Help! I’m running out of imagination. Like I shared inthis post, we have people over a lot. Currently, I’m feeding guests twice every Sunday (lunch and dinner). Lunch often has to serve eight to fifteen people, and dinner has to serve twenty to thirty. Also, since I want things to be as low stress as possible, and I want to actually spend time with everyone rather than hiding in my kitchen all day, I try to do the majority of the work beforehand. (Can anyone say “crock pot?”) My repertoire is a bit limited, And I NEED MORE RECIPES. Does anyone have any ideas for me?

Use hospitality one to another without grudging. –1 Peter 4:9

I’m an introvert…and a perfectionist…and my house has an open door policy. We host a church meeting/fellowship meal once a week, and have guests over usually at least once a week also, and frequently that is entirely spur of the moment. Sometimes we’ll have company multiple nights in a row. My husband and I feel really burdened to love people through meeting their needs, and that so often means giving them a meal and spending time with them. Did I mention I’m an introvert and a perfectionist? Oh, and I have four small children. It’s been a stretching experience.

Here’s what I’m learning.

Treat every day like company’s coming.

In the old days, you know, before we had multiple children, I would spend the entire day getting ready for company that was coming in the evening. I cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, dusted, and cooked.  We moved our piles of stuff and unsorted mail out of the living room and hid it away in the back bedrooms. Then when every one arrived, they were welcomed into a clean, uncluttered environment, with lots of yummy food, made from scratch.

I can’t do that anymore.

For one thing, it’s been years since I was able to devote a whole day to any one thing. And if having people over meant that level of schedule clearing, we would hardly ever get to do it, because I have to keep the laundry going, library books returned, and shopping done. And as much as my kids might like it, we really can’t cancel homeshooling every time we want to have company over for dinner.

The freedom to invite people over spur of the moment, and even the freedom to have people come during the week when I’m also trying to homeschool and keep up with everything else, depends on never letting the house fall into total and utter disarray. I can’t save all my cleaning up for the day that guests are coming. I can’t let piles of stuff accumulate in the living room. We need to keep our home basically in “company” shape all the time, so that with only a quick clean up, we’re ready to enjoy our guests. I try to keep chipping away at things on a regular basis, getting a little cleaning done every day (usually in the morning, when the baby’s the happiest) and continually tidying up toys, and mail, and school supplies, so nothing ever looks too shocking. (Notice that I said, “try.” It doesn’t always work out quite like I plan.)

Friendly trumps fancy.

I love to cook (especially dessert). And if I’m going to have company over, I want to pull out all the stops and make a huge amount of fabulous, gourmet food. I used to have the freedom to do this quite a bit, but now that I’m investing so much in my own family, “company” meals have gotten simpler. This grates on my perfectionist nerves no end. It’s especially hard when we realize it would be such fun to be able to share a meal with the neighbors, who’ve been kindly helping with yard work, or with a friend from church that we ran into at the store, and then I’m face to face with not having spent the whole day cooking. There’s always a part of me that wants to scream, “NO, we can’t have them over. I have nothing impressive to serve!”

But friendly trumps fancy. Of course, it’s lovely if I can put on a feast, but if I have to choose between a simple meal that we get to share with guests and not having guests over at all, then simple wins. Besides, I know that when the tables are turned, and I’m the guest, I much prefer feeling loved and included rather than kept at arm’s length and only invited in when things are lavish.

Put family first.

It doesn’t do any good to try to take care of other people if my own family is suffering, and I never want my children to feel like they’re in my way or like I love other people more than I love them. If I’m trying to get ready for company and one of my children needs something, then it’s time to stop a minute and take care of my child, even if it means that I have one fewer dishes on the table that evening, or that dinner is slightly late. This is another place that my perfectionism gets stretched. But I would so much rather be a perfectionist about loving my children than a perfectionist about how my table looks.

Pride is NOT invited.

Being the perfectionist that I am, there is always the temptation to think that the reason we have people over is to show them what a beautiful home I keep, and what a fantastic cook I am, and, of course, what angelic, well-behaved children I raise. Surprisingly, this is not actually a good reason to have people over. Welcoming people into our home just so they can be awed by me is not really hospitality. Hospitality is sharing what we have and focusing on others so they can feel loved and valued. Therefore, it follows that if I’m blessed with company on a less than impressive day, then I just need to chill and share.

Sometimes this is really hard, especially when I’ve failed to take to heart one of the first three lessons, like when new people visit our church, and I think, “Wow, it surely would be nice to have them over and get to know them a bit, BUT aaargh, I didn’t do the breakfast dishes because we were late, and the table isn’t wiped! They’re going to see crumbs!!!  And the toddler’s wet clothes from the last potty accident are still hanging in the bathroom. And I didn’t make the children put away their toys in the living room before we left for church. And, and, and, they’re going to think I’m a slob.”

