The Tidy Life Is Not For Me

We are having our first open house this Saturday. Leading up to it, we've gone through every room to make it "show-ready" and, of course, taken pictures. Would you like to see a few?

In some ways, I don't even recognize this house. While, I'm proud of all the work we've done, it certainly doesn't reflect how we live in this house. Since we've taken the pictures, we've been trying to maintain this tidiness (to some extent). It. Is. Exhausting. Not only is keeping it clean a full time job, to me, it's not a particularly rewarding one. It means time away from playing or games or cooking. The rooms also fail to remind me of little moments from the day (or week) before that made me smile. If I put J's art supplies away every time I use them, the next day I don't come across her markers lined up in a perfect ROY G BIV row. If I clean up all of O's cars, he can't come down in the morning and jump right back into his game of lining his cars up by size.

It's funny, because I've spent so much of my adult life beating myself up for not being neater or keeping a more ordered home. Now that I have one, it doesn't bring the pride and serenity I imagined it would. (My closet though, be still my heart, may you always stay so neat). It turns out a clean and ordered house is not my life now, and might just never be. After all, you'd better believe that I'll get some messy chickens in Vermont before I alphabetize my cookbooks or have all my windows washed. It's nice to let this little piece of guilt go, now if I could just forgive myself for my weakness for ice cream.