The Intentional Home, Week Three: Friday

For an Introduction and Table of Contents for The Intentional Home, click Here.

Week Three: Friday

...and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:2

If you’re still hanging in there at this point, then you deserve a day to either just get your daily chores done or catch up a little as needed. I hope you are beginning to see the beauty of the daily chores and how clean your house will remain just by devoting a few minutes to these daily. Remember, once you’ve done all of your clutter removing, they will go even faster.

Also, I hope that you are seeing more beauty in your home, especially your living area after this week. You might consider playing soft music, lighting candles or buying fresh flowers to add even more warmth and beauty to your space. Letting some light in can do wonders for the feel of a room as well.

I also wanted to encourage you if you have a difficult time preparing dinners for your family. Having home cooked meals is so important to spending time together as a family especially at dinner time. I’ve found a little system that is helping me with dinner planning which was an area that I was struggling in. My friend, Natalie, shared her system of having a dinner theme for each night of the week. For instance, each Monday will be a pasta meal. So, she will rotate her family's favorite pasta dinners on Monday nights. You can see how this system works on the chart below.

Of course, you can substitute themes that would work better for your family. I try to keep things easy when I know that we will be having a busy day.

I know the late afternoon/early evening can be a difficult time of the day if you are a stay-at-home mom of small children. Here is something I wrote a couple of years ago to encourage moms of little one with dinner preparation:

"Piranha hour", otherwise known as "unreasonable request hour". If you have small kids, you know what I'm talking about. It's that hour right before your husband comes home from work. The kids are cranky, hungry, needy, and you are trying to get dinner on the table. If someone is going to fall down and scrape a knee, it's gonna happen then. It can be a very stressful time a day. What if this could be a peaceful time of day? How would this change your mood when your husband walks in the door?

Here's a few suggestions that have worked for me. First, the crock pot is your friend. You can have your dinner prepared and the kitchen clean right after breakfast. My children have always been happiest in the morning, that is a wonderful time to go ahead and get dinner taken care of. I have also only ruined one crock pot meal; that was a very sad day, I forgot to plug the thing in, oops!

Another idea, go ahead and do all the preparations you can for dinner right after lunch. That may include chopping veggies, putting a casserole together, whatever prep you have to do, just so you are not doing everything during that stressful time of day. Notice a pattern here: I am cooking/preparing right after another meal when I will already be cleaning up dishes, etc. Also, after lunch is usually a nice time to let the kids either nap, have quite time or watch a show.

Now that my kids are getting a little bigger, three and five, I've found it's really fun to let them help with the dinner preparations. Of course, give the children age appropriate jobs, which may just be putting cheese in a bowl. They will be so proud for helping Mommy with dinner, be sure to brag on them when Daddy gets home. This is also a win-win. They get to have my attention, but I am still getting dinner made. Just remember someday you may just look at these years with children hanging from your pant legs as the happiest years of your life. Enjoy it now!

Daily Chores: 
One load of laundry from start to finish
Make your bed
Unload the dishwasher in the morning, load and run it at night
Wipe down the kitchen counters and sink 

Wipe down the bathroom counters and sinks