In my recent article, “Outsourcing the Home”, I warn about the trend of homesteading influencers that are encouraging overwhelmed women to outsource their duties in the home.
So here I am, doing the opposite of those foolish influencers by encouraging women to keep going, to not give up just yet.
Below, I’ll breakdown how I have created a peaceful rhythm and daily joy in our home…
Like homeschooling, it wasn’t always this way. Up until a few years ago, I was a good mother and wife. But I wasn’t Godly. Therefore, I was an awful wife. You see, my measurement of what made me good wouldn’t have filled up a teaspoon.
One day, I decided to invite God into my heart, into my marriage, and into our home to live with us, forever. Resulting in the Devil being kicked out to the curb with the garbage.
That’s when things changed dramatically.
Our home went from, chaos to peace, confusion to order, constant fighting to intentional respect, anger to love, bitterness to gratitude, from dark to light.
It’s taken some time to get to this place. Not just joy. But daily joy.
Creating a Family Rhythm
Your family’s circadian rhythm is a great place to start. Circadian rhythm is the body’s internal 24-hour clock that regulates the sleep-wake cycle, hormones, and metabolism. Basically the lighthouse for your health. Having proper alignment improves energy, mood, and sleep quality on an individual level. It is vital for a family to sync up into one whole rhythm. “Wake up together, go to sleep together.”
Here’s our day to give you an example:
6AM: Mama wakes up, makes herbal tea, Bible study.
7AM: The sun rises and the family is up! I make coffee and breakfast for my husband and pack his lunch. I make breakfast for the boys. The boys feed the dogs and let them out.
(On Saturdays, my husband and I get up before the boys and go outside to sit and listen to the ruckus of birds together.)
7:45AM: Say goodbye to my husband and walk him to his vehicle. He usually leaves me with some goals/tasks he would like for the boys and I to get accomplished for the day.
8AM: Read a book or write (Hello, there!) Quiet time for boys.
8:30AM: Deep stretch/workout. Boys completing “morning steps”. (I’ll talk about this further.)
9AM: School
11AM: Lunch
12PM-4PM: Depending on which day it is and where I am in my cycle, this time could be for errands, cleaning, chores, gardening, socializing with friends, or rest.
5PM: Cooking dinner
6PM: Eating Dinner
7PM: I am usually cleaning up the kitchen and tidying up the house for the next day. The boys are completing “night time steps”. In the summer, when the days are longer, they will go outside and play. On Thursday nights, we watch an educational documentary, on Fridays we watch a family-friendly movie, on Sunday is family game night.
When the sun goes down, it’s time for bed. We snuggle, sing songs, rub backs, read books, chat, and say prayers.
Alone time for me and my husband
By 9:30PM the whole house is asleep. See ya in the morning!
It’s important to find your family’s rhythm. This is the anchor to your family’s health and the joy of your home!
Routine
I briefly mentioned parts of our routine above describing our daily rhythm. The difference between routine and rhythm is that your family’s routine encompasses the tasks, rules, and values your family practices without having to think about it. Routine brings structure into a home.
This includes your daily schedule. Your family’s schedule should create order. If it does not, take a pause, step back and figure out what is causing chaos in your schedule and either change it or eliminate it all together.
Prioritize what is important to your family’s schedule. What needs to be done every week for your home to thrive and eliminate the things that simply don’t add peace to your home. Like I mentioned in the last article, this may be a radical change for your family that comes with great sacrifice more often than not. However, I’ve found it is always worth it.
The best way to create a joyful rhythm, is to communicate daily with your family. Ask your husband and children what’s not working for them. Focus more on the things that seem to be creating joy in your family.
Rules, Values, Vision
Create Rules, Values, and Vision to your home by communicating daily, taking time for training, and creating a shared vision together.
Having rules for children is a part of that oh-so-very important structure in a home.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” This means spiritually, mentally, and physically. Training children is like training animals. It’s true! It takes a load of patience, consistency, and follow through. I highly recommend reading and implementing the book, “If I Have To Tell You One More Time" by Amy McCready.
Part of our family’s vision is to work hard and to be an asset to our home. It is also to serve, protect, and respect one another daily.
Most importantly, God lives in this home. He is everywhere. In the cleaning, the meals, the serving acts, the words we speak, in the rare silent moments, the things we watch, he is at the dinner table, at bedtime, out in the garden, he is everywhere, being praised, and talked about, and reminded, and lived.
