Musings on Life and Clean Houses

There have been days when my house felt this bad.

Summer brings family (#GrandmaProject and #MomProject) to Wyoming, which makes me very happy. It feels like I’ve come full circle, because we used to bring our kids to Wyoming for the summer when they were younger.

I was browsing around my blog and found this post from 2014 (I think) and it made me smile, because my love of family is something that never changes. So I’ll have past me take over from persent me:

One of the things I do to prepare for incoming is to clean. Or, on good months, I find someone to come shovel things out for me. (I wish I was joking!) So this past week was a good week in every way. When I came back to a clean house I was like, wow. I’d forgotten it could look this good.

Then I had a sort of epiphany. And here it is:

A clean house is a house waiting for something to happen.

Think about it. Everything we do around our houses—dishes, laundry, cleaning—is undone almost as soon as we do it. 

If we’re lucky.

It used to bug me that my work could be so quickly undone. Now that the nest is empty, I realize that all the good stuff is pretty messy. In fact, it’s very messy.

Life is messy.

Should I qualify that? Life with kids and family and friends and things happening—is messy. Tidy is the moment between life happening. Tidy is waiting for something to happen. Tidy is boring. Tidy is over rated.

Thank goodness my life isn’t boring. 

I’m so grateful for the people who come to my house and make it come alive, who arrive trailing clouds of glory and clutter. When there are empty cups and soda cans and kid debres all over, I just smile, because my house — and the hubs and I — are living. And we’re laughing and talking and hugging and remembering old times and planning new times. 

A clean house is a house waiting for something to happen.

So for all you young moms who feel like its been forever since you saw your floor and you dream about clean— take a deep breath and remind yourself that:

A clean house is a house waiting for something to happen. It’s a house waiting to get messy with family and friends. 

What about you? Do you spend too much time worrying about what isn’t getting done and forget to enjoy the moment? The now? The utter joy of being with dear ones? Did you ever have an epiphany about something that made you see your world in a new and (hopefully) better way? Tell me about it!

Perilously yours,

Pauline