Bohemian Splendour

I went to visit a friend for a playdate last week, it was the first time we had been to her house, and I was so gobsmacked the orderly, spotless rooms/surfaces etc.

I came home with the kids and looked around my kitchen and thought - what the freak? We live in a state of semi-ordered chaos, I think the official style is called 'layers of detritus piled onto horizontal surfaces'. It's not glamorous, it's not for everyone, but it appears to be for us.

Why do I care that some of you have made friends with cleaning and organising? Why is it not a priority for me? What am I teaching my kids with this approach? Can I continue to blame it/attribute it to being sooooo creative that I must have mess? Certainly my studio is a mess, I know that Sam's is too, but I seem to know where everything is despite the chaos.

I often read that a tidy home means a person has nothing else to do, but this can't always be true. I have also heard of a doormat which reads 'My house was clean last week, sorry you missed it'.

There must be some creative-genius types who have clinical calm in their abode or even their studio. I am interested in the psychology behind all this, in fact I have been thinking about it all week. I have spent most of today running around cleaning up and trying to find places for things, and although I feel virtuous for having done this I do feel that it is temporary - as I am tidying one room the kids are in another room doing their best to play with everything at once.

Part of me wants to be a clean Mum/person in general, but another part thinks - why do I have to be the one cleaning, aren't the rest of you (my family) capable of putting your shiz away? I'm trying to think of what major activity I do instead of cleaning, so that I can illustrate how far ahead and proficient I am at one thing in particular, but sadly I fear that I must spend my days wafting about doing a scrap of this and that. Jill of all trades master of none.

Perhaps the domestic stuff is relevant to my situation at the moment, work from home with young kids around. I am always aware of the mess but for whatever reason put it at the bottom of the things-to-do list.

I'm not going to ask you for handy cleaning and organising tips because that stuff seems pretty obvious to me. If I want it to be clean then I'll make it a priority.  The lady of the spotless house said that her in-laws were coming over the next day and so she wanted to have a clean house for their visit. I responded by saying that I seem to have conditioned my family to both expect and accept the mess, I'm not going to make a rod for my back and set standards I have no interest in maintaining. If you come to my house you'll have to be prepared for our bohemian splendour!

Clean peeps look away -here is our kitchen table and bench on a particularly busy afternoon.