My reasons for not keeping my house spotlessly clean.

[Garga]

For the first decade of marriage (pre-kids), dh and I were out constantly. Our apartment/house was just a place to crash. We worked all day, ate out, went to things (like movies and stuff) and were rarely home. We didn't really bother decorating the house or taking care of it, because it was just a place to sleep and to store our clothing.

 

But once we had kids (7 years into it now), and I quit work, my house took on a whole new feel. Instead of leaving the house to live life, I lived life in the house.

 

Track with me here, when I say that my house is like a pizza stone. When you first get the stone, it's a nice creamy color. It's really very pretty. But you know that it's not very useful. The first time you use the stone, you're supposed to cook something greasy on it (like croissants) to season it. The darker and more nasty looking your stone is--the better it works.

 

Currently, my stone is a mottled brown/black color. There are darker splotches where I bake cookies. I love those splotches because they're perfectly spaced. I just follow my template of black splotches to put the next set of cookies on the stone.

 

I don't use dish detergent and a sponge on my stone. I just rinse it off with hot water and scrape it with a plastic scraper. I wouldn't want to remove any of that "seasoning."

 

And that's how my house is. It's not perfectly decorated. It's not deeply cleaned and scrubbed. But it's very useful. I think of it it as a "working home." There's that extra rod in both showers to hang up clothes to dry on. There's the re-purposed bedroom dresser (that was stained darker) in the dining room to hold the place mats and extra bath towels. There are the homemade book shelves above all the door frames in the hallway for the hs books. There's the couch with the cushions that I have to replace about 4 times a day (because the kids constantly pull them off to use as forts.) There's the low bookshelf by the front door that has the kids' shoes piled up on it.

 

It's not the prettiest house; it's not creamy clean (like a new stone). But it is useful, like my dark brown splotches on my pizza stone.

 

And in the long-run, I'm pretty sure that the kids are pleased with their mostly-tidy home where we spend only part of the afternoon cleaning, but then we stop and play for the rest of the afternoon, grease splotches remaining or no.

 

 

(I can also write one about how my house is like a yard full of fall leaves. No one takes pictures of a tree with no leaves in a spotless brown yard. But everyone loves those pictures of trees with half their leaves in a huge messy pile on the lawn with pumpkins scattered throughout them. That's my house--messy piles of leaves, but gives you a nice comforted feeling.)

[Mrs Mungo]

Isn't having things I'd rather do than stress out, stress the family out over having a perfectly clean home enough? :D

[LibraryLover]

I simply can't figure out how one keeps a house spotlessly clean when one has a house full of people using it every single day. I can go to bed to a clean house, I can wake up to a clean house. Within 5 minutes of everyone being up, there are mugs, bowls, pencils, pens, chalk, dry erase markers, books, notebooks, glue, tape, scissors, blocks everywhere, and damp dish towels on the counters. Not to mention shoes and boots by the door as people go in and out to the barn or car. Funny, the basket of gloves by the door looked so nice and tidy last night , before people actually needed them this morning.

 

I can't have it as a goal. lol

[Daisy]

Great post! I'm a neat-nick and it has taken me 15+ years of marriage to realize what you wrote above. I hope I'm nicely in the middle between the spotlessly never used home and the pigsty.

 

My furniture isn't new. I don't change out the curtains with the seasons. I've never had anything but Target bookshelves. You'll find crafts plastered to the refrigerator, stacks of books everywhere, and probably if you looked carefully you'll see where I missed getting that blob of toothpaste off the ceiling.

 

But we have a home. A home that smells like oatmeal cookies and moss, cinnamon and shampoo. The laundry is done and I'm not ashamed of my toilet but if you expect to find perfection, you best keep moving down the block.

[Aubrey]

But we have a home. A home that smells like oatmeal cookies and moss, cinnamon and shampoo. The laundry is done and I'm not ashamed of my toilet but if you expect to find perfection, you best keep moving down the block.

 

See, you make me want to get out of bed & go bake cookies & clean house.

 

I peeked out this morning. We've got the grease stains alright. It's what happens when Mama's sick for 12 hours. :w00t:

[momtoboys]

My reason: I hate cleaning and find it incredibly boring. :lol:

[mammaruss]

My reason: I hate cleaning and find it incredibly boring. :lol:

LOL!!! :iagree:

[Alicia64]

I seem to have really clean friends who do keep spotless homes and none of them hs.

 

I end up feeling really embarrassed and it's a big deal when I let people come over.

 

Right now, I'm cringing at how dirty the windows are.

 

Alley

[Daisy]

I seem to have really clean friends who do keep spotless homes and none of them hs.

 

I end up feeling really embarrassed and it's a big deal when I let people come over.

 

Right now, I'm cringing at how dirty the windows are.

 

I do, too, Alley. Thankfully, I have a few friends who have messier homes. That helps a bit.

 

It also helps to remind myself of what I want my children to remember. Painting, playing with playdough, baking, etc. or a clean house??

