There is something about being home all day with the kids, and the cooking, cleaning, and general chaos that can be mind-numbing. I often hear, “The days are long, but the years are short,” which is oh-so-true, and yet the struggle of how to deal with those long days is grueling.

I don’t want to merely deal with the long days, praying to make it until nap time. I want to learn contentment and how to thrive in the monotony — to create a haven for my family amidst the chaos because waiting for the chaos to stop or even to slow down means never really living.

I feel like all my life I was waiting for the next thing — graduating, getting married, having babies. I need something to focus on and to expect. Sadly, this is also how I miss out on living. I have no profound solution to this problem (although I have tried everything I could find, anything that might offer a solution) but I want to journey through this and figure it out. I want to be somewhere new next year, somewhere new within myself and with God.

Maybe there isn’t a profound solution; maybe much to my disappointment it really is learning the one thing at a time that calms the 5 minutes of insanity right after the kids wake up, or that helps curb the desire to spend $1000 to redecorate my living room when I am feeling bored. Maybe the key to thriving at home is just one small solution at a time.

In the meantime, one thing I can think of to do about it is to stay busy. That is my goal with this blog — to share the little things in our days at home that help to build a haven in the chaos. Because that is what I want my home to be, a haven of chaos.