Any Given Weekday

You know those home tours and makeover reveals where everything is pretty and nice. Well, this ain't one of them.

I recently posted a kitchen update, mostly because it was clean. But today I am going to give you the "Average Weekday" house tour. Let's start in the kitchen.

Yup. Pretty average. See that lego box? It arrived mid-meal packed with "things for our next adventure". So the legos have been dumped somewhere.

We ate in the kitchen because, this is what the dining room looked like. Last nights dishes, things I cleared out of the car five minutes ago that aren't in the trash yet because the trash is full, folded laundry waiting to be carried upstairs kept out of reach, legal papers and various cords.

Yes, that is a dirty diaper on the playroom floor. Apparently there was a run away who needed to be chased.

Oh! There are the legos! And the snow pants, and one slipper, and a washcloth, and the Hubster's shirt from yesterday?

Ah..the living room. Where I go to relax.

Note the empty play pen and the tied up dog. She is tied up because she thought it was a good idea to spray her anal glands in her crate when we were out.

And know you know why the folded laundry is on the dining room table.

The bathroom is not too bad. Not clean, and that toilet is full of pee, but no toilet paper rolls have been murdered here today...yet.

Most of this mess happened while I was washing dishes, and answering the phone, and fixing lunch. In otherwords, it happened in about 45 minutes.

There really isn't anything interesting about my messy house, but I think we all fall victim to pretty pictures of pretty houses, and think "if only..." It used to happen once a month when the magazines came, but now it happens every time we open up pinterest. I am not blaming pinterest, or the magazines, I enjoy them, but I sometimes still feel a little...if only.

One of the kindest things I have ever heard someone say was my Uncle, talking to my Aunt about their messy house. She was upset because she had seen the neighbor's house, on a weekday, and it was really clean. Worse, that Mom worked full time and had the same number of children. Surely my Aunt was failing. Not according to my Uncle. This may not be verbatim but here goes:

The play room is a mess, because the kids are playing, and you are playing with them. The kitchen is a mess because you are cooking healthy food for them three times a day, plus snacks. The living room is a mess because you are folding the laundry so we have clean clothes. The bathroom is a mess because...boys. And the whole place looks ransacked because that's what kids do, all day, everyday. That lady down the street, maybe her house is clean because her kids Are clean, but I doubt it. I bet her kids do their ransacking at daycare, sometimes they do their ransacking here because you are the Mom on the block who is home to watch them after school. Maybe her house is clean because the kids don't have nearly as much time between dinner and bed to ransack the joint. Or maybe her cleaning service was just there. Or she cleaned it up to have you over. Who knows? But our house? Our house, is a mess because it is full of life and happy kids, and you should never feel bad about that.

I am going to be go take a nap, in my messy living room, with my happy kids and not feel bad about it. Not even a little bit.

-Jen

 

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