Clutter on the Dining Room Table
Two books, stacked half read on the coffee table. A mix of work and life items cluttering the spaces beside them. Dog hair still sitting on the rugs and in little clumps drifting across the hardwood floors. Unopened mail stacked on the corner of the dining room table. Tall grass in the backyard.
It’s more than just the mail on the corner. The whole dining room table is messy. You’d need to spend a few minutes returning the items scattered on top to their homes before you could eat there. But the dishes are clean, the final ones drying on the kitchen counter. And the laundry is clean and folded, but still in the basket in the basement.
These are the signs of a busy week in our house. A time when the things on your to-do list take a few extra days to get to. Because maybe on a Sunday morning when you could have been cleaning, you sat in a messy house, sipping coffee and reading one of those books on the coffee table. Because you baked cookies this weekend for friends instead of mowing the lawn and vacuuming.
Also, because you spent Friday night headed to Home Depot for a new hot water heater. The Saturday morning house project, while rain poured down outside, was draining, removing and replacing the water heater. The project took three trips to the local hardware store, plus a trip back to Home Depot to exchange the dented water heater for a non-dented one.
I didn’t help much with the work itself. Or the hardware store errands. Other than being encouraging at some crucial moments along the way, I mostly stayed out of the way and occasionally watched from a distance. My husband and a friend did all the work and the literal heavy lifting. But when I got home from working late Saturday night, I was thrilled to take a warm shower.
The point is, sometimes you have to be okay with your house being a bit messy. Sometimes you can’t help but sigh with relief that your front yard grass looks fine enough that the back can go a few more days if necessary.
Within the next few days, we’ll get to vacuuming and mowing the lawn. The laundry will be put away, and the dishes will always be clean before bed. The other clutter… well, I think I’ll just keep being okay with it being there for another week or so. Because every once in a while, a messy dining room table reminds me that life is going pretty well.