Planning & Prioritizing
Planning meals has always been something I have struggled with, but have found it is a huge source of joy for my family. It minimizes chaos when I have all the ingredients for meals. I’ve found it helps to anticipate my family’s hunger before it presents as grouchiness.
The majority of our food is from scratch, home-cooked, healthy meals.
I cook or keep food readily available for growing, hungry fellas, like a variety of fruits and cheeses they can grab, there is always a baked good on the counter. We try to avoid prepackaged snacks, as they are typically void of nutrients. We want food to fuel our loved ones.
I make extra food in order for there to be left-overs for lunch the next day.
We have a rule that we don’t comment on what or how much anyone else is eating. If your family eats very healthy foods, and is very active like we are, there is no need to limit or shame when it comes to eating. However, it is important to know when we are eating out of boredom or if we are actually meeting our bodies need for fuel.
Homeschool Planning
We talked about homeschool in my last post. If you homeschool, I recommend reading that more in-depth article, “Daily Joy: HOME-schooling”.
Other ways to utilize planning in your home may be with gardening (which I will be publishing that article soon) and household chores. Keeping the physical home can be a lot of work and one of the most overwhelming sources of stress. Let’s explore how to go from bitterness over dishes to finding gratitude over a heap of laundry…
Keeping a Clean Home
Create a cleaning schedule to keep chores from piling up and swallowing you whole. Dedicate a time each day for routine cleaning like dishes, sweeping, etc. This should take no more than 30 minutes out of your family’s day. Additionally, dedicate another 30 minutes to deep cleaning each day. Maybe that looks like dusting on Mondays, laundry on Tuesdays, Mopping on Wednesdays, Bathrooms on Thursdays, and so on. Or decide to deep clean all at once one day a week each week. Just remember to rest on the Sabbath!
Being Intentional
Beware of idling. Of course we need rest, but it is so easy for homemakers to fall into the trap of laziness, being inactive, avoiding our work, and spending our time unwisely.
Utilize your time wisely. The biggest and worst distraction for this generation of homemakers is the screen. More specifically, social media. My advice, ditch it! “But, but, but, I use it for…” As someone that hasn’t used social media in 2 years, I can without a doubt say I have not needed it for a single thing. Read more about life without social media in my article, “An Exodus”. Not one single good thing on social media is worth the time it steals from you, your home, your work, or your family. It’s killing your joy, sister.
Delegating
When it comes to routine, schedule, tasks, chores, everyone has a role in this family. If your child can walk, they can help. Never underestimate how capable your children are of taking on tasks. We always remind our boys that they are to be an asset to this family. They get age-appropriate tasks to complete and goals to accomplish each day. Whether we’re gardening, working in the coop, cleaning the house, we’re all in it together.
My husband and I have also decided which household responsibilities are mine and which are his. Basically everything outside (aside from the chickens and garden) are his duties; trash, mowing, washing cars, fixing and building, cutting down trees, any physically demanding tasks are his. Everything inside is mine. Cooking, cleaning, organizing, and decorating are just a few of my responsibilities.
What keeps peace and order in our home…not just doing our individually designated tasks, but doing them with pride and honor. The best way to serve your family is to do your work selflessly and with gratitude.
Do it with gratitude, sis! I get to wash dirty uniforms because I have a husband who provides for us. I get to pick up a million Legos because I have 2 children God blessed us with. I get to clean the dishes because that means we had food on our plates. I have a beautiful house to keep and God gave me a family to make it messy.
Cultivate Beauty
Order & Organizing
In our home, every single thing has its place. Start a habit of always putting things away. Take the extra few steps to put things away where they belong.
I am constantly surprised to find that many homes don’t have curtains. They may have those flimsy plastic blinds or nothing at all on the windows. Lovely curtains can make such a difference to the feel of your home. Aim to find neutral-colored, natural fabric, semi-sheer curtains. Sheer alone will not give you privacy that your home needs to feel comfortable, though heavy curtains will disrupt your home’s light source.
Add life! Plants not only look beautiful, but they literally bring life to a home. I also like to bring in fresh-cut flowers to the kitchen table.
Add a book shelf with a wide variety of great reads. Stack a few vintage hardbacks on a console table or ottoman. Keep wildlife or seed magazines on a tray.s
Ditch the fake and generic! Did you know God created human beings, animals, plants and all of nature with the same electrical energy? Man-made, synthetic materials, like plastics disrupt our natural energy flow. Without getting to hippie-dippie on you, try getting rid of the synthetic goods in your home and you’ll notice a huge shift in the spirit of your home. Replace fake goods with real wood, ceramics, glass, and other natural materials.
