Time management is hard. Books and YouTube videos abound with all manner of tips, tricks, and systems. You can make an Ideal Week with Michael Hyatt, time block with Cal Newport, or manage your calendar with David Allen. Maybe you even landed here at Simply Convivial because you came across my articles or videos on…
One evening, four months postpartum, I was folding laundry. Everywhere my eyes landed, I saw work I ought to do. Nothing was satisfactory. I felt like I was busy all day, going no where. I indulged that story, replaying it over and over with each towel I folded, a towel I’d probably be washing again…
My oldest son is getting married this summer and my second son just moved out. The family inside my home, the ones I feed and instruct are contracting, not expanding. At least, that’s the way it looks and feels when I plan dinners and school schedules. Once, before our youngest was born, my husband reminded…
As we decluttering our living spaces, finding the motivation to start and maintain progress can often feel daunting. However, by understanding the concept of traction and applying it to decluttering, we can unlock the potential to create organized spaces. In February, during our annual Declutter Challenge, we discussed what decluttering traction looks and feels like…
Homemaking is a truly honorable endeavor, but one that’s easy to lose the vision for as we get lost in the details and distractions of a busy life. Homes are the building block of society, so tending them is much more than the physical upkeep. Our work as mothers is spiritual even in the midst…
In my part of the world, it’s still cold, gray February. Spring feels very far away. I know that when the sun comes out, I’ll want to overhaul the whole house and scrub it down…and I’ll be tempted to skip school in order to do so. Maybe it’s spring in your neck of the woods…
When I was a young mom and homemaker, I read blogs and books on keeping house better. I didn’t love housework, but I did want to do a good job. I wanted to be a good housewife, a good homemaker. I would try to do the cleaning routines promoted by bloggers. I copied lists and…
When I was young, to suggest that there was such a thing as women’s work was considered backward, oppressive, and dumb. Now the noise-makers of the culture have moved on to trying to say that you can’t even say what a woman is with certainty, much less women’s work. So can we abandon their skepticism…
Is society falling apart around us? It’s easy to make the case that it is. The social decay downstream from the moral decay is evident. Perhaps it makes you want to hunker down and hide in your home. That might not be a bad tactic, because women are the backbone of society, and home is…
I bet I’m not the only one who has stood in the middle of the house, staring. Everywhere I looked, there was a task screaming for my attention. Every room needed to be decluttered, cleaned, and organized. It felt like there wasn’t a single thing that was the way it was supposed to be. The…