Countdown To Company

It’s inevitable when you move away from family that they’ll eventually come to visit. Surprisingly for us, everyone decided to come and visit around the same time, making it a whirlwind of stress in April. Well, at least stressful for me and the cleaning products and hardware I tend to take it out on.

I’m not sure why women do their heavy duty cleaning when they have company coming, but I’m just as guilty as the rest.  While I don’t mind spaghetti stains on the floor, the piles of laundry in the downstairs bathroom, or a few spots on the carpet I’m always afraid that company will. 

Then there’s the added problem of the foreseeable questions, “Where do we want to go out to eat?”  To which I recently have been replying, “Right here!” 

I love my girls, but restaurants are not the place for them at this point in our lives.  The last restaurant we took both girls to ended up with me cleaning throw up from my shirt, the floor, Izabelle and Ava’s clothes not to mention the platefuls of uneaten, expensive food. While there were those sympathetic looks our way, there were also those who were rolling their eyes and probably asking themselves, “Why bring young children to a restaurant?” 

This is exactly what I asked myself after that episode. Why put everyone through that and waste the money on uneaten food? So, I decided to be proactive and make a lasagna beforehand, and placing it ever so nicely at the bottom of our fridge all ready to be cooked. 

Next the gloves were off – well actually on – and I started my battle with cleaning every nook and cranny of our townhouse. I even went as far as renting a carpet cleaning machine from and tackling the spring cleaning of our carpets. Boy, did they need it! 

I’m not sure if it was stress or the wet weather we’ve been having recently, but I had a reaction to the carpet cleaning and my air passageways became swollen making it difficult to breath. Luckily, the weather was just warm enough to open up all the windows making the cleaning a little more enjoyable and my lungs certainly appreciated the fresh air as well. 

I felt accomplished by the end of the day and with the fresh outside air blowing through the windows and taking the stink of winter out with them, whatever feelings of stress I had dissipated.  While I knew that the girls would scatter their toys throughout the house within minutes of finishing I wasn’t bothered by it. At least the “base” was clean and the rest could just be brushed aside as clutter.

Our company came and went. The weekend was warm so a trip to the beach was one of the many destinations. While Maine has about two feet of snow on their beaches still, Rhode Island does not. This made the beach trip that much more enjoyable for the “Mainers” who trucked all the way down to Rhody.  

The lasagna was a lifesaver: we didn’t have to embarrass ourselves at one of North Kingstown’s restaurants. Also, thank goodness for just down the road. Between Erik and I, we made several trips to the local grocer within a day’s time.  

While having family down to our humble abode is enjoyable, it’s also nice to get back to the normal day-to-day events. Of course with all the cleaning I did last week, Monday was not a normal day, but Danielle’s Day Off.  Leftovers were served, dishes were left for Erik to clean, and the marinara sauce stains on the floor were saved for Tuesday morning’s cleaning!