Company coming to a clean house
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- January 31, 2023
- 430
Having company come to spend a few days with us is great. Getting our house ready for that company is not so great.
Our place loves her rooms to be neat and well organized. The problem is neither Taller Half nor I are very well organized when it comes to housework. We have good intentions of keeping our living spaces uncluttered, but our “stuff” has a sneaky way of accumulating when we aren’t looking. We both would rather spend time on our other interests, so our poor house suffers the indignities of messiness — that is until we get the call guests are on the way.
Out comes the broom and dustpan, vacuum cleaner, and dust rags. We get busy and tackle the mess we have ignored. The cleaning part doesn’t take long, but clearing off all the cluttered, flat surfaces in our place is a real challenge. What storage we do have must be sorted to make room for our new additions.
In the process of sorting through the drawers, cabinets and shelves in our living areas, we always find things we forgot we had, no longer have a need for or things we have no idea why we saved them. Decisions have to be made and the trash expelled. Taller Half and I have totally different ideas about what things should be saved and what things should be trashed.
We spend a troubling amount of time arguing about what to save and what to throw out. We end up making deals and compromising. The result is our poor place might lose some things but still ends up with overstuffed cabinets, drawers and bookshelves. All the flat-surface things have to go somewhere and are stuffed into the newly organized drawers.
We have a happy, neat, organized house while our guests are here. Fortunately, our place has adjusted to our rather messy lifestyle. She knows we love her.