‍ The only thing that really kept me on the rails was my chickens living by the sun—I need to let them out early in the mornings and lock up behind them in the evenings—and my own chronic fatigue issues. Otherwise, those ten days would have been a much bigger disaster with my husband coming home to a strung-out wife. As single ladies, you don’t want to live a strung-out life. You may not have a husband coming home, but that doesn’t make it wise to live without schedules, rhythms, and routines. You need consistency now, not sometime in the possible future. You need to sleep, work, rest, recreate in a rhythm that works for your physical and mental abilities now, not sometime down the road.

Hospitality is sheltering human finiteness with love and compassion and understanding. This means we must take into account the physical needs of the people around us. This work is how we build strong cultures within our families and strong communities and connections with those outside our four walls.

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.

Lofty goals and expectations are good for us. It’s important to be diligent and to stretch ourselves. But it’s also important to correctly judge the type of work we’re called to. Our domestic arts are very cyclical and continuous. They don’t stop because we’re in the business of tending souls through ordinary things like cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

Systems are one of the greatest tools in our tool chest of tending. They’re how we keep this thing called home grinding along. They’re how we keep things from getting missed or lost or forgotten. Everyone, even the more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants homemakers have systems. The goal is to see them, test their legitimacy, tweak slowly, and be better keepers and tenders because of labor. Let’s roll up our sleeves, tie back our hair, and get to work!