The crucial difference between me and my mother

My mom and dad live in a beautiful, two-story house built in the twenties. Through almost twenty years of constant renovation, they have made it a charming and warm refuge for family and friends. When BJ and I started house hunting, I purposely sought a house to reflect my childhood home, and I found it: two-stories, old, and quaint.

When my parents have visitors coming, my mother frets about her house. It has to be perfectly clean and perfectly charming. Like her, I fret, also. I want to create an atmosphere of peace and welcome for my visitors, so I come up with a long to-do list the week before we have company.

Tonight, I have four of BJ's family members coming in, and on Friday, we will welcome another 8 people. Those eight won't be sleeping at our house, but they will be spending the days this weekend in our home. So if you are counting, we will have twelve visitors for the Fourth.

So, in "I'm becoming my mother" fashion, I have made a long list for cleaning, and I've spent mental energy fretting over my house. But I have also discovered one crucial difference between me and my mother. When Mom has a cleaning agenda prior to company, she does it. When I have one, I go to my art room and paint a bird. This is problematic.

So I've spent the past few days playing with the mat board cutter my brother got me for Christmas and contemplating the best composition for a bird painting I've been prepping for over the past couple of weeks. Neither of these things contribute to a clean house. In fact, they both make a mess.

Thankfully, due to my new thyroid medication (that is a whole other blog post for another day) I have energy abounding, so I've managed to fit in cleaning here and there, and BJ's never-ending obbsession with clean floors hasn't hurt. So bring on the company. We're ready even if we're not ready quite to my mother's standard.