Love the Home You Have: Melissa Michaels Mompreneur Who Inspires (Part 1)

The beginning of an adventure…

When I moved to Malda, a small town in India with my little bundle of joy it was winter and very cold. With an -month-old baby, a new job, new home in a new town challenges were many.  I felt lonely, out of sorts, and totally bored of the lack of adult conversation and company. My husband did his best to keep us occupied and happy. But between the mad rushing around and sleepless nights, there was a germ of an idea.

Peace and happiness, I realized came from within.  As I tried to make this new house our home(and take care of everything else), I often had days of intense self-pity. Days when mundane work seemed piled up everywhere, without any inspiring to-dos. I still have those days but now I cope better with them. Pinterest is a haven for tired mommy minds. Women have many roles to play. The way we are made we tend to have guilt trips about whichever role we ignore.

As wives, mothers, and daughters you have to make daily choices.Choices about whether you give time to something you want to do for yourself (the elusive self-care)or something which needs to be done for the home, childcare, or husband care. As I complete one year birthday of my blog (it’s on 13th October), I will be sharing with you the stories of my virtual friends who inspired and helped. I thought it was the best way to say thank you. Also by telling you about these truly fantastic women, I hope a little of their magic will rub off on you and me:)

Cleaning, shopping, cooking, and taking care of the health, wealth, wisdom, and entertainment needs of your family is a job that expands…filling up all hours. But how fulfilling is this?  A  lot …but as human beings as women who are striving to make a better life for your family it’s important you do something just for yourself. You expect people will notice your efforts and hard work, but more often than not the little, big, and in-between things in life, like cleaning fairies of childhood are taken for granted. My job as a doctor in a district medical college in India involves night duties once or twice a week, taking care of indoor and outdoor patients, surgeries, and taking classes for undergraduate medical students.

All this is a part of my husband’s duties too, together with the training he has to give to doctors and nurses regarding newborn care. The workload at home we share equally (not very rigidly) and outside work at banks etc are mostly done by hubby while I man the home front. My nursery-aged baby is great at keeping me busy and loves doing all sorts of painting stuff. We have spent many happy hours painting the flower pots in my balcony garden.

I first decided to start a garden on my balcony when Melissa Michaels at The Inspired Room announced her book.Love the Home You Have Tell me honestly have you heard of such an inspiring and motivating name for a home decorating book Ever?  Calling it a decorating book is saying too little. For followers of Melissa, it’s a spiritual guide to a more fulfilling home forever, wherever.

My mom always told us to keep our own homes neat and tidy but often it felt like such a chore. Melissa’s blog and the book took the guilt out of doing it in small chunks. She has told people like you and me it’s okay to have a beautiful mess in a growing family. Magazine perfect is not family perfect. Loving the home you have frees you, from always longing for that larger, more modern, vintage and the neighbors home. Making money for keeping your home organized, and beautiful, while taking care of family … was truly inspiring.

Finding contentment in my home freed up time for other stuff! An organized home practically opened up a gateway of creative ideas in my brain.

So as I tell you the story of how I started on this interesting journey I want to tell you Melissa Michaels’s story. A mother of 3, an avid home decorator, and an unlikely mompreneur. She is not a DIY sensation but still manages to personalize and make beautiful, everything she touches. Melissa’s first book    Love the Home You Have….a New York Times bestseller! As home decorating magazines show glossy picture-perfect homes, her cute book is full of sweet hand-drawn graphics and inspiring quotes.Its guilt-free,  motivational, easy to read, and totally doable. It’s not something you read and forget.   It’s a book that makes you do something about your home …that makes you love it more. Wherever you live, a house, apartment, or rented accommodation you will learn to make it a home. It’s such a gift to give your family!

In India, most people would not be able to afford to own a house. Flats in apartment complexes are more likely. But the wonderful thing about this book is, it helps wherever you live. I’m living in a 2 bedroom rented apartment with 3 Balconies! That makes this rented flat a little green oasis. It’s all because of Melissa that I found contentment here in spite of the fact that our job involves transfers and living in remote places!

Change is the only constant in life and embracing and liking it will make life so much more exciting. This is the 6th home I am living in in 8 years of marriage and the longest stay of 2 years and 8 months is here. Everywhere we went I longed to put down roots and just settle down..but God has his plans.I longed for the familiar comforts of home. Realizing too soon that if I wanted them, I had to make it happen Inspired by Melissa to make this rented flat a home, I had a “eureka moment! I too wanted to do something like Melissa but I was not sure what and how. Learning from her to keep my home working and pleasant, was my first step to making this journey to being a mompreneur. Want to know more? Wait for my next post. Visit the inspired room and make an inspired home. You can also read my lessons from Make Room For What You Love and about the Magic of Clearing Up.