Mr Chiots and I were talking the other day and I said, “What did I ever do with all my time before I started blogging and gardening?”. Then I laughed and said, “I guess I kept the floors clean”. That is so true. I used to be crazy about having clean floors and a clean house. My floors were vacuumed and moped three times a week, the bathrooms cleaned several times a week, and a dirty dish rarely was seen in the kitchen. Then we started a business and our busy season happens to be in summer. Gardening came along next and naturally canning and preserving followed. Before I knew it, I had too much on my plate and there was no way I had the time to keep up with the thrice weekly floor cleaning. There’s simply no way to keep the counters clear when you have vats of pickles and sauerkraut fermenting that need tending. Summer’s bounty from the garden usually coveres half the table and I’m about to move all those tomatoes just to wipe the table down every night. The floors can get pretty dirty with all those trips in and out and with three pets living inside.
At first it really aggravated me when the house was messy and I would stay up late and use every spare minute to try to keep up with it. Then I decided to give myself a break. I noticed that the more leeway I gave myself the less it bothered when the house got a little cluttered. I must admit, I almost appreciate some clutter now as I feel it makes my house looked lived in. I also feel like it helps visitors feel comfortable knowing that I didn’t spend hours cleaning before their visit. That being said I can only let it go so far before it needs cleaning up. The bathrooms still get cleaned once a week and the kitchen gets tidied up almost every night, though not scrubbed to sparkling. The floors however can go two weeks *gasp* between cleanings now and it doesn’t even bother me. The dust bunnies will hold a convention at the end of the hall and it doesn’t phase me when I walk by. Now that I allow myself to let a few things go, I can breathe easier in the summer. I would much rather spent my precious spare time going for a stroll at sunset than inside mopping the floors.
What’s the first thing to do when you get busy?
I can also be found at Chiot’s Run where I blog daily about gardening, cooking, local eating, maple sugaring, and all kinds of stuff. You can also find me at Ethel Gloves, Simple, Green, Frugal, Co-op, and you can follow me on Twitter.
Not Dabbling In Normal 
Wonderful. Wei and I have an ongoing argument about just how clean and Architectural Digest ready the house needs to be before visitors see it. I say “people live here.” He says “put the damned dish towel away.” 🙂
Don’t you just breathe a sigh of relief when you go to a friend’s home and it looks lived in. To me houses that have some clutter, dust and dirt look like homes, those without simply look like houses.
I’ve been trying to take a similar approach with my home. I grew up with a stay-at-home-mom who rivaled June Cleaver is almost every way, so the norm for me was always pristine (not that I’m necessarily into keeping it pristine, just that I think I should and I’m hard on myself because of it). But with a dissertation to write, teaching, gardening, and food to prep, well…the place does get cluttered (admittedly, sometimes to the point of being too much for company), but I’m learning to be okay with things not being perfect all or even most of the time.
Love it. I laughed pretty hard hearing about your dust bunnies. I saw a quite large dust bunny the other day and I had to look twice, I thought we had taken on a 4th cat and no one told me (time to vacuum!). I have always been living with the rule that everything is clean, just lived in. The dishes are clean, the table may be cluttered, the counter full of experiments, but everything is clean. There are definitely times I need to hunker down and work to put things away and straighten up, but for the most part, when anyone comes over, they know we LIVE here. Emily