See?

This weekend in my not-so-empty-nest, I'm expecting some visitors from the south.  Only about 2 1/2 hours south, but south none the less.  Two of the three offspring are arriving, grand daughter divine in tow,  for some chill time.  Love it when they can all be here at one time but this weekend the youngest is staying in her home to take care of some post insurance painting.

I love, love, LOVE for the kids to visit and I will take them in any combination.  Sometimes it's one, sometimes two..and all that they bring with them.  Sometimes it is for a certain event or get-together, sometimes it is just because they are available and willing.  This weekend was to be a celebration of a favorite aunt's birthday but, details changed and that's been postponed.  Since they had already made the plans, its on like Donkey Kong.  We're excited.

This means a bit of a rush around clean up for us.  Which is very good as I am not a Suzy Homemaker and house work is not my thing.  (I deplore it, really, so its always good when company is coming and I spruce up.)   For years and years it seemed like I was the only one to whom it mattered.  Once I purposefully left a sock lying in the middle of the floor, to see if anyone other than me would pick it up.  No one did. Well, not until I did, about a week later.

The kids were fairly grown and I thought "Why am I busting my butt, getting all stressed out, yelling, threatening and generally acting like a crazy woman, when no one cares but me what this house looks like on a day to day basis?"  It was on that day that I decided I was not going to be a House Wife.

My mom invested her entire day to housewifery.  She got up to make my dad's breakfast, she cleaned the kitchen.  She fed all of us breakfast.  She cleaned the kitchen.  She scrubbed, she ran the vacuum, she dusted and washed windows, used Windex on all the mirrors, did laundry, made lunch and then cleaned the kitchen.  She folded laundry, she ironed, she had an afternoon snack for us, cheese and crackers for my dad when he got home from work, she started dinner and she cleaned the kitchen.  I'm sure your mothers did much the same and in some homes, even more.  As kids, we did some chores on Saturday and we made our beds,  but mostly it was my mom.

I couldn't keep that pace as I worked outside the home when my youngest turned about 2 and everyone had to pitch in.  The kids did their own laundry at a very early age, and they really, overall, were huge helpers around the house and still are.  Times they needed some gentle prodding and I would state, sometimes in an always loving but slightly raised voice "For crying out loud, take a look around and see what needs to be done, then do it!"  There were things they didn't HAVE to do but there was plenty of stuff they could do to help out...and sometimes, I acted like a crazy woman and that can be  blamed on a little thing called PMS most of the time.  I have a different set of hormones controlling me now.  Whatever happened to that catchy phrase, anyway?

Now the pace is much different.  I clean a bit, and a bit more on the weekends, a bit more than that when company is coming, and even more when I have a shindig or soiree and then, I can be a shadow of that former crazy woman self and go just a bit hormonal.  I am not tied to housewifery like my little mom was, and her mom before her.  I tried to be that person for about 10 years and just couldn't keep up that pace.  Don't get me wrong, the house is clean, folks, but not always as tidy as it could be.  You won't be seeing me on a TLC series or anything.