8.25.2008

The Grandparents Are Coming!, Part Two

Perhaps you remember last summer when I wrote a little poem about my grandparents coming to visit, or maybe you haven't been visiting my foothill home that long. Either way, I experienced a major sense of deja vu last Friday when I received a call from my grandma that my grandparents were an hour away from my house and wanted to stop by. My reaction this time was very different. Rather than penning a poem about not wanting to clean my house, I grabbed my camera to take pictures of my house. It was clean... enough.

family room

Sure I had a project sprawled out on the cutting table in the family room.

living room

My knitting and Avery's journals were covering the surface of Great Aunt Soph's steamer trunk turned coffee table in the living room.

dining room

The dining room table was covered with various papers and projects; but no worries. My grandparents weren't stopping by to share a meal. They simply wanted to say hello and use the bathroom, which had been bleached twice in the past week in an ongoing attempt to cohabit with a five year old boy.

bouquet of ziplocs, drying

The dishes were washed, but not put away. They were drying alongside a bouquet of washed ziploc baggies.

Our house looks lived in, which is exactly what my grandma said last summer when she stopped by. It's a style I'm comfortable with, and relatively good at pulling off. So feel free to stop by anytime friends. I'll make you a grilled cheese and pour you a pint.

14 comments:

  1. You, too, are welcome to come by our home anytime ... so you can teach me how to do this!!!!

    Actually, things are well enough here and I'm trying to relax in that rather than feeling bad for falling short of perfection.

    Your over-sized furniture is great! Happy visiting with your family.

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  2. Oh, I so wanted to come this summer and now I want to even more. One of these days I'll give you that phone call. Hopefully soon.

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  3. Nice! I'd love to sometime. :) It's awesome that you're comfortable with your lived in house. It looks pretty darned clean to me!

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  4. I've just recently discovered your blog and love this post! I've always worried way too much about whether the house is perfect when people come by ... then, recently, I had a former client (in her 60s, never had kids) say something about how my house seems cleaner than it used to (talk about a back-handed compliment!)and that I must have hired a cleaning service ... and in a weird way, I found it pretty liberating -- you can't control how people think, so the best option is to just figure out how to stay comfortable in your own skin and level of chaos (with an almost-2 year old and another on the way, I'm a real specialist in chaos these days!). Thanks for the post!

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  5. You have a beautiful house! It looks so comfy and "lived in" in the best possible way.

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  6. your home looks so comfortable and inviting.... so nice that the grandparents are close enough to pop in and say hello!

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  7. This is the grandma speaking and telling my Molly girl that her home is beautiful because it is so full of love and the lived in look works too!

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  8. oh that comment from you grandma! sums it up doesn't it?
    you have a lovely home. we're somewhere between the lived in look and a tasmanian devil just blew threw here look. I will say that having a two year old has made me accept that it is OKAY to have a home that is not always orderly, dust-free, vacuumed, and mopped. I have much better things to do with my day now.

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  9. I love your grandma's words- lived in is so wonderful! Your home looks so wonderful and inviting. I hope you had a great visit with your grandparents!!

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  10. Well, it looks pretty clean to me and very comfortable.

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  11. Your home looks exactly what it should look like. And I think it's pretty darn clean! :)

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  12. Bless the lived-in home. I'm enjoying the peace your blog is vibing lately - and Benen enjoys the legos.

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  13. You can't get better than lived in. That is perfect. :)

    Love that steamer truck.

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  14. Oh Sweet Nelly! I know I'll be back to visit you again, not only because I see heart and soul, and stitching, but because you wash,dry, and reuse zip locks bags too! Thanks for popping over to my little space online, and so nice to meet you!

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