Be Our Guest

I can't recall my parents ever cleaning the house from top to bottom prior to hosting friends overnight at their home. For whatever reason, everyone always would leave at some point, even if in the wee hours. Driving tipsy back then was ... well, I won't say it was "common" but it wasn't as discussed publically as it is now and I know for a fact that after a few "Fun Club" parties, some of those folks should NOT have been behind the wheel (my father included) but ... well ... yeah, it happened.

While I have no growing-up experiences with my parents having guests stay with us, I do have growing-up experiences with major house-cleaning efforts prior to hosting a gathering (family or friends). My mother is very good at organizing and filing and making sure things find their place in their home, but she's not the best house-keeper (and she's alright with that). The battle of dust was always being faught (and mostly lost) and it probably didn't help that there was a constant remodel project going on, or the dog being in a state of "shed".

I always found it curious the amount of time we spent cleaning the house prior to a party. I couldn't imagine who we'd be cleaning the top of the medicine cabinent for. Did we honestly worry that someone would slip on a white glove and run their hand along the top, just to check for possible dirt? Was someone REALLY gonna move the blanket from the bed to make sure the corners were tucked in properly? I mean - why would we WANT anyone like that in our home? Who needs a friend like that?

I was thinking of this during the week - when I was vacuuming the window sills and we spent the evening hanging pictures on Monday, as I was washing off the light dust on the plants and recalking the bathtub on Tuesday, when I was vacuuming the downstairs and getting the truck washed in the evening on Wednesday, and today, when I was figuring out which daffodils should be in the front of the vase and then tucked in the corners of the sheets ... properly.

We are hosting our first overnight guest for the next few days and I understand the whole cleaning thing now. We do it not to get approval from who is visiting, but to be proud that we have a warm, clean, well-decorated nest that folks WANT to visit. It's more than just getting a new "welcome" mat to put outside the door ... it's extending that welcome throughout your home.

Hello there, friend. Welcome to our home.