And I forget that I have some control over the details of my life. I may not be able to change those big \u201cwhens,\u201d but I can change some small aspects that make today more manageable, dare I say, more enjoyable? I am not the victim of my life, though circumstances are often not what I\u2019d wished for; rather I am a coauthor, walking alongside God, recognizing today is one I can\u2019t get back, so I must make the most of it.<\/p>\n
But how do I among the dirty dishes and the bills? Those realities are not going away. This is my actual life after all, with its actual circumstances. I\u2019m not aiming to love that \u201cwhen\u201d life, but this one I\u2019m waking up to.<\/p>\n
I do the next small thing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I play some music while I\u2019m loading the dishwasher.<\/p>\n I close my laptop while my daughter is talking and focus on her face and her words.<\/p>\n I light candles on the dinner table.<\/p>\n I put on some perfume and jewelry.<\/p>\n These are not life altering decisions or steps here. They are small things that when accumulated make my moments feel special. Because what is life if not a series of moments that accumulate to hours and days and weeks? And they are every day decisions I get to make over and over again. Yesterday\u2019s dishes don\u2019t have to define today\u2019s reality. Every morning offers a new beginning and that music can be turned up.<\/p>\n Loving my actual life is about beginning with what I have to work with today; focusing on what I can control and appreciating the gifts I\u2019ve been given, rather than fixating on the things I wish would change.<\/p>\n Alexandra Kuykendall<\/strong> I woke up this morning to dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, bills on the counter waiting to be paid and puppy poop on the carpet. Not exactly the life of fairytales and movie scripts. And to make mundane matters even more routine, this morning looks a lot like yesterday and tomorrow isn\u2019t promising to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":4838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,42],"tags":[999,454,661,1000,198,795,87,995,1001,1002,996],"class_list":["post-4837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-lifestyle","tag-actual","tag-change","tag-child","tag-honest","tag-life","tag-living","tag-love","tag-mundane","tag-raise","tag-real","tag-small"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.mops.org\/images\/cms_images\/alex-2.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
\nAs a mom to four girls, Alexandra Kuykendall\u2019s days are spent washing dishes, driving to and from different schools and trying to find a better solution to the laundry dilemma. She is the author of\u00a0Loving My Actual Life, An Experiment In Relishing What\u2019s Right In Front of Me\u00a0<\/i>andThe Artist\u2019s Daughter, A Memoir<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0A city girl at\u00a0heart, she makes her home in the shadow of downtown Denver. You can read more of\u00a0Alex\u2019s everyday thoughts and connect with her at\u00a0AlexandraKuykendall.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"