Dear friend,
I just completed a very unglamorous part of my 90-day summer mission. Last week, I invited you all to join me in falling back in love with our homes (our lives!) this coming summer. But my first task on this mission was ugly.
My pastor often reminds us to do the thing we want to do least first, a desperate tactic to help us prioritize our energy toward the very thing we're trying to avoid. As I thought through this challenge, I realized that falling back in love with our homes this summer goes far beyond bouquets of parsley and ironing our linens. Those are all lovely and delightful, most certainly, but before those gifts can feel delightful, perhaps it is far more important that we deal with some of the darker, uglier, more unglamorous corners of our home. Like (insert yours here)… lest cultivating beauty in our homes end up feeling far more like lipstick on a pig than we’d hoped…
Some beauty amongst the effort.
Even though I didn’t want to, I thought long and hard about the pieces of our home that felt ugly — the pieces that I didn’t, couldn’t, love. Here’s a not-so-fun exercise: what feels emotionally ugly in your home? What would you like to see emotionally change?
I asked myself these same hard questions.
We might as well get this over with…
I sat at my desk thumbing through a seemingly endless pile of bills and paperwork that had been accumulating in an organized, but rarely checked, bin in my office. Tucked inside were insurance cards, graduation announcements, water bills, vehicle tab renewals, and a few letters awaiting my response. While doing so, I thought about what my counselor had recently advised me to do about setting my emotions prior to emotionally hard tasks — I had a cup of coffee in hand, I lit a beautiful new candle, I tidied my office and even watered my plants. I prayed. Procrastination? Perhaps. Eventually, there was nothing to do but tackle the ugly work at hand.
That may seem simple enough. Pay a few bills, file a few receipts, rinse and repeat. But for me, it feels uglier.
Our business is in the process of migrating bookkeepers (to yours truly) and simultaneously transferring accountants. This ugly corner of my home involves learning to file monthly taxes with the Washington State Department of Revenue, shopping insurance policies, and making sure payroll taxes are accounted for. For years, we have had outside help managing the books and numbers of our business. At the time, it was very helpful.
But as I’ve shared with you before, our new mantra has become “tight and tidy.” In passing off this work to others, I never could fully grasp what was happening and when. As of typing this, I still don’t know how to file one of those insanely important DOR reports and I’m just now beginning to attempt Quickbooks.
Yes. It’s all quite dull and unglamorous indeed. I told you.
But I’m fatigued with money. I’m tired of it feeling so ugly to me.
Here was my goal: when Stuart and I were young pups, and were both working minimum wage jobs, we couldn’t do anything grand with our money because we simply didn’t have it. Our grocery budget was $45 a week, we only drove a certain amount of miles to account for gas, and bartering became a way of life. While I wouldn’t wish to go back to those difficult times, I did find gold amongst the rubble. Our finances were so impossibly tight that every single dollar was important. I balanced our account (old school, in my checkbook ledger) like a madwoman. I could give an account for every transaction, every check, every penny. Even though I didn’t have a lot to control, I controlled it. I told it what our goals were and what we were going to accomplish together. I set a path forward. I prioritized needs. In short, I learned to manage the (teeny) household budget well. Money felt lovely, even when we didn’t have much.
Baby basil and baby Elliott fam.
But as the financial pressure decreased, so did my vigilance. Years after bringing on support to assist with the tax hellscape that is owning a business in Washington State, I realized that my development of these skills had been arrested. I strongly dislike that feeling (hence the emotional ugliness). In short, falling back in love with my home this summer looks like seriously skilling up with the monies.
And so I did the ugly work. I sat, and sorted, and downloaded, and 2FA’ed, and stamped, and mailed, and emailed.
I wish I could grill some chicken thighs, put on some 90’s country, and just give our home alllll the seasonal good vibrations I can muster. That would certainly be easier, faster, and cheaper. Yet I can’t help but feel the pull… to be tidy… to be accountable… to make sure that nothing is slipping through the financial cracks.
(Side note: it will, inevitably, because we are not machines — nor do we want to be. Lest this summer challenge become a little too law-like, please remember that the Gospel is there to saturate us in all our lack and need.)
People don’t like to talk about money. It’s taboo. It’s in poor taste. But I, never being super great at following such rules, have been eagerly texting friends about personal methods and organizational tips for their own offices and business. I’ve been eagerly talking to them about credit cards, insurance policies, money management apps, investment portfolios, and bookkeeping schedules.
It’s the most unglamorous conversation imaginable for someone like me. (Can’t we talk about roses? About mulching with fresh bark? About perfectly searing a summer steak?)
And yet… as the paperwork continues to get filed, the receipts continue to get scanned, the monthly budgets get set, and the logins shift back to my name, I feel equally empowered. I keep saying, out loud, “Shaye, you can do this. You are capable. Tight and tidy. Tight and tidy.” Ever so slightly the dial is turning, and the electricity of managing this corner of my home well is beginning to buzz. For the first time, I walked into my office today and saw the basket of mail/bills/paperwork without dread. It was mostly empty and completely accounted for. I wouldn’t say it felt beautiful yet, but I would say it didn’t feel as emotionally heavy as it did before.
Rather, it feels like a dance partner I’m just getting used to. It’s a bit awkward for us both but here we are.
Last week, I asked you to join me on a mission — a mission to fall in love with where you are, right now. A summer devoted to caring well for, and feeling deep gratitude towards, the exact place in which we find ourselves. Tackling this emotional pocket of our home didn’t look like getting a raise (you don’t get those when you’re self employed anyway), but rather, caring for what we’ve been given already. Keeping our good gifts from the Lord tight and tidy, for His glory, lest these good gifts get squandered.
I wonder how your thoughts would compare to mine. Do we share more in our struggles and ugliness than we realize? I heard back from you after my first letter; some of you are renting apartments, others traversing particular uncertainties, and yet others resettling after large life changes. Y’all are joining in this summer mission from different corners of the world with many different methods, but the central goal remains true: opening our eyes to see the good at hand and giving thanks for it in the most honoring way we can muster. We are cultivating beauty right here, right now, as things are.
Cleaning up dark pockets of our home seems a good place to start.
Love,
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