A little bit messy

Work is going kind of slow today. After having been busy for so much of June, I hardly know what to do with an extra moment. It seems like my life has been scheduled to the hilt for so many weeks, I'm not sure what to do when it's not!

Part of it could be that I'm excited to get home. My mom is coming for a whole week visit. She gets here tonight and is spending the weekdays with me. We're going to go to the theatre, probably do some shopping, maybe go out to eat, go for walks. It will just be nice to spend some mother-daughter time.

I hope that when I get home the house is still clean from all the time I spent getting everything ready this weekend, but with a husband there, who knows what will be out of place. That's OK though. That's how we live.

I grew up in a house that was always in order. My mom didn't work, and she loves a clean place, so shoes and coats were in the closet. Glasses were picked up and put in the sink or the dishwasher. The furniture was always dusted, and the bathrooms always clean. It's still like that today. With a family of four, it honestly probably wasn't as perfect as I remember, but that was how it seemed!

I don't mind a little mess. However, there is a line, and when it gets crossed, my stress rate doubles instantly and I can't take it anymore. Most of the time though, I'm OK with stuff being a little out of order.

That is, until we have company. When people are visiting, I rush around beforehand trying to put everything away. The house is usually "clean," it's just messy so I have to stick everything in its spot. When people show up unexpectedly, I don't to get my best foot forward. I apologize when they see how we really live.

I'm getting to the point where I'm more OK with it. Yes, maybe my house isn't perfectly in order all the time. It's lived in. If it was perfect, I would be pestering my husband all the time or I would be resenting him as I constantly cleaned up his mess. This way, we're both much happier and less stressed.

I guess if people see it, it's just showing who we really are. There are things more important to me than a perfectly clean house. I'm not judging those who like to stay tidy - I really wish I enjoyed cleaning more so our house was spotless all the time. But I don't, and it's not. I guess I should just pull off the mask and be OK with who we really are!