Pretend You're Good At Keeping House
If you need support in accepting low standards, I'm your gal.
Hi, it’s me.
As the holidays approach and some of us fret1 over the state of our homes prior to hosting a big gathering, I am here to remind you of how low the bar could be if you choose to accept my lackluster standards. As I write this from my dining room table, I can see a pile of coffee table books and plants on the floor, displaced by a puzzle splayed out on said coffee table; a stack of boxes leaning against the wall waiting to be dealt with; and a couch that desperately needs to be vacuumed for all the dog hair stuck to it.
Will this situation be resolved before hosting Thanksgiving dinner next week?
I don’t know, but the suspense is thrilling.
About 12 or 13 years ago we spent three weeks visiting Bryan’s family in southern California. My sister-in-law, who was a stay-at-home mom like I was at the time, kept a very clean house. It wasn’t Museum Clean—it still felt homey and lived-in—but like, it was clean. My house is not usually clean. She and I have always had a great relationship, so I kept following her around the house as she did stuff, grilling her about her routine as if I were and investigative reporter.
“So, you sweep the floor EVERY NIGHT then?” I asked as she swept around the table after dinner.
“Yup!”
I nodded thoughtfully, contemplating this new information.
“Oh, so you clean up the kitchen RIGHT AFTER dinner?” I asked as she loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the stove.
“Yup!”
I made a note in my tiny notebook.
When I returned home from that trip, I was inspired to be a better house keeper, because I realized: Clean houses are nice!
We walked in the door from the airport around 3:00 in the afternoon, and by 3:30 I was scrubbing every inch of my kitchen counter tops, cabinets, and wooden floors. I dusted the entire house from the ceiling to the baseboards, and I captured every dust bunny that scooched across the floor.2
By 7:30 that evening, I was exhausted and collapsed into bed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone dust a bathroom before,” Bryan said as I fell asleep.
For the next couple of weeks, I faithfully maintained my clean house, picking up clutter and cleaning the kitchen every night after dinner. But after awhile, I tired of spending three hours a night in the kitchen—cooking, eating dinner, then cleaning up.
It wasn’t long before my house went back to it’s normal dust-bunny, finger-smudgy, dish-piled self. The daily maintenance was just too much. I’m more comfortable in a weekly sweep and vacuum routine, a monthly dusting routine, and a can’t-find-a-mug-so-I’ll-clean-the-kitchen routine.
Despite my lack of domestic skills (or my inability to wrangle the kids into cleaning), Bryan and I still practiced the Art of Hospitality on a regular basis. Back then, as we do to this day, we invited people into our home despite the dust bunnies under our table.
In those days, we hosted a small group from our church community every Thursday, sharing a meal and talking about messy, real life stuff. Before everyone showed up, I performed some sort of cleaning task—usually some sweeping and a swish of the toilet boil. Beyond that effort, a dim, candle-lit room and the grain of our oak hardwood floors did wonders to hide the grunge.
Any time I cleaned outside of this routine, the kids were suspect. One random day our son Thomas observed my sweeping and said to me, “Do we have people coming over tonight?”
“No.”
“Then why are you sweeping?” he rightfully asked.
One time, a new family came to our weekly group—a couple with a toddler. They came once, and we never saw them again. Later I received third-hand feedback that they thought my house wasn’t clean or safe for children, like a two-star Yelp review warning people what a terrible mother I was.
I laughed out loud at this news, followed by a brief contemplation of stabbing someone (her, to be specific), followed by shame. One minute I wanted to give that woman a piece of my mind, the next I felt so much more evolved than she was. One minute her opinion defined my reality, the next I completely dismissed it. This woman was nowhere to be found, and we would obviously never be friends, yet I was still defending myself against her opinion.
Only now, with the benefit of hindsight and wisdom, do I see the irony of someone being invited into a conversation about the messy stuff of life, only to judge that our life was too messy.
Fuck her.
(Apparently this still strikes a nerve.)
Of course I don’t believe it’s bad to clean or get organized, but I didn’t feel the need to keep my house like a state certified day care. If we wait for perfection we’ll never do anything! So I chose to triage my chaos. Sometimes when approaching a deadline, a Project Manager has to ask, What’s the least amount of shit that can be working before I ship something?
I would ask myself every Thursday afternoon, Do I vacuum the playroom or sweep the dining room? Do I clean the bathroom or the kitchen? Do I fold and put away the laundry or pile it in on the dryer? If I delayed hospitality until my house was clean from top to bottom, it would never happen.
To this day, I swish the toilet and clean the bathroom sink before our weekly Thursday night gathering around the backyard fire pit. And by “I swish,” I mean it’s my daughter’s job and I remind her to do it. But that’s about it. If you show up here on a Thursday night, you’ll see the messy stuff of ZugLife.
That being said, I do plan to rally the family this weekend to help clean and declutter the house, because a clean house is super nice to enjoy, but I don’t hang around with people who judge my life choices anymore.
I hope you are well.3 Take care of yourself this holiday season, especially if you’ll be spending time immersed in complicated extended family dynamics. Bryan sent me this quote he saw on social media last week, and I think it’s worth sharing: “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”
Amen to that.
Until next time,
Jen
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What’s happening in my garden this week
It’s been a minute since I last posted garden photos. As you can see, I’m in the process of putting the garden to bed for the winter, as I like to call it. Seattle is expecting our first hard freeze at the end of next week, at which point anything remaining will turn into a sloppy, mushy mess. Hopefully I’ll get the rest of it cleared out before it turns into Ghostbuster slime.
Clearly not me, as you’ll come to realize. I do not fret over cleanliness.
I’ve since been diagnosed with ADHD, so it’s kinda funny to look back on stories like these with the realization that I was in hyper-focus mode. 😂
If you’re not, maybe last week’s newsletter will help you inch toward feeling better.
My house hasn't been deep cleaned since covid boredom and I choose not to worry about it. Hopefully toddlers will stay away (and yeah, fuck that mom!)
🤣 Wow, I needed a good laugh.
P.S. Your mother's handwriting looks very much like my mother's, which never varied until she was, like, 98 years old and couldn't see for shit.