Or maybe they’ll think just I’m a real human being who wants to reach out to them. And maybe that’s the biggest thing I’m learning about hospitality. It works as a lifestyle when we can be who we really are and just reach out.

I recently received the following comment:

I’ve been married for 2 years and have been a stay-at-home wife for about 5 months. I admit that I’m a little bummed out. I’m having a difficult time creating a schedule. I read blogs about SAHW’s and they all seem fulfilled, happy, and have things to do all the time. I live in an apartment in a city so I can’t plant a garden or tend to farm animals. I don’t have any children yet. We can’t move out of the city because then my husband would have a very long commute and I don’t want that. I’m literally stuck and boggled down with questions from people like, \What do you do all day?\. I don’t know how to answer them and I feel like a failure at times. I live in a big city where 90% of the women work, the other 10% are SAHM’s. But when I talk to SAHM’s, they pretty much tell me what they do with their children, which I don’t have. I don’t even know what time to wake-up in the morning? Or what to do first thing in the morning? I know that this sounds \crazy\. Does anyone have any advice or guidance on how I could create a schedule? Have any ideas of what you do with your time? Thanks in advance. Blessings to you!

Welcome to a rare and noble calling, a life of incredible freedom and nearly limitless potential for service, ministry, and the creation of order and beauty, and one that can sometimes cripple us with its never-ending choices. There you are, all day. You can do whatever you want. How do you make the most of it?

I was a stay-at-home-wife for three years before my first child was born. I remember the choices, the clueless questions from “normal” people, and the uneasy feelings of being directionless and not necessarily useful during that rough, initial-adjustment period. I didn’t get it “all figured out” back then, and I floundered around a lot. So much of what I’m about to share I learned later, after the transition from “stay-at-home wife” to “stay-at-home mom,” but I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with having children. I think it’s much more about time in the trenches. And, take heart, five months really isn’t a very long time to find yourself when you’re doing something as radically countercultural as turning your back on the nine-to-five work world. You are doing something valuable and worthwhile that takes a long, long time to master. Be patient with yourself.

OK, so what do you do all day? Here are my two cents on navigating the possibilities. I hope others will have some ideas to suggest as well.

Step 1: Find your vision.

Why are you staying home? What’s your purpose? This forms the basis for evaluating your many options. It’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. And it becomes your “elevator speech,” the brief little life summary you can share cold turkey with people who ask about what you’re doing. It’s also deeply personal, something you may want to pray about and discuss with your husband. Here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about:

I am staying home because I feel called to serve my husband, family, church, and community through creating a beautiful, well-functioning home where my family can thrive and from which we can reach out to meet needs around us so that I can be the kind of woman outlined in 1 Timothy 5:9-10 (“well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work”).

Step 2: Make your goals.

Once you have your big vision, focus in on smaller goals to support that vision. Someone who had the vision I just gave above might have smaller goals such as keeping the apartment neat and clean and beautifully decorated, learning new skills (like interior decorating, quilting, flower arranging, etc.) to support the goal of keeping a beautiful home, studying to prepare for other seasons in life (parenting, elder care, home ownership, etc.), extending hospitality to new families at church, taking meals to families when someone is sick, helping with housework or taking care of children when new babies are born, helping elderly family members or neighbors get to doctors’ appointments or shopping, discipling younger women, and writing encouraging blog posts (I had to throw that one in). Goals, just like vision, are going to be deeply personal and based on each person’s individual talents and interests, as well as the needs around her.

Step 3: Work out the nitty-gritty.

Once you know what you want to do, you have to decide how much time to devote to each thing. Start with your own family’s physical needs and move outward. Figure out how much time it takes you to handle all your laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and beautifying of your little nest, and then take a look at what you have left to devote to “washing the feet” of the needy people the Lord brings across your path.

Next you need to decide when and in what order to do everything. Here, you’ll want to start with your hard constraints like hours of sleep needed, mealtimes, and any regularly scheduled activities. Pencil all of those in first. If you have options about when to go to bed and/or get up in the morning, you may want to just adopt your husband’s timing. It maximizes time together, and gives a little nudge toward making sure there’s plenty of nonsleeping happening in bed, too. If you need more sleep than your husband, you may want to consider scheduling yourself a nap time. Also be sure to give some of your freshest and best time to the Lord.

When your “must do at such and so time” skeleton is made, you can start planning times to tackle your goals. For this, it can be helpful to take advantage of your body’s natural rhythms. I am a morning person. My big energy spurt is right after breakfast, and it gives me a great big boost to hit the ground running, getting my most important and most physical jobs done before lunch. That way, as my energy wanes through the afternoon, I don’t feel depressed about all that I still have to do.

All that’s left is trying your schedule for a while and tweaking as necessary.

You may also want to check out these related posts:
Ideas of Home by me, and Coming Back Home and Home, the Forgotten Realm both by Mrs. Anna T. (Actually, Anna’s entire blog is wonderful and has a strong homemaking focus.)