If you read that title in such a way as a military person might yell to his troops to prepare for incoming fire, that's how I intended it. There's nothing like company to kick the cleaning and tidying up a notch. I like having things both clean and tidy. If I was given a choice of one over the other, I think I'd have to pick tidy. Unless we're talking muddy dirty the likes of which our dog loves to engage in, at which point my vote would swing towards clean. But for most situations, I prefer tidy over clean.
The good news is, we can usually achieve both. Tidying things most commonly involves putting things back to the location they belong. Unless there is a lot of new "stuff," which we seem to be perpetually acquiring. Every day backpacks come home with permission slips, information we have to read and prepare for like class pictures, field trips, thanksgiving celebrations, school projects and work the children have completed that you don't want to just throw out straight away but can't keep in its entirety lest we become overrun with drawings, stories and graded papers.
The garage now has bikes, scooters and other wheel-based toys all aligned and the leaves have been swept off the floor. Toys are back where they're suppose to be and both my husband and I have gone through stacks of paperwork and filed things as appropriate. Everyone is excited for our cousins to arrive—which will be in a half-hour.
My husband just came down, incensed, that I had so many lights on saying, "there are lights on all over the house, who does that?!" It wasn't so long ago that it was we that did that, having no thought about the amount of energy we consumed in the process. That was then though, before the electric cars, solar panels and now power wall batteries.
In recent years we've switched over to LED lights, time of use electricity and an app that my husband regularly reviews to see how much solar is being generated, battery power we're banking and/or using and what impact time of use is having on when we do things.
I explained about the welcoming feel of an unfamiliar house being well-lit and told him he'd get over it. He walked away, muttering and looking at the usage graph on his phone. Guests will arrive, welcomes will be shared and lights will be turned off in due course. I hear they're eleven minutes out from my son who excitedly dashed into the bedroom to get his pajamas on and teeth brushed in time for their arrival.
The Big Boy Update: When I got home this evening my son had made three welcome signs for our guests, taping two of them on the front door and a third perched with tape on top of a can of soda water. He's just as excited as my daughter, who can't wait to see her cousin Sydney.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been counting down hours until Sydney arrives this evening, asking if I could make eight-thirty arrive any sooner, please. After school she announced she was going to ride her bike for hours—which she did—and is now barely awake on the couch, tired out but still looking forward to their arrival.
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