My living room has a mini trampoline in it. There are monster trucks strewn everywhere like a mine field of tripping hazards. My kitchen has gunk on the cabinets that are either from Christmas fudge, Thanksgiving pie, or who-knows-what in between. I know i'm not the only one who desperately needs a Home Reset this New Year.
If you've been here for a while, you know i've been on a mission to create a sustainable household rhythm that creates a home that exists to serve me. For years and years, I felt like my household and duties ran me, instead of me running "it". Because of my thinking patterns (perfectionism, "all or nothing" and black and white thinking, along with a healthy does of undiagnosed neurodivergence), I was in a constant state of shame. I felt that everyone else had "it" figured out, and that I was just a dumpster fire of a person.
To be completely vulnerable, since i've already started down that road apparently, I had done a lot of emotional and mental health work over the years through my faith to eliminate the constant feeling of shame and condemnation. I never really thought to apply that "work" to how I thought about my homemaking until one day things just started to click.
In a video on Tik Tok, I said "Your home exists to serve you."
With my whole chest I was encouraging people to create a home system that served them, and giving people permission to do things outside of the norm. I realized I had not lent that same grace to myself.
So, I told myself: your home exists to serve you. And I said it again, and again, and again.
I gave myself permission to let go of systems that weren't serving me. I gave myself permission to stop striving for a perfectly clean home with a gourmet dinner on the table every night. I gave myself permission to strive for a new kind of "perfect": a home that rises to meet us every day.
Through this I also realized that the reason I could make a closet, drawer, or room look "pin worthy" and straight out of an organization book but it would never stay that way was because I was missing the biggest key of all: habits.
I began to focus instead on my daily habits (usually thinking of a fun nickname i.e. "clean sink club" or "random roundup" combined with a fun playlist) and things started to become more manageable. Then I realized that when I had systems in place that supported those habits instead of creating resistance to them, things really started to get better. Fast forward a few years, and my book The Home Reset was born, where I walk through each room of the house and give extremely practical tips on habits, systems, and resets.
For the first 8 weeks of 2025 (plus a few days), I will follow along with my book and go room by room through my home. I'll focus on habits, systems, non toxic and DIY cleaning, hacks, resets, as well as very practical design and decorating trips to create a home system that serves you.
For the rest of this week (December 31- January 4), on my social channels (Tik Tok, YT, Instagram) I will introduce the series and chat about general cleaning, habit, and system hacks. You can also read the rest of this week's challenge, habit, and system focus here. On January 5th, we will focus on the Kitchen and Dining Room. I will be sending out an email every Saturday to subscribers with the habit and system focus, a declutter challenge, and the blog post(s) for the week as well as some free printable resources. You can subscribe here to ensure you don't miss anything throughout the series.