Shambles

I am a "my house has to be spotless for people to come over"  and " i can't leave for vacation if my house isn't clean" type of person.  

I know it shouldn't be true {and probably isn't true} but I feel like the state of my house is a reflection of me and my ability to be a home schooling/stay at home mom.   I mean, I am home all day I should be able to have a clean, organized house.  

When I resigned from my teaching position and started my job as a stay at home mom I believed that I would always have a clean house.  Oh, how naive was my belief.  

What I quickly learned was that when you live life in your house on a day to day basis {as well as homeschooling}, it is harder to maintain a clean, organized house.

I waver between the realization that my house won't always be in perfect order and the need to have it in perfect order. My type A personality functions much better with organization and order but there are days when there isn't enough time in the day so I am learning to give myself some grace.


Last week we were leaving out of town for one of Morgan's gymnastics meets.  While we were gone we were having our hardwood floors stripped, sanded, and stained.  On Tuesday night we had to move everything off our hardwood floors.  My house was in shambles.  The stove was in the laundry room, the refrigerator in the living room, the piano in the entryway, and stuff shoved in any space we could find. 

 As the floor guys started to work on Wednesday I realized that besides getting packed for the weekend, there would be no regularly scheduled cleaning happening {yes, i have a schedule for cleaning}.  The kids and I were basically blocked off from many parts of the house so access to the vacuum and other cleaning supplies was not possible.  

Leaving my house in complete disarray was difficult.  It wasn't just that the house wasn't clean but due to the floor project nothing was in its normal place on our main floor.  I know it seems silly but as our weekend away came to a close, I had to work on not getting stressed or anxious about the work that lay ahead at home.  The anxiousness and stress would have been a joy stealer so I had to focus on pushing those thoughts aside.  


As much as I dreaded walking into the mess, I loved walking in to see beautiful shiny hardwood floors.

I am pretty positive that I won't EVER leave my house in that state again but it was worth it to get the floor project completed while we were gone.