When we walked into our house at eleven pm, tired and road weary, I smelled a smell that was not good. It wasn’t terrible, but it was obvious to me that there was a rotten potato somewhere, or a chicken scrap bucket that needed to be scrubbed out, or a bathroom trash that had a dirty diaper in it. Possibly all three. I took note of the quiet house- everyone sound asleep. It looked lived in and like everyone was doing fine in my absence. But my actual first thought when I inhaled was, “smells like this house needs a homemaker.”
How great is that?!!
Elsie and I had flown home that evening after four fantastic days in Tennessee for the Homemaker Conference. But I want to be really quick to say that opening story isn’t really the whole picture. This wasn’t a housekeeping conference, it was about being the keeper of the home- making it a place where your people want to be, knowing that your primary role is to nurture the souls entrusted to your care.
And it was so good. What an honor to be with the women attending- but more on that in a moment.
Right off the plane I decided we should zip over to Opryland. I had last been to Opryland twenty years ago, pushing my nephews Kirby and Toby around in a stroller. It is really magnificent in there, and mostly Elsie and I delighted in finding the house plants we own all around the conservatory. Except all of ours are the size of potted plants, and in some cases those same varieties were as large as trees.
Then we drove to Hardison Mill where we met up with Rory and Rebecca and the other speakers for dinner before heading over to the hall for a Rory Feek concert. I had never seen Rory do a full show, and it was so great. Just a guy and his guitar, songs and stories and I loved every minute. A friend of his opened for him, and I remembered the fun of Nashville. It seems everyone has a song to sing, and the bravery to say I believe others would enjoy my song too.
That’s a really remarkable thing. And I feel the uniqueness of that creative energy every time I visit. A great touch of this particular concert was the jumbo homemade chocolate chip cookie that had been baked that afternoon.
The next morning, the conference began.
These women were the speakers and I’ll tell you what I told Rory at the end of this first day, “my session went well because these ladies get me, and I get them.” The truth is that homemaking is largely unseen. Everyone is in their separate homes, raising their kids and it is such good feeling to be in the midst of a room full of women who are pouring their lives out with the same generational hopes.
The title of my talk was When you don’t want to do the Work. I loved working on this talk, because I didn’t know the pat answer for my title. God had to do a work in my heart so that I had something to come and share as the solution for when you don’t want to do the work. And He did!
A funny part of my talk was that it got more laughs than I had anticipated. It literally startled me while I was up there just how hard women were laughing. And I realized, “oh these ladies feel it too.”
The next morning Elsie and I held a demonstration workshop on sourdough bread baking, but really it was a long meditation on how our lives as homemakers parallel a loaf of bread. It was a joy to have Elsie up there with me, and along for the whole trip. I leaned over to her a million times, “I’m so glad you are here with me!” Over and over, we were just making a lot of memories.
This is Chasity, who I met at last year’s conference. When I was trying to figure out how to get all the supplies I’d need for a demonstration, I thought of her right away. She has an instagram account that is so glorious: ourfromscratchkitchen. It is all food and recipes and I often will comment that her food is more like art than dinner and should really be shellacked.
So she brought all of the props for our demonstration, and also took most of the pics in this post that she generously shared with me later.
The conference flew by and that night we had dinner over at Rory and Rebecca’s followed by a campfire on a perfect fall night.
The next morning Elsie and I walked in every shop along the Columbia square and found the whole area to be darling and charming. I thought we would have lunch there in a cute cafe, but Elsie had her heart set on tradition…
So off to Cracker Barrel we went! We actually played a whole game of checkers after the meal as shown below. Elsie won, but we both thought I was going to win the whole game. A good lesson on seeing it through to the end!
Meanwhile, back home, it was Rory’s birthday. And look who made him his own homemade cake, complete with DAD written in fruit snacks.
Hattie Homemaker held down the fort while we were away and I could not have been more pleased with her good work.
And Rory sent me this picture below too. Elias worked in the barn to make a gift for his dad. It was indeed a big cross that he hammered together all on his own and it is now on our bedroom wall, a favorite bit of home decor forevermore.
And really, those last two pictures are the whole point. My definition of a homemaker is “creating a place where my people want to be, and where they know they can always find me.” So by definition, it was time for me to get back to my home and hunt down that funky smell.
Which was all coming from a few different old bouquets of flowers with old, brown water as well as a chicken scrap bucket that needed a good scrub down. I cleaned it all up, lit a candle and felt the gladness of having a place where my people want to be and where they know they can always find me.
