Home is Our Favorite Place

Home is our favorite place.

The sights, the smells, the sounds and the tastes of home engage our senses like no other place on earth. As a child, I loved polishing the furniture with lemon-scented Pledge and watching my daddy’s face light up when he’d come home from work and inhale that citrusy fragrance of clean. Folding a fluffy towel and placing it in a closet next to fresh sheets and readied table linens was a chore I didn’t mind because I knew mattered. But cleaning wasn’t all my sister and I learned to do. Momma made sure her girls knew how to set a dinner table properly, with nicely pressed cloth napkins and beautiful glasses that simply had to be water-spot free. Oh, and you’d never find condiments on the table any other way but in their own decorative dishes, with dainty spoons gently placed inside them. It wasn’t just Momma’s way, it was the way of any true southerner:

Excellence in hospitality is always shown first to family.

But it was a trip to the local Winn Dixie while watching Momma take a can of soup from the shelf and then check it off her shopping list that I, (probably no more than 7-8 years old) remember thinking, “That’ll be me one day. I’ll be the homemaker buying a can of cream of mushroom soup for my family.” And today, that’s just what I do, and I love it!

Rip remembers the freedoms of his childhood; the freedom to run and romp and play like all adventuresome boys need to do. He loved riding his bike through the neighbors yard, playing baseball at the park, and staying out with friends to fish and catch crawfish down in the creek. But he also learned from his parents how to work hard. His dad taught him to build what he needs with his own two hands; and if something was broke, how to fix it. His mom modeled for him the importance of taking care of people and things. He remembers his mom providing a home where the floors were clean enough to eat off of, never a dish left in the sink, all beds beautifully made each morning, a hot breakfast cooked each day and dinner on the table every night. Rip will tell you, “She was setting standards for her family in managing her home.”

But what is the real purpose of Interior Inspirations? Well, if what you’ve already read inspires you in how you express excellence to your own family, how you love and care for them and the home you all share, then great! But the real point of II is this — to inspire your heart. Why we do what we do is the key to our living for the glory of God and the good of others.

How we feel about homemaking makes all the difference.

If you spent the day playing with your child, gardening with a friend, or just enjoying meaningful conversation with your spouse, yet, the laundry piled up does it really matter? Not one iota! You can have an immaculate house, a daily routine that runs  like a fine oiled machine, and meals that are pin-worthy every night and still not have, “Home Sweet Home.”

Rip and I have no degrees in home design and no professional training, but what we do have is a “must” that defines our days. We MUST be about our life purpose. So, our commitment to you is to take every gift, resource, skill, experience, and knowledge that God has given us and put it all to use…Prepare to be inspired!