HilaryBernstein.com

Helping Women Find Peace and Purpose

What You Can Do When Your Home’s a Mess

Feeling like your home is out of control? Here’s what you can do when your home’s a mess. It’s happened again. You look around your house and … whoa. You feel tense just at the sight of the mess. If surfaces happen to be cleaned, you know what’s hiding behind closet doors and in drawers…. Read more

The Surprising Way a Clean Home Adds Peace

Feeling stressed out when you’re home? You might be surprised that a clean home adds peace and reduces stress! Finding peace in your home is a funny thing – you either have it or you don’t. If you do have it, you feel comfortable, content and can breathe a sigh of relief when you walk… Read more

The 1 Word That Can Change a Bad Attitude

Dealing with a bad attitude? Squash your negativity with just one simple word! Grumbling. Complaining. Over the past few months I feel like I’ve experienced a lot of amazing opportunities, yet missed out on what’s really good. Instead of appreciating the goodness, I revert to complaining. My family found a new house and moved, and… Read more

Moving? Here’s How to Make Your Move Smoother

Moving into a new home? Here are lots of tips and tricks that will help make your move smoother. Moving stinks. While it’s quite possible you’re very excited about your new home, the actual moving process is pretty awful. Who really wants to pack up everything, move it, and then unpack? Time and time again… Read more

What You Should Know About Seasonal Cleaning

Why wait for a deep cleaned home each spring? Make your deep cleaning easier with seasonal cleaning! Spring cleaning was such an essential part of home life as I grew up. The smells and feelings it filled my family’s home with made me long for spring every year as everything seemed as fresh and new… Read more

Rescue Your Messy Home with a Homemaking Reset Day

Is your home messy … again? Never fear. Try a Homemaking Reset Day and enjoy the tidy results! It happened again. My once-clean house was messy. And not just in the “spend a couple hours tidying up” sense, but in the “I can’t get a handle on this” kind of messy. The trouble was, this… Read more

How to Spark Joy In Your Home

Want to spark joy in your home? Forget about your stuff and start focusing on people! If you’ve been following the Marie Kondo bandwagon, sparking joy is nothing new to you. But if you’re new to the KonMari method of cleaning, organizer Marie Kondo teaches others to remove anything from their homes that doesn’t spark… Read more

Why Havens Are Important (and How You Can Get One)

Wish your home was a place that helped you feel peaceful and refreshed? It’s time to think about making a haven. Havens are important … and possible to create! After a long day of running from appointments to errands to meetings, not only was I tired, but I also just wanted to get home. Home…. Read more

Take Control of Your Home with a Big Picture Perspective

Feeling like your home is out of control? Using a big picture perspective – and these 4 handy steps – will help you finally take control of your home! Isn’t it so easy to get trapped in the daily cycle of seeing a mess, feeling overwhelmed, and maintaining a semi-clean place through basic chores? That’s… Read more

How to Use Your Haven to Welcome Others

If you have a home, don’t be afraid to use it as a haven to welcome others. Sadness. That’s what I noticed when I met Billy for the first time. Recently widowed, Billy couldn’t bear to live without the love of his life. I had absolutely no idea how to befriend a widower twice my age… Read more

4 Simple Steps to Make a Home of Your Own

Ready for a home of your own? Here are 4 steps to make an easier transition to a home of your own. Finally living in a home of your own can be a really exciting transition. If you’re not sharing your home with anyone else, things can be just like you like them. You have… Read more

Forgetting About the ‘Right’ Way to Clean

Need a clean house but have no time? By using a manageable cleaning approach, you can find freedom by ditching the “right” way to clean  … and have a cleaner home! How many times a day do you stop yourself from doing something because you know you don’t have time to do it the “right”… Read more

How to Clean Your House When You Have No Time

Know you need to clean your house … but feel like you have no time? Try these handy tips to help create a cleaning plan that will work even on your busiest days! If you Google “How to Clean Your Home When You Don’t Have Time,” you’ll find lots of articles that help you manage… Read more

What Should I Clean First?

Ever wonder what to clean first? Or where to start cleaning in your home? These quick and simple housekeeping strategies will help! Reader question: What I struggle with the most is trying to find where to start in my day.  More than anything, what do I clean first? What do I do first so that… Read more

How to Tackle Big Homemaking Jobs

Tackle big homemaking jobs by breaking them into smaller ones. (This handy step-by-step guide will help!) Reader question: Can you please help me? I’ll start a big job in my home, then have to stop part way, then have a bigger mess, then I don’t have time to get back to it, so the mess… Read more

How to Create a Haven This Christmas … And Why You Should

Create a haven this Christmas as a gift for yourself … and your loved ones. Right now, you might be hearing “We need a little Christmas” on the radio ten times a day. But what you really need is a haven to escape from Christmas stress. The daily messages of What are you planning? Who… Read more

What to Do When Toys Have Overtaken Your Home

Feel like your kids’ toys have overtaken your home? Don’t sweat it. Here are helpful tips on how to deal with the mess … and your frustration. Every parent knows that kids’ belongings have a scary way of multiplying like little else. Happy meal toys. Little plastic birthday party favors. Hand-me-downs from well-intentioned friends who… Read more

A Super Simple Secret to Festive and Frugal Christmas Decorating

Looking for a festive and frugal Christmas decorating strategy? Here’s a super simple secret that will look great in your home! Have you ever stopped to notice exactly how beautiful everything looks at Christmas time? Lights transform ordinary nighttime sights into something magical. Bright colors bring unexpected cheer to rooms. Festive decorations brighten spaces. If… Read more

How to Create a Christ-Centered Christmas

This year, avoid a hectic holiday season and intentionally choose to create a Christ-centered Christmas. The Advent season is finally here! But have you felt the pull away from a focus on Christ? I’ve noticed it, from the wrapping paper in stores in October, to the week of Black Friday sales (Buy more! Buy more!… Read more

Spiritual Growth

Wish you had peace in your home? It's not as impossible as you may think.
Is it possible to find or create a balance between ministry, family and home? The answer may be very different than you expect.
Have you ever thought about how you think about yourself? Far too often, it's easy to become your own worst enemy.
God is calling to each of us. How are you answering God’s call?
Memorizing Scripture is important, but it can be difficult to do. I've found three ways that help as I try to memorize Scripture
With chaotic current events, sometimes it doesn't seem like problems have solutions. Yet it's actually easy to discover what the world needs now.

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House & Home

Wish you could remember your purpose in homemaking? When I forget my purpose in homemaking, I've found it's not so hard to rediscover!
Every home has places you simply forget to clean. Here are 20 places you might forget to clean (and here's how I clean those areas).
Woman holds a bucket of cleaning supplies
Woman smiles with a cleaning sponge
When decluttering your home, these 2 questions can make your job easier.

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Relationships

you’re in this for the long haul – when times are good and when times are bad. When your husband is amazing, and when he’s a jerk.
Marriage is hard. But it’s also good. And as you study Proverbs 31, you can learn how to become an excellent wife.
One of the many benefits to marriage is living life together as one flesh.
Sometimes, marriage may be much more like a canoe trip than you imagine. In fact, I've thought of 10 ways marriage is like a canoe trip.

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