The Company Clean

This is a phrase my poor dad came up with when we were all living at home. It's what happens when you realize that strangers are coming into your house in several hours and it looks like a tornado passed through. My mom LOVES to entertain and all their friends assume my parents will host all holiday, celebrations, get-together parties at their house. So pretty much every weekend my mom would organize us and we would sweep through the house. I'm sure they don't do this anymore since their messy children moved out and they can actually keep the place looking good.

It's my policy to not stress myself out about housecleaning during the week. We try to keep the pile of dishes to a managable height and I pick up dirty socks left on the living room floor *cough Captain cough*. Also, the Captain makes the bed in the morning since he gets to sleep later then me. But otherwise, I can ignore the cat hair tumbleweeds and dust on the book case until the weekend.

On Friday morning I got a call from one of my best friends from Raleigh. We haven't seen each other since March 07 but we keep in touch. He and his sister (also a friend) were in town at the beach and they wanted to see the house and take me out for drinks. My mouth said "Yay, see you later" but my brain said "Oh God No!". My friend P has amazing taste and his house looks like a page out of Architectural Digest. I have not managed to paint any rooms and just hung a pictures a couple weeks ago. Plus, I hadn't really done anything to the house all week. Luckily The Captain did dishes on Wednesday so the kitchen was in decent shape. I ran home and spent an hour frantically cleaning, sweeping, wiping and hiding piles of junk mail and clean but not hung up laundry. (It just occured to me I still never got that basket out of the Captain's closet, oops.)

By the time they arrived I was dressed in cute clothes with a clean (ish) house. It was amazing to see them and we started talking like we picked up like we see each other every day. They tried to convince me to go to Raleigh with them and hang out. I was tempted but as much as I love them, I need to build a group of friends in Wilmington instead of running to Raleigh every weekend. But it's nice knowing if I need them, they're there for me. And also that I can clean the house in an hour if I need to.