Perfection Infection: No More Perfect Homes

I am a person that can get obsessed and stressed out about having the house absolutely perfect before people come over, especially new people. Now granted over time I have begun to establish cleaned up levels that are applied to different groups of people that come over consistently.

Infrequent Guests/New Comers: My goal, spotlessness everywhere.

Our Community Group: This group of people have become like family to us and they are over generally once a week for Bible study. They are welcomed by a picked up general living area and mostly clean counters in the kitchen (dishes from that night's supper still in the sink or on the stove) but there are probably messes in the rooms not seen.

Family that lives out of town: General clean up overall, make sure there are clean towels and sheets for them to use, and the spare bedroom is clean of any extra stuff that may have been dumped there.

Family that lives here in town: Seriously, they have a key to my house and can walk in at any given moment if they need to, sorry guys but you don't really get any special treatment just maybe a warning on its condition.  

Even this tiered system hasn't re-leaved all stress though. After reading this section in Jill Savage's book I gained a new perspective but this is one that I am still fighting hard against. I still work hard on keeping our home clean and tidy but I want to remove the stress filled evenings or cleaning when all I really want to do is enjoy spending time with my husband or the crazed mornings of last minute cleaning when my little guy just wants mommy to play. I am trying to adapt to these new goals that I have for myself.

Goals for each room:

Kitchen: organized enough to find things that are needed and enough cleanliness and counter space to make a meal. When we moved into our new home we quickly found that we had less counter space to prepare meals than our previous home. With that I have made it a goal of doing the dishes every day after lunch, this doesn't always happen but even if I miss a day they aren't piling up too much that I run out of counter space.

"Keeping our kitchen uncluttered is like shoveling snow while it is still snowing." Jill Savage (Love this because it is so true)

Bathroom: Cleaned regularly and organized enough to find what you need. Once again this was a change for us in our new home. The main bathroom for us has a pedestal sink and no storage in it (minus the linen closet right next to the bathroom). This has been interesting for us and soon we will be replacing the sink with a vanity and adding a cabinet. I give the bathroom a good scrub down at least once a week and in doing so it really cuts down on the time it takes me. Before this was my most hated job so I would put it off until it was terrible, now keeping up with it I'm finding it not so bad.

Bedrooms: The best question to ask yourself here is, Does it work for us? We are not bed makers (I know this would drive some people crazy, including my mom who makes her bed every morning) but it isn't something we find necessary to do every day. I try to keep the room very picked up because the last thing I want to do is go to crawl into bed at night and find a mess there that is going to drive me crazy and keep me from sleeping.

Living Areas: This was the hardest for me, next to the kitchen, because it is the area that is seen by others. I have found it easiest to spend just a few minutes a day working on these areas just enough so they don't get out of control. If a stranger knocks on the door it will be obvious to them that we have a small child as they will see toys out being played with and others in their storage places, but I try to prevent the tornado look through out the day.

This is not going to be an easy one for me to overcome; I feel like I won't ever stop caring what my house looks like or wanting it to be presentable but I think that is a good thing. My goal is to remove the stress and frustration that comes with keeping it that way. I have been searching through Pintrest and asking friends how they keep up with the cleaning, hoping to find something that works for me.

My Ultimate Goal: Finding what works for our family!