It’s amazing how “company coming to town” will inspire me to clean house. It’s so easy to look past dusty baseboards and dirty windows. We seem to think that eventually it will rain and get the windows either dirtier which makes us think it’s no use wasting our energy, or the rain will kind of clean at least the outside of the window. But, the last couple of days, as I began to look around and try to look at our house through the eyes of company, I began to panic. When was the last time I actually dusted the whole house, not just dusting the table that we would be putting our feet on, alas, not wanting our socks to get dust on them?
Not wanting our friends, who are coming, to think we qualify for the Hoarders Program, we have been busy this week throwing out things that have been hiding under beds and the backs of closets. I started to worry that they might possibly drop something on the floor and bending over to pick up what they dropped, become so horrified of what they would see under their guest bed, that I have been crawling under beds all week, trying to at least organize what was under them. As of now, one of the beds serves as a cover for all the big pots and platters that won’t fit in the kitchen. We have the Christmas bed in the guest room that houses all the delicate Christmas décor which I was afraid might get broken if taken to storage. Now I just hope that the bed never breaks and my Christmas treasures get crushed by some of our oversized friends and family. We have couches which hide several boxes of “out of season” clothes and blankets/quilts under them that won’t fit in the linen closet because I have all the extra paper towels and toilet tissue that we saved lots of money buying at Costco. With all the money we saved buying in quantity, we had enough left over to go buy a new chest to house all of the placemats and table cloths. Randy has been busy the last couple of nights, mapping out an escape route ,zig sagging through the furniture which lines our walls, just in case of fire of earthquake. He was very thoughtful and made an extra one for our guests. We would hate them to get caught in their bedroom, not knowing where to step to avoid the Christmas tree stand and the collection of Santas that are boxed under their bed.
Well, as of tonight, we are ready. I went ahead and put the Christmas sheets on their bed. I thought they might like a little room in their closet to hang a few clothes. I rearranged the Easter decorations which were housed in the guest bath, making way for their toiletries. We were very thoughtful to move all the large cookie sheets that we keep between the sheets to keep off the dust. Didn’t think they would appreciate sleeping with those, especially since there are no cookies on them.
Just in case I missed some dust and dirt, I placed chocolate candy on each of their pillows. Hopefully they will be so impressed with the gourmet chocolate they won’t notice the extra car mats that Randy ordered, (he thought he would have some here just in case his wore out in a couple of years), which are stored under the chair in the guest room.
Chocolate Castles as wel 