Surprise, Surprise!

I'm tired. Should I be? Probably not. It's not like I've worked extremely hard or anything because I really haven't. It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that I did not sleep well last night with Ryan waking me up every 2 hours. You'd think he was 3 weeks old not (almost) 3 years with the way he's been getting up lately!

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: I did it! I tackled the laundry and FINALLY! for the first time in 8 months, probably more (yikes! and I can't even use pregnancy as an excuse) it is all clean and all put away all at the same time. That's right. ALL of it!! And what's even better than that?! The kitchen is still clean! Oh yeah, that's right! I got the laundry done and kept my kitchen clean all week! I'm feeling pretty good about it!

And it's really a good thing that I started this endeavor when I did because this afternoon Paul surprised me with an, "Oh by the way, Honey, we may be having some people drop by tonight from my work. They're doing a home theatre tour and our name was on the list." Now normally that would put me into panic mode thinking, AAAUUUGGGHHH! My house isn't near ready and you're telling me this now?! BUT, this time, I didn't! Of course there were a few things I thought could use some more cleaning. I'm sure there will always be something else that could look cleaner or nicer, maybe a few pictures on the wall, that kind of thing; but for the most part, my kitchen was clean, there wasn't laundry spewing all over the place, and the rest could be straightened up fairly quickly. I didn't get my kitchen floor mopped or anything but I felt comfortable enough even having complete strangers from Paul's work wander through our house!

So I know my parents taught me to prepare things ahead of time; you know, get ready at the beginning of the day and then you'll be ready for anything that comes up. That's one I'm still working on and believe me, I wish I had it mastered already because there have been several times where I have wished that I was already dressed and ready to go because a friend called me last minute or something like that. But I don't think I ever applied that so much as a good reason for having a clean home on a regular basis. I am really beginning to see the value in looking at keeping my house clean and getting the chores down now (as opposed to procrastinating until we have absolutely nothing clean left to wear or eat off of) as a preemptive strategy rather than a drudgery. I'm just planning ahead for whatever comes next. And if the next thing happens to be a bunch of random people showing up to my house or just a neighbor who needs to borrow the phone, I won't have to be in panic mode because I will have already prepared for, yea, even anticipated a surprise visit.