I’m going out of town to celebrate a cousin’s 40th birthday party. He only lives a three hour drive away. While I’m there, I’ll visit another old friend and meet up with a lady from one of my communities for a quick coffee.
It will be a busy trip, and I will have fun. Still, it will be so nice to come home to my clean, orderly home that’s decorated cozily for autumn.
Remember, as you set out your homey fall decorations and give your home a personal decorating touch over the weekend, that our homes do not need to look like the latest Pottery Barn catalog.
Pottery Barn has $75 an hour stylists to help them decorate, an army of housecleaners, brand new furniture and plenty of accessories to work with, and talented photographers to make their tablescapes and rooms look exquisite.
They don’t have children tramping through the house with muddy shoes, pets running through their home vomiting and depositing hair everywhere, and they don’t have people living in their showhouses generating clutter and mess.
Your home will look gorgeous once you are done giving it your personal touch, so don’t put yourself under pressure to make it look like a fantasy out of a magazine. The reality is we read books in our living rooms and leave one or two lying on a coffee table next to our box of Kleenex and a cup of coffee. Reality is you asked your child to tidy up the playroom and they did, but there’s still a puzzle box sticking out from under a table and they forgot to vacuum the carpet. Reality is you just finished cleaning the kitchen five minutes ago, and someone’s already deposited a plate on the counter, and left a half-sliced apple – plus the knife they cut it with – on the cutting board. It’s ok.
Our lives shouldn’t focus around cleaning our homes. Instead, our clean homes should enhance our lives. Our homes should be lived in and enjoyed, not kept like pristine museums or waiting for Architectural Digest to visit.