Friday, July 15, 2011

First, You Take the Mallow

I'm not going to proclaim that I have totally morphed myself into a Type A Neat Freak. Nor am I going to pretend that my entire house is organized and spotless (Cough. Cough. Office. Cough. Mud Room. Cough.). However, I will say that I think there has been the slightest, teeniest shift in my housekeeping skills.

I know this, because a few days ago something happened that was totally foreign and new to me. My sister called me up with an idea: "What if we grilled out tonight? And had a bonfire? And invited people over?" I think I've mentioned before my absolute terror of people just stopping by - my house was always such a mess that I needed hours of prep time to get it into a somewhat presentable state, and even then I was shoving dirty laundry in closets and jamming cupboards with random crap. So when she brought the idea up, my immediate thought was along the lines of "I am so not up for spending the afternoon cleaning and getting ready for company".

I then took a second to look around. Again, I'm not going to lie and say my house was pristine. I do have a toddler, remember? But I quickly realized that, for the most part, I was in pretty good shape. I put away a few toys, spent a few minutes in the kitchen wiping down counters and putting some dishes away, ran the vacuum cleaner, and even had time to whip up an appetizer. Without stressing.

I know that I'm a long ways from totally kicking all my old habits to the curb. I know that my sister has been here, gently reminding me that I should unload the dishwasher or put my laundry away immediately. I may never get to a place where it's second nature for me to not abuse all the surfaces in my house and I might always fight the urge to cram stuff I don't want to deal with under my bed. But I have to say, I really, really liked the feeling I had when people were coming over and I wasn't trying to come up with a million excuses for why it looked like a war zone.

We had a ton of fun that night, and for one of the first times I wasn't totally worried about people thinking my house was a total hot mess. And I think all the s'mores I ate that night were just a little bit sweeter because of that.

FYI - We got the extra large marshmallows. In my opinion they are too big. The outside got melty and gooey, but the inside was still uncooked...



On a side note - Ilana over at Mommy Shorts is running a little competition and one of my comments was selected to be a part of it! Cool! Her blog is hilarious and awesome and way cooler than mine, so head over there and check it out! And if you feel like voting, awesome!

Happy Friday!
  

1 comment:

  1. I got some of those jumbo sized marshmallows too... was down-right giddy to use them...and then disappointed at their performance. I need a s'more do-over very soon!

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