It's A Family Affair - A Lesson in Housing Guests

Ahh, summer! The time for barbecues, swimming in crystal clear backyard pools, lazing about on weekends, and - of course - family visits!

Now, I love family visits! But, I'll admit, the past few weeks have found me in a chaotic sprint around the house and on the road. Whether it's vacuuming rugs, scrubbing tile floors, ironing guest linens, packing suitcases, driving back and forth to the St. Louis airport, or trying to remember to water the garden in this horrendous heatwave...I'm a bit tired, and my mother is coming to visit tomorrow!

Initially I was on my sprint around the house to make everything immaculate! I'm sure most women can empathize with this. As a daughter you feel that your mother (followed in second place by your mother-in-law) is the ultimate in judging how well you keep a home. She was the one from which you learned how to keep a house and how to entertain company....now she's the guest staying in your home. And no matter what your mother may say to you: "Oh honey, don't bother with going out of your way, it's just me..."...you know she's secretly inspecting everything in the house!

So, over the past few days I've vacuumed & mopped, dusted & Windexed, and ironed & laundered pretty much everything in my house in preparation of her arrival, but it's funny what two adults and a dog can do in a couple of days. This morning I looked around my house and realized that my list was pretty much back to its beginnings:

1) vacuum living areas
2) clean mirrors and window over sink in kitchen
3) dust
4) scrub kitchen floor
5) launder guest linens (so that they smell fresh on arrival)
6) re-check pantry and fridge for staples (buy milk, coffee, garbage bags and cereal)

I could have gotten stressed out, but since I had gone through this same exercise a couple of weeks ago when my in-laws came to visit, I realized that it really wasn't that big a deal. Vacuuming and dusting would take me an hour or so, the kitchen floor I'll do tonight after dinner (should take 20 minutes), linens will take 50 minutes, a jaunt to the store will take 45 minutes, and the mirrors/windows are almost negligible.

The lesson I've learned with house guests (family or not) is that you really don't need to start prepping more than a couple of days in advance. Save the cleaning for the day before they arrive! But do make sure you've put toiletries in the guest bathroom and cleared some space in the guest room closet or nightstand for them to unpack their suitcase. When people aren't living out of their luggage, they feel more at home. Because in the end it's really not how clean your floors or mirrors are, guests are more impressed when they feel like you've truly accommodated them and made a bit of your home their own.