What a memory. Ever’s dad was in town all the way from Ft. Worth, TX, for a rare visit to us in Leesburg, VA, and our kids were enjoying time with their beloved Papa.

Except…that turned out to be the weekend that our old hot water heater gave up and flooded the basement…which, in the weeks leading up to that visit, had become the go-to place to throw stuff. Now all that stuff was floating, ruined, in a stagnant lake.   
 
We’re not sure how, but we missed the home and auto-maintenance bootcamp that ought to be mandatory in every marriage prep program. Sure, in those months leading up to our wedding, we remember talking through budgets, personality types, family history, how we deal with conflict, and more, but we don’t recall talking about oil changes, HVAC filters, gutters, or the need to annually flush the sediment out of a hot water heater.  
 
And yet, good maintenance calendars are close to the heart of a healthy Household Economy, Level 3 of your Trinity House. Take your eye off these calendars for just a few months…and you’ll wake up to a new memory-making moment like we did with Ever’s dad.
 
You might say that if the thought of the costs of “deferred maintenance” causes every parent’s heart to sink, then “preventative maintenance” ought to quicken our hearts with delight. But if you’re like us, it just doesn’t! This category of not-fun-stuff-to-do-at-regular-intervals comes in at a dead-last for us, well, right after bill-paying.
 
It shouldn’t be like this, we know. And with some imaginative reframing, perhaps we can discover a new way to finally get ahead of the maintenance curve in our homes. While 2025 is still fresh, consider one or more of the following:

• Devote an entire upcoming life meeting with your spouse to creating or updating your home’s maintenance calendar. There are a lot of apps for this, which makes it that much easier!
• Jolt yourself into a new season by teaching your kids how to change HVAC filters, test smoke detectors, mulch, or clean bathroom vent fans. There’s no better way to create accountability—and memories of shared work—than by teaching the next generation. If you need a refresher yourself, YouTube awaits! God bless the amazing people who teach others for free.
• Host as often as you can. Not only will your kids have a higher chance of carrying the faith into adulthood, but the ritual of welcoming others into your home will also function as a kind of accountability system for your maintenance and upkeep. You can’t help but want to stay on top of maintenance when others are seeing it.  
• Strike up a spirited and prayerful dialogue with your home’s patron of maintenance. Whether it’s the reliable St. Joseph or another saint whom you choose, this patron can hear your gripes and your pleas—and link your home’s systems to the communion of saints in a new way.  

Back to our hot water heater story… To be candid, in the years leading up to that visit with Dad, we had completely forgotten to drain the sediment build-up on an annual basis. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and its messy demise ruined lots of other things in the process.
 
What’s amazing is that all of this works as a parable for the spiritual life—Faith Life, or Level 1 of your Trinity House. When we neglect the daily, monthly, and seasonal upkeep of our spiritual infrastructure—individual and family prayer, the Mass and our reception of the Eucharist and Reconciliation—we are really just hours away from the next flood in our basement.
 
In 2025, let’s take our families heavenward in part by renewing our focus on all those darn systems. Changing the batteries in the smoke detectors may not be “fun,” but at the end of the day, we have the privilege of tending to all of these mundane details as a concrete way of caring for our families in the shadow of the almighty and life-giving Trinity.
 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.