As my kids have grown from young elementary school students to middle school students, I have become increasingly frustrated by the fact that our family’s weeknights and weekends have become this never-ending treadmill of activities, dinner and homework. On an average night, both of my daughters have at least two after-school activities that don’t end until around 8 p.m., immediately followed by homework until lights out at 10 p.m.—OK, let’s be real—it’s more like 11 p.m. During the week, my children usually eat dinner at home quickly in about 10 minutes between their after-school activities, or in the car on the way from one activity to the next. Meals on the weekends are little bit easier to fit in even though we are usually juggling the music lessons with the basketball games and play practice.

Like many of you reading this, the cycle of work-child activity and quick dinner-homework has been on repeat in our household for many years now. As a result, I believe that my health and the health of my household space has taken a toll. A few months ago, after being particularly frustrated with my physical health and our somewhat disorganized house—and so many broken New Year’s resolutions to remedy them—I complained to my husband that I wished everything would just stop. I needed a break. There just wasn’t enough time at any point of the year—including summer—to get to the household projects we wanted to accomplish and there wasn’t enough daily time in our schedule for us to exercise as much as we wanted to. I just wanted to take control again of my house and my health.