[4kiddies]

I was at a friends house last weekend and she had this stenciled on her wall... "Pardon the noise and the mess, my children are making happy memories." Isn't that beautiful?

[Sue G in PA]

I bought a sign at Cracker Barrel that said, "My house was clean last week. Sorry you missed it". Everyone who comes in my kitchen points it out and laughs. I try to keep the house clutter and dirt free, but most of the time it's only the dirt that manages to be eradicated. I don't like my house, though. We don't have living room floors (just sub floors), a very outdated bathroom and kitchen, places on the walls where we started to rip off wallpaper but gave up, etc. It's really bad and we just don't have the $ to fix any of it...or the know how, really, for the more technical stuff. I just try to be grateful and do small things to make it work for me.

[MeAndTheBoys]

i'm with ya-- We LIVE in our house. We LOVE in our house. And it shows it---

 

Like you said, a "working home"; I've used that term myself! It's not a home for show. We're here most of the day, and we use every space, and it shows.

 

I try not to let it get nasty though :) We do "clean" and "tidy" but not "Magazine Show Quality", lol

 

Betsy

 

For the first decade of marriage (pre-kids), dh and I were out constantly. Our apartment/house was just a place to crash. We worked all day, ate out, went to things (like movies and stuff) and were rarely home. We didn't really bother decorating the house or taking care of it, because it was just a place to sleep and to store our clothing.

 

But once we had kids (7 years into it now), and I quit work, my house took on a whole new feel. Instead of leaving the house to live life, I lived life in the house.

 

Track with me here, when I say that my house is like a pizza stone. When you first get the stone, it's a nice creamy color. It's really very pretty. But you know that it's not very useful. The first time you use the stone, you're supposed to cook something greasy on it (like croissants) to season it. The darker and more nasty looking your stone is--the better it works.

 

Currently, my stone is a mottled brown/black color. There are darker splotches where I bake cookies. I love those splotches because they're perfectly spaced. I just follow my template of black splotches to put the next set of cookies on the stone.

 

I don't use dish detergent and a sponge on my stone. I just rinse it off with hot water and scrape it with a plastic scraper. I wouldn't want to remove any of that "seasoning."

 

And that's how my house is. It's not perfectly decorated. It's not deeply cleaned and scrubbed. But it's very useful. I think of it it as a "working home." There's that extra rod in both showers to hang up clothes to dry on. There's the re-purposed bedroom dresser (that was stained darker) in the dining room to hold the place mats and extra bath towels. There are the homemade book shelves above all the door frames in the hallway for the hs books. There's the couch with the cushions that I have to replace about 4 times a day (because the kids constantly pull them off to use as forts.) There's the low bookshelf by the front door that has the kids' shoes piled up on it.

 

It's not the prettiest house; it's not creamy clean (like a new stone). But it is useful, like my dark brown splotches on my pizza stone.

 

And in the long-run, I'm pretty sure that the kids are pleased with their mostly-tidy home where we spend only part of the afternoon cleaning, but then we stop and play for the rest of the afternoon, grease splotches remaining or no.

 

 

(I can also write one about how my house is like a yard full of fall leaves. No one takes pictures of a tree with no leaves in a spotless brown yard. But everyone loves those pictures of trees with half their leaves in a huge messy pile on the lawn with pumpkins scattered throughout them. That's my house--messy piles of leaves, but gives you a nice comforted feeling.)

[LibraryLover]

My reason: I hate cleaning and find it incredibly boring. :lol:

 

 

I don't hate it, but it is rather boring. I've told my dh that and we agree. You do the same things over and over and over and over again, and you still have to do it again. And again. Also: "Catching up' with the laundry or 'getting the laundry done' are phrases which stymie me. You never catch up or finish...not unless everyone gooes naked. If anyone is even wearing underwear during the 'last load of laundry' they are already creating laundry.

Edited November 14, 2009 by LibraryLover

[8circles]

Garga, thank you so much for this post. It gave me the warm fussies. Beautiful.

[FO4UR]

Thanks for that post today....we are "seasoning" our new home LOL!:tongue_smilie:

 

We've been here about a month and the kids have found there favorite spots to pile books, hide toys, and build their forts. Sigh! I'll miss the clean freshly painted walls in a few weeks...:lol:

 

I'll have a clean home someday, and then I'll miss having my children around to mess it up.

[Mom-ninja.]

You never catch up or finish...not unless everyone gooes naked. If anyone is even wearing underwear during the 'last load of laundry' they are already creating laundry.

 

I've often considered moving to a nudist colony for this reason.

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

I'm now going to ask dh to build me some above-the-door-frame bookshelves. Then maybe some of the stacks of books can be moved in order to make another clean horizontal space upon which to stack more stuff.

[mom2denj]

I love this post! I have a sign in my dining room that says "Dull women have immaclate houses". I love the "My house was clean last week, sorry you missed it", what a hoot!!! Well off to my table full of feathers, glue, paper and googly eyes, as my 3 yr old and I make handprint turkeys. Have a great day!!:D