorrow and surprised you, what would I find you wearing? Would you still be in pajamas? Are yoga pants and your husband's t-shirt your daily clothing of choice? Would you be all cute-tified and looking like you should be on the cover of a fashion magazine?

When my husband and I were dating I dressed up. A lot. I always did my hair and I always put on makeup and I wore dresses, slacks, sweaters/blazers, and nice shirts to work and quite often at home too.

After we married, I "relaxed" my wardrobe a bit and wore lots of jeans, but still with nice tops. I almost always wore makeup. I continued to wash and style my hair.

After the children came I "relaxed" even more. Way more. Makeup became a thing of the past. My hair went up into the requisite pony tail and didn't come out of it for eighteen years. ;0)

T-shirts and jeans were my style of choice. I began to "save" all my nice clothes for Sunday and the occasional dinner out. If you're a mom on a budget you know those dinners out are few and far between.

I began to view anything other than a t-shirt and jeans as "dressing up." Why should I "dress up" when I was only going to be drooled on or spit up on or po0ped on? Why should I "dress up" when I was only going to change diapers, wipe runny noses, and pick up after my lego-dropping children all day.

As the years went by my husband and children saw me day after day in an endless parade of t-shirts or sweatshirts and jeans. I don't mean those cute fitted tees that you can get nowadays. I mean those big, roomy t-shirts that usually have labels on them.

Do you recognize yourself at all here? Have you "relaxed" how you look, dress and how you wear your hair over the years? Step away from the computer right now and go look at yourself in a full-length mirror. Does it look like you care about how you look? Do you care?

Please don't think that I'm saying you can't be cute in yoga pants or leggings and a big sloppy shirt or sweater. I've seen gals in leggings and oversized shirts or sweaters and they look cute and fashionable to me!

But I suppose if we can go from bedtime to daytime without even having to change our clothes, maybe it's time to think about the message we're sending to ourselves and to others.

While we don't want to be vain, shouldn't we be taking care of this body that God has given us? Look at all the beauty that God has created on this earth, a sunset, a hillside of flowers, a waterfall. Our God is a God of mercy, love, forgiveness, and beauty. Should we seek to reflect God's beauty on the inside and ignore the outside?

I think there is a difference between "relax" and simplify. I have seen lots of moms over the years who have streamlined their hairstyles, makeup and clothing, and yet they look adorable and like they take ownership over how they look.

If you have streamlined your look, good for you! That is awesome. I did not simplify. I just got lazy. I did not take ownership. Ownership means you care and accept responsibility for something.

I used having children as an excuse to not care about how I looked. Because I was too busy and because who saw me anyway? Just my family, and they are supposed to love me no matter what, right?

The kids got older and no longer drooled and spit up on me, and yet still I maintained my mom uniform. Because now it was all about comfort. I still saved my cute clothes for something other than my daily wear.

Recently I had been participating in a meme called What I Wore Wednesday to encourage myself to get out of my mom uniform rut. Except I haven't participated in it for a few weeks. Once that happened I started slipping into old habits again.

This week I am getting back on board with What I Wore Wednesday. If you find yourself getting lazy about your personal appearance, I encourage you to rethink your mom uniform this week. After all, why should we only look our best for other people? What about for our family? Aren't they worth "dressing up" for? What about you? Don't you deserve it?

What's your mom uniform? If you're not a mom, what's your "weekend" uniform? Get out of your rut. Put on some of your cute clothes (instead of "saving" them), fix your hair and slap on some makeup (if you wear it) and make your home sing this week.

What are you doing or going to do today to make your home sing? Please go here for instructions and/or ideas and come back here to link up to join us today! Please do not put your own "Making Your Home Sing Monday" Linky on your blog. As always, please don't forget to link to this post. Also, please don't forgot to leave me a comment!

If you want to use your blog header or profile picture, use the "from the web" button on your right (after you click to link up). If you want to use a picture from your computer use the button on your left (unless the picture is on your blog). Please let me know if you have any problems with linking up.