The Dreaded Drop In

This will be the last in my series about cleaning houses. I hope.

So yesterday, I wrote about cleaning for company. Tough to do but as I read comments, we all feel that it is necessary.

What's worse that cleaning for company? The drop in. Today while grocery shopping, I got a call from my dad. "Where are you?" I am grocery shopping. "Do you mind if we come over in about an hour?" What? They hardly ever visit so I can't no. I have a cart full of groceries, I have to pick up my son from preschool and my house is a mess again. As I race to the check out, I am trying to figure out how to get this all done in about an hour.

I have never put groceries away so fast. I ran around the house and thank goodness we had a sitter the other night. The house wasn't too bad. I focused on where we'd spend most of our time. The kitchen. I also had to tackle the garage a little bit. My parents brought me some ferns from their house to plant in our garden. We'd be in the garage a lot. The garage is always a complete mess. But this week, it was worse. I had recycling containers and garbage cans out of place. Sports equipment and painting supplies everywhere. You could barely walk through the garage. I had to do this all in an hour.

But, I made it. It looks like we always keep it this way. Yep.

Once again, if you cannot relate. Please do not comment. It will make the rest of us feel awful. At least I have another sitter coming in two days. My house can't get that bad in two days, right?

Hurry! Company's Coming!

As a kid, I hated hearing "Hurry Up. Company's Coming." We all had to run around and clean up glasses, newspapers, toys and books. We all rushed around trying to make our house look like it was always neat and tidy. As a kid, I swore I wouldn't do this to my kids. I would be able to keep it so clean that we could always have people over at the last minute.


Fast forward to tonight.


I had a sitter coming. A babysitting co-op mommy. For the past two weeks, my house has been out of control due to a laundry room project, pregnancy scare and new love of reading blogs. Every day it is getting better but a sitter coming really helped motivate me.


As we were busy cleaning, my little boy said "Mommy, do we clean so that the sitter thinks we aren't messy?" Ouch. "Yes, we are pretending that our family room always looks like this."

Why do we do this to ourselves? We should all admit that our houses aren't always clean. Dishes aren't always put in the dishwasher. Kids leave toys out. I leave magazines all over the place. Our lives are busy. We are doing the best we can. We aren't perfect.

I can write this but I know I can't stop cleaning for company. Do you always clean up for company? Why? Why not? If your house is always clean, please don't share it with the rest of us. We are feeling bad enough already.