I don't usually pick a word to focus on, a theme for the year, but this year I feel compelled to and the word that I am drawn to is HOME.
After such a wild ride the past four years, when so many "fires" have needed to be put out, when life has felt so challenging, homekeeping hasn't been about more than the basics for me. And that is fine. I am a firm believer that you do what you need to and you let go of the rest.
But lately I feel like that chapter of our lives is coming to an end. Things are starting to feel calmer around here and more like, dare I say it? Normal.
Or at least what passes for normal at the Fleck household.
Outwardly, that means I feel like I can give more time to the blog, my writing, my knitting, to the kids' activities, and to our social calendar and to things in the outside world (within reason, of course. I've learned my lesson about taking on too much, I hope).
Inwardly, I feel like I can shift my focus to the literal walls and foundation around us: our home.
Which is not to say that life as a caregiver to my special needs adult sister-in-law (who has many medical needs) and as a homeschooling mother to four children, each with their own needs of me as their mother, doesn't require quite a bit of focus on the PEOPLE, because it absolutely does.
But, more and more, we have fallen into our rhythm and our habits and things flow, even when it is busy, there's a flow. And, in that flow, I'm finding a tiny bit of margin. I'm finding a pause and a lifting of some of the burdens that have been on my shoulders for a long time.
Some of that is, quite simply, my children are growing older. The hands around me can, to varying degrees, be helpful hands and not just little hands that need my constant guidance.
(And here is the pause where I want to go back and tell Kara with four children, three under the age of five, to hang in there!)
And, thankfully, some of the medical challenges we've been facing appear to be under control and we can manage the care now - it's not the constant state of emergency and uncertainty it was just this time last year when Angela was having seizures often and we had no idea how to stop them or what was going on.
I may come back to eat my words, but it seems like the storms over our household as starting to subside.
So, HOME is going to be my focus and where I direct most of my energy for 2017.
What is this going to look like? Well, since I haven't really ever picked a word for a year, I'm not sure if there are specific guidelines, but this is my own Kara recipe.
Decluttering, Cleaning, Homekeeping
Working through the Declutter 365 calendar from Home Storage Solutions 101
Working through The Confident Mom's Weekly Household Planner I've personally used this for years. You can purchase add on packs, but the original planner is FREE.
Adjusting my Habit Stacking as needed and developing a better homekeeping rhythm.
We're transitioning to a phase in life where we have no more babies or toddlers here and soon our preschool days will be behind us, too. This is bittersweet, but also a great opportunity to go through each room in the house and make sure we're only keeping what we truly need and love and letting the board books, toddler toys, and other things move on to new homes.
Cleaning more often than I do currently. I'm hoping cleaning more often will mean it is easier over time, instead of the big job that most everything is when I don't devote regular time to it.
We have a list of projects and repairs we need to do to our home, but our budget dictates we will have to tackle this slowly, room by room and in order of importance.
Keeping our projects as frugal as possible, while still doing them well.
In some cases, we've already purchased the supplies we need for a project but we have yet to schedule the time, so I want us to dedicate time to our home and get those tasks knocked off the list.
Keeping up with my weekly (mindful) Merry Making lists
I alternate between rolling my eyes about it and admiring it, but I'm seriously considering wearing an apron during the day. It feels like a part of the "uniform" of a homemaker, but I can also see the many practical reasons to wear one. And then I go back to the eye rolling. Ha! I'm still not sure about this one. I think it's going to come down to finding the RIGHT apron for me that doesn't make me feel silly.
Speaking of uniforms, I need to come up with a simpler system for getting myself dressed and ready to go during the weeks. Over the holidays my "uniform" on days we didn't leave the house was warm leggings, a long sleeved thick cotton dress, a cardigan, and wool socks, slipping my feet into my loafers when I needed to. I don't think I would dress like this outside of the home, but I felt comfortable physically AND felt comfortable receiving company this way on casual at home days.
