From Chaos to Calm: A Date Night Journey in a Lived-In Home

The kitchen was clean this morning. Now look at it. It was a work hard, play hard kinda day, and I chose to hang out with the family instead of clean up after myself as I went. But tonight is date night at home. Date night? Because we have two little kids, and we really, really try not to skip date night every week because it makes such a difference to our sanity and the general health of our marriage throughout the week. So I put on the quickest dinner I possibly could, um, with mostly things that I had prepped, which I’m so, so thankful that I did. And then we got to work, just, like, busting out the cleaning as quickly as possible. Andreas always does the laundry, which I’m so thankful for, because I can never manage to get it from the washer to the dryer and fold it all in one day. And then I started with all of the dishes. It really makes a difference not having a dishwasher and, um, cooking everything from scratch. We also don’t have a microwave, so the dishes are just honestly insane. And I get so, so hot washing the dishes, too, because it’s just, like, steamy lately and, like, the heat of summer. I love doing family dinner time, but sometimes you just have to divide and conquer. So while I got Kenzie fed and ready for bed, Kendra strapped the fussy baby on and just speed cleaned The house. He’s so much faster and better than I like. I love things to be organized. I need them to be tidy in order for me to think straight. But I am not, like, amazing at it. It’s never really been a forte of mine. But I’ve worked really hard to create better habits and come so far in the last few years, which I thank my husband for, in large part. I think he’s rubbed off on me, which I guess is the point of partnership. But, you know, a house is meant to be lived in. And ours definitely is, which I don’t mind. It’s clean underneath all of it. But at the end of the day, there is no better feeling than lighting a couple candles when the house is all neat and tidy and sitting down to enjoy it. And tonight, our date night activity was a murder mystery box. Wild, I know.