Stashing...

I swear that I tidy up more for the cleaning people than I do when family comes to visit! It's amazing to see the effort that I go through making sure that things are ready for them. Here's what I had to do to prepare:

• Clean off my dresser - this may seem like small potatos, but I never put away my clothes...I have issues. There were stacks of them...they were all in stacks ready to go into the drawers (workout clothes, pajamas, sweats, nicer t-shirts), but they just hadn't found their way into the drawers yet.
  
• Pick up our bedroom - not too much stuff, but enough to annoy someone when they're trying to vacuum.
• Close the closet door - can we say mess???
• Pick up the bathroom - there is baby crap all over the place, not to mention an abundance of towels...can't figure out how we use so many! Plus, this gives me an excuse to wash the bathroom rugs...
• Get stuff out of the baby's room that they no longer use. We used to use this soothy thing that was awesome, but they've grown out of it. We have continued to step over it, stub our toes on it, and work around it - until today!
• Clean off the loveseat in the living room - I am a "dropper." I enter the house and drop all of my crap on the loveseat. It drives Bill nuts...it drives me nuts too, but it's a habit! How many jackets can I wear in two days though? Really...
  
• Go through the big pile of stuff on the front table...how did it get this big? I had a pair of newborn sweat pants, two messy mats, four magazines, two take-out menus, and a book that I use for tutoring...all of which I'm not currently using! Everything that didn't go into the garbage got stashed in the drawers and baskets in the console table! I'll deal with it later (yeah right)!
  
• In the downstairs bathroom, I had to get all of my hair out of the sink...gross...I know. I don't know how I lose so much and there's still so much to take care of! Cleaned up my hair stuff (dryer, straightener, shiny spray) and folded a towel. Also had to put away the Prep-H wipes - heehee!
• I had to wash the dishes in the sink - wouldn't want them to be in their way, clean up other random crap, stash some dish towels that I would otherwise crowd onto the oven handle, but am too embarrassed to do so in front of strangers! Then I had to do a quick wipe behind some of the stuff on the counter...I don't do this regularly...I'm just not a good housekeeper!
• Cleaned up the refrigerator - more random shit! Why do we keep all of this crap on the refrigerator? It looks soooo much nicer when there's nothing. I gotta talk to Bill about this...I need him on board.
• The dining room table still has kid toys on it (we feed them in there and need distractions), but I did manage to get all of the paperwork, mail, fence quotes, tutoring stuff, ribbons, cards, and stamps into the china cabinet. I really hope they don't even nudge the china cabinet when they're here b/c it will all come falling out!

I think that's it...we are so lucky to be able to do this. Clearly I'm not good at it! I think that some people are and some aren't...I'm with the latter. Trust me, I'd rather spend my hard earned tutoring money on clothes and things for the house, but this is totally worth the sacrifice! The babies slept so well this morning, so that helped me on my stashing run. Hailey woke up right as I got out of the shower and I was like, "I don't think so." She went back to sleep thankfully...she needed it! They were up for almost 3 hours this morning...exhausted!