Keeping House

I'm reading a thoroughly delightful book these days, written by a dear friend entitled Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life. I won't get into all the details... those are provided in plentiful measure on Amazon, but the writing is excellent and the subject matter both familiar and challenging.
I continue to be fascinated by becoming a "grown-up." Which has meant to me thus far... learning to drink my coffee black (those who know me well, know that I like a little coffee with my cream and sugar), wearing what I guess would be termed "business casual" clothing instead of blue jeans and rumpled t-shirts, and putting my kids to bed at night at a reasonable our, with their teeth brushed, without a Mommy meltdown. The bar might seem too low to some, but I continue to whack my head on it.
Thanks to Karen, for years I've been a flybaby, working on my zones and decluttering as much as possible. But I tend to fall off the bandwagon and end up with a house that looks like a hurricane has recently swept through more days than not. As a result my home is loud both in volume (four kids and a dog will do that) and in aesthetic appearance. I also hate to fold clothes and put them away. Not a pretty admission, but there it is. My "hot spots" are any horizontal surface. I dreamed recently of decorating only with pyramidal structures to thwart the accumulation of school papers, snack wrappers, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and junk mail. Instead I have large IKEA coffee tables that tend to grow the above like magic rocks. Having a messy, cluttered house (let's not even go into the amazing amount of black dog hair that Jazz contributes) means that more often than not I am hesitant to have people over for dinner. Which is something I love to do and which is definitely part of being a grown-up for me and mine.
The most disturbing part is that no amount of house cleaning ever truly gets the job done. I give my family a good 12 hours in ANY house to completely wreck it. And that's with the only get one thing out at a time rule. So it is with great pleasure that I am reading Margaret Peterson's book which is about among other things making a home a beautiful, safe place. Which of course, requires effort, thoughtfulness and plain old hard work. The work is repetitive, often thankless and has its own aspects of drudgery. Cleaning toilets is definitely yuckier than arranging flowers. But with two 5 year-olds perhaps more important. At the moment, however, all of this is compounded by the fact that I am drowning in cardboard boxes or their up-ended contents. Sigh.
I'm only through the first few chapters of Margaret's book but it is just the shot in the arm thing I have needed to get my behind in gear. Thus, I am encouraged to continue to tackle the job of settling in here and unpacking. To be thoughtful of which things to put where. To embrace the chore of making this place our home.
Today, I started with the playroom. We (the kids and I) didn't get very far but all the furniture now has a place and the toys can be sorted through at a later day and put away. Perhaps tomorrow.