Keeping House

My mother-in-law and her sister drove out from Long Island on Thursday to visit for the weekend, partially in honor of my daughter's dance recital (this past Saturday). This past week has been a blur of work, watching the kids, and cleaning the house -- not that my mother-in-law or aunt-in-law would care at all if the pictures were not dusted (as my husband reminded me all week). But for as much as I may complain about cleaning the house for company, there is something about it that I enjoy -- I kind of think of it as a way of making our visitors feel extra special and welcome -- that our home is their home. The other thing I like about the preparation for having guests, is that I get to check some things off my long, mental wishlist!

For example, we spent last week re-doing our upstairs bathroom -- not just in honor of our guests, mind you! We have been in our house for five years now, and our bathroom has looked the same this entire time. Perfectly lovely, I thought, but apparently my husband is tired of all the white and pastel. I recently found a new shower curtain that I loved and that sparked a whole week's worth of redecorating! (And I could use Mom & Aunt Nancy's impending visit as an excuse to do it so quickly!) This has been my pet project for the past week -- so much so, that I did not have time to sit and play Barbies -- I mean, CLEAN the Barbie house, for our guests! ;)

And this little project in the bathroom has sparked my interest at working on other areas of the house -- for one, my oldest daughter's bedroom! It has dawned on me, that while she has a lovely room, we decorated it for her 3rd birthday and this year she will be 8 years old! I think it's time to redecorate! Bless her heart, we were looking at bedding sets online the other day, and didn't she LOVE the Pink Toile bedding set?? And I showed her all sorts of different options -- fairies, dragonflies, bright geometric shapes -- you name it, and she picked the toile! A girl after my own heart!

As much as I would like every room in the house to follow the style that I have grown to love, I will be happy with whatever she picks out -- I think it's important for her to get to develop her own style and to have a space that is all her own (as long as she helps keep it clean!) ;) But this will be a fun family project for us to do -- perhaps we'll even get it done this summer before school starts again! I wonder what style the 2nd graders are decorating in this year...?