Enlisting my family to help out more (I have a tendency to just do things myself and then I get resentful).
Requiring a higher standard when it comes to how they care for, put away, etc. their own individual belongings and spaces (i.e. dropping jackets on the floor when they come in the door, leaving cups and dishes around the house, putting away their own laundry, etc).
Having the kids be more involved in preparing our meals. This is another thing I used to be pretty good about, but have slipped on.
Are you sensing how getting the kids more involved is a major part of my overall HOME theme for 2017? Because it is. I keep thinking about how part of my job is to prepare them for life after they live here and I'm not sure I've been doing the best at that so far. This year, it's really going to be something I focus on.
Reading, Researching, Inspiration
Some of these books I already own, some I've already read, and some are brand new to me. Do you have any others that you would recommend I add to my list?
A Year of Puttery Treats by Alison May Putting into practice the ones that are a good fit for my life.
Simple Abundance by Susan Ban Breathnach I have a used copy of this and the gratitude journal, but I'm not sure I'll use both.
Simply Clean: The Proven Method for Keeping Your Home Organized, Clean, and Beautiful in Ten Minutes a Day by Becky Rapinchuck This book comes out this Spring
At Home with Madame Chic by Jennifer Scott
Little House Living: the Make-Your-Own Guide to a Frugal, Simple, and Self-Sufficient Life by Marissa A. Aalink I'm fairly certain I am not entirely in a "make your own" phase of life right now, in fact I'm taking help where I can get it in the form of convenience, but I've been flipping through this book for a few weeks now and I appreciate the thought behind the lifestyle.
Do the 30 day challenge in The Art of Homemaking by Alison May but I'm going to give myself more than 30 days
Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels, whose blog The Inspired Room I have been a fan of for many years now.
The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful this one is a re-read, and The Nester is another blog I've been reading for a long time.
Family Life
ABOVE ALL ELSE, I want us to feel like this is a place where we are safe. Whatever else is going on in the outside world, I want my family to feel like home is where they are loved, where they are supported, where they can be silly or angry or sad or indecisive or courageous or whatever is going on with them, these four walls, this place we live is their shelter, their true HOME.
Make sure that we're balancing our activities with down time.
Re-establish our Friday Night Nest tradition, where we watch a movie, play a game, or do a puzzle together as a family. We used to have family art nights, too and I'd love to get back into the habit of that.
Add more personal touches, artwork, and photos to our decor. I have quite a few pictures printed, thanks to Shutterfly codes, but I need to get them framed and actually up on the walls and bookshelves.
Have the kids and Angela take on more responsibilities and do more teaching about what it takes to maintain a home, from chores to the care and keeping of our space.
Take greater care in how I set the table for meals. I used to be really good about this, but I've fallen into the paper plates, paper towels as napkins route. There's nothing wrong with that if that's the season of life you're in, it just isn't the way I like to have things be all the time.
Playing music and listening to music throughout the day. We started this habit over the holiday season and I have just loved the way it contributes to the atmosphere around here. Normally those of us who regularly listen to music would be plugged into individual headphones, and that still happens and I don't see anything wrong with that - in a home with seven people, you take your solitude where you can get it, but it is also quite nice to share the experience of listening to music and playing music together. I love it!
Regarding that last one, take up teaching the kids who want to learn piano lessons again (another thing I used to be good about, but that has dropped to the wayside over the past few years with so much else going on).
Elevensies and Tea Time: scheduling time in the morning and the afternoon for a break, a small snack, and shifting into the next part of the day. I'd love to accompany this with some poetry reading or read aloud time eventually, but for now I just want to focus on the creating these pauses in the day. I think that I will benefit the most from this, as I tend to go full speed once the kids wake up each day, but the kids will see some benefits from this, too.
HOME. That's my plan for 2017: caring and keeping this place and devoting myself to this place and the people who live here in a way that I'm not sure I have before (at least, I know I haven't in this current phase of life).