This weekend a few family members are flying and driving in to visit each other.
We’ll go out to dinners and movies, get massages, browse at Pike Place Market, explore downtown Seattle, and catch up over coffee and tea.
I’ll have to drive home a couple times during the day to check on my dogs, exercise and cuddle them. I won’t spare a thought for the work I still have to do before Monday, nor the housecleaning tasks I could conjure up a to-do list for.
Late at night, 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, fabulous though it is.
Pottery Barn has $75 an hour stylists to help them decorate, an army of house cleaners, brand new undirtied, unblemished furniture, plenty of accessories to work with, and talented photographers to make their tablescapes and rooms look exquisite.
The Pottery Barn photography team doesn’t have children tramping through the house with muddy shoes, there are no pets to run through their home vomiting and depositing hair everywhere, and they don’t have people living in their show houses 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 a 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 revolve 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. We shouldn’t live to clean, and we shouldn’t use house cleaning as an excuse to escape family duties, socializing with friends, or tasks we’re not in the mood to do. Let’s not let our lives pass by while we hold mops in our hands.
Let’s do enough cleaning to get our homes lovely, sanitary and cozy, but not so much cleaning that our homes are sterile, time-sucking, and uninviting.
Shall we enjoy our weekend to the fullest?
LOVELY BLOGS: The Scoop
This is a “findings” blog where the author plays fun games of “Let’s Pretend.” She pretends she has unlimited room in her closet and shows beautiful shoes she’d buy. The blog showcases home decor finds as well as fashion. She showcases a lot of modern design type stuff (not my favorite style) but I love her fabulous taste. I’ll be back, I can’t wait to see what she finds next!
http://www.orangebeautiful.com/blog/
LOVELY LINKS FOR TODAY:
How to Get a Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg (Fun With Jane and Dick)