When I first came home and stepped away from “my career” I said yes to all the things and was never really focused on my home. As I said at the start, one of the blessings of my chronic health issues was being forced to be home and focus on home. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to just go-go-go all the time. I want to find the balance between housekeeping and hospitality. I want to have slow, quiet days and weeks. I want to be careful with my health. Housekeeping and Hospitality must be held in tension to stay in the golden mean.

Meal planning is an important skill to learn as a homemaker. Start somewhere and patiently playtest until you find a system that works for you. Not meal planning leaves you open to waste and excessive spending, frustration and anxiety, and blind to what is happening in your home.

Productivity is abundance, and abundance can be found in many places. Maybe the first place we should start is by seeking to love abundantly and to have an abundance of good attitudes.

Being here, being present, engaged in our homes and our churches is life-giving, life-keeping, hopeful, rebellious, screaming against the night, living by faith not by sight. Being home is true courage.

Let’s strive to be good stewards of our pantries. Let’s strive to watch our flows, our backstocks, and our decorating so that we bring order and wonder to the little corners of our worlds.