Beauty in a mended home | beyond the list
By Rochelle Lowery Founder of Lemon Box Beauty
It's 8 a.m., and I find myself drying dishes from the previous night. The cheap dishwasher in this cookie-cutter apartment leaves puddles deep enough to dive in.
My homemaking routine begins after a quiet talk with God. The house is still and dark, and somehow, I find peace in these moments of rare, quiet gratitude. As I'm writing this, I can hear my daughter and her sister interchangeably playing and arguing. It's not ideal, but it's real.
Rochelle Lowery actual morning list
First on my to-do list is my top priority: slowly hacking away at the bad habits that formed over the summer break by mending and maintaining the home. Next, I'll wake my daughter from her long slumber and give her instructions for the morning.
Next, I go for a morning walk with my daughter. Everything is always with my daughter, and some days I don't want it to be. I'll tell her to "leave me alone" in the way it was intended, not the way some people toss that phrase around.
Having homeschooled my daughter for a few years now, she's not phased by what you would call "mean words." She takes it as it is and goes on with her day. I wish adults could act this way. Life would be so simple. People get so offended and make up scenarios in their heads about what they think someone else meant. Just grow a pair and ask them what they meant.
By 9:30 a.m. it feels like a whole day has passed. At 9:40 a.m., I find myself teaching my daughter the fundamentals of our language and sharing in her achievements. This right here is a privilege. I may not have a car, money for "fun" things, or even good credit, but I am privileged to be able to teach my daughter.
By 12 p.m., I've washed, dried, and put away all the bedding, cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, and my husband's room. I also completed a few other tasks that added the final touch to our much-needed "spring cleaning." I did all these things today with so much love, more than ever before.
I still find myself here, writing this article as a result of the five minutes I "felt" unappreciated. But of course, I wasn't doing those tasks for my husband or my daughter; I was doing them for God. My spirit became low at the moment I encountered my husband, but the entire morning, I could feel love funneling through my body and into the mundane tasks I do every day. Today was different, and I know the devil didn't like that.
Just a little reminder: do not let anyone or anything disrupt your connection with God. I allowed that to happen, but I recognized it, and today, I'm not playing.
Let's check my to-do list. It's 2 p.m., and right on the mark, I'm making the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich on bread I baked myself. That's a cool thing to say—I never thought in a million years I would be baking bread.
It's lunchtime for my daughter, and now it's quiet time. The best time of the day, ha-ha, just kidding. But it does make for a very focused time for creating.
Throughout my relationship with my husband, I was always trying to have all the bells and whistles—a pretty home, a nice car, intricate home decor, dinner dates, and outings. You name it. I was trying to do all of these things, but I never had a solid foundation.
And honestly, with all those things, life still sucked because I was ungrateful, unappreciative, and spoiled. Now I have none of those things and find my life so full—a little fuller than I would like at times with the two extra additions to our family. I know things will work themselves out as long as I continue to do what I was intended to do. Y'all, just take it day by day.
We make all these lists for everything you can imagine: home tasks, work, school, party planning, and so much more. Lists are an amazing tool that keeps most people on track—well, maybe just for a little bit. But without the proper foundation, these lists mean nothing. Following a list without self-discipline and consistency just makes for another scrap of paper pinned to your cute DIY bulletin board, collecting dust.
You need to find—you know what—you need to see the beauty in every task you do and do it with love. Yes, mop that floor with love, wash that dish with love, scrub that toilet with love... I don't care if you think that's all mumbo jumbo, but it's the truth whether you believe it or not. I really don't care. But if you do believe it, you will immediately see your home mending day after day.
As humans, we need to do the extraordinary in the mundane (using the word to make a point; honestly, the word "mundane" no longer exists in my vocabulary).
Life is just life. No labels. No context.
If you need help, look inside yourself.
🍋📦
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