Add wicker baskets, glass containers, wooden utensils, cotton napkins.
Replace generic art with real vintage art. I have a rule, if the decor is a word or quote, ditch it. Really anything that doesn’t have a story doesn’t belong in our home.
Make it cozy. Add wool blankets and soft pillows to couches and beds.
Add more natural colors, patterns, and textures to lower heart rate, reduce mental fatigue, and promote feelings of tranquility.
Bright colors and bold patternswill increase dopamine release and excitement, overstimulating the brain, resulting in anxiety.
Minimize and simplify! Time to get rid of all the things that are weighing you down and serving little to no purpose. If you haven’t used it or worn in in 2 years, either trash it, donate it, or capsule it. Your capsule is a box of items that you don’t use anymore but are worth handing down to your children someday. These items should fit into one box, ladies! No hoarding, even family heirlooms.
Essentially, in order to cultivate beauty, your home should be clean, decluttered, organized, and comfortable!
Peace
Rest may look like sitting to read a book for an hour, it may look like a warm bath at the end of the day, it may look like paper plates every once in awhile. Rest may look like saying “no”, eliminating some chores or obligations, staying home. Rest may look like sitting down, lying down, taking a nap. Rest may look like prayer, listening, being still with God. Whatever form of rest you need today, sister, know that it is essentially for your home's daily joy.
Noise is something most folks don’t think of when it comes to the peace of their home. Noise overwhelms us more than we realize. There are often a number of noises occurring in a home at once. Laundry is thumping, water running in the sink, music on the speaker, audio book playing on the laptop, talking on the phone, television is on in the living room, dogs barking, children playing loudly, husband shouting something inaudible from the other room, the timer is going off on the oven. All those noises affect our home’s peace. Reduce the noise, sister!
We have 2 noise rules in our home…
1. There cannot be more than 2 noises occurring at once. If I am washing dishes and listening to an audio book on my phone, and my child comes up to show me the picture he drew, and wants to explain it in detail, I ask him to pause, let me finish the dish in my hand, turn off the water, and then let him have his turn.
2. No shouting across the house. If you need to speak to one another, walk your happy behind into the room they are in, then politely speak at a standard, conversational volume.
Try a noise fast. I recommend doing it throughout the day. Maybe cook dinner or fold laundry with no television, music, or podcast playing. Let me tell you, this is when I hear God the most often.
Keep a Lighthearted Home
We were recently invited to my husband’s colleague’s home for a dinner party to celebrate an event occurring that weekend. Their college-aged children had come into town, along with their parents and a few friends. It was a marvelous time with good food, thoughtful conversation, playful banter, story-telling, games, and silly party-tricks. It was a casual, no fuss affair, with folks moving freely through a lovely home. There was loads of laughter and true connection. I left with a realization that perhaps we were missing some of these pieces in our home.
Keep a lighthearted home by…
Keeping a clean, tidy home. But let the mess be during the “living hours.” Don’t obsess over cleanliness when your family is active or when you have company. There is a time to clean and a time to let it go.
Keeping decor minimal, but intentional. It’s important to cultivate beauty in our home, but be mindful not have expensive, “fancy” decor. You want your family to be comfortable and company to feel relaxed, yet inspired.
Having food and drink available and plenty for your family and any guests to your home. Food is one of the biggest ways to make others feel loved and cared for.
Setting up your home to be easily movable, with indoor and outdoor seating, and areas to eat comfortably. No one wants to trip over a dog bed on the floor, or struggle with a broken door knob (Hello, our old house!), or eat a spaghetti dinner while sitting on a sofa.
Play. Throw a ball outside, play a board game inside, or chase each other around the house. We call this “getting the wiggles” out, or releasing pent-up energy. It’s important to expel energy in a positive way.
Put on some music and dance. We do this often! Good music can relax us and dancing releases endorphins. This is another great way to make positive memories in your home.
Laugh and make jokes. Be silly. My children love it when I make a funny face, or pretend to be mad, but they get tickled instead, or when I break out a funny dance move. I about pee my pants when my husband does a funny impression. Just the other day, he was doing a whole monologue of the birds in our backyard that had our family giggling up a storm. Laughter is a great way to break up grumpiness, promote peace, and create positive memories. Having a light heart in your home is truly the key ingredient to joy.
~Casey
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