When I was a child, if we had company coming—friends, family, business associates, anyone—we had a cleaning frenzy prior to their arrival.

I must have some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder from those frantic housework binges. I panic about the state of my household whether we're hosting a guest minister, having people over for dinner, or my kids have friends over.

If the guests are particularly intimidating to me for some reason, the cleaning frenzy is worse. I'm certain these guests will notice my unwashed baseboards, the grubby walls, the stained carpet, and the footprints on the ceiling. Yes, footprints.

Remember, I have three boys and one girl. Girls have accidents with nail polish and craft supplies. Boys, on the other hand, are dirt movers. They move dirt to whatever surface they touch. Walls, floors, light switches, and yes, ceilings. We also have dogs, and because I love my dogs, they're allowed on the furniture, no rooms are off limits, and they smudge up the windows with their wet noses. Dogs are messy. Like kids. And husbands.

This weekend we had company. I cleaned and scrubbed all day Saturday. Shrieking like a banshee about crumbs left behind on the counter and stinky shoes abandoned on the floor. Fretting over all the dirt glaring at me in 3D from every corner.
And I realized I was afraid.

Afraid of being judged a poor housekeeper, a failure as a wife and mother. Of being weighed in the balance against Heloise the Happy Homemaker or Barb the Bed and Breakfast Owner and found wanting. Afraid of winding up on one of those clean-your-house reality programs, sobbing over the spots on the kitchen ceiling. Afraid my guests would get in the car to leave and say, "Did you see the condition of her baseboards? How disgusting! How can people live that way?"

Fear, and the accompanying stress it produces, sucks the joy right out of hospitality, and that's no way to live. So here's my question, and I want honest answers (you can be anonymous, if you wish):

When you visit someone's home, do you see their dirt? What do you notice?

I'm nesting again. Perhaps it's a way to mark time on my internal calendar, or a way to hasten the transition between seasons, but this compulsion to freshen and fluff my surroundings is always worse in the springtime.
"Nesting" has become a buzzword to describe a period of settling in and settling down, getting cozy and relaxing at home. Not at my house, and not in nature, either.


Nesting is a time-sensitive, high-pressure period of intense activity. Robins will battle over a piece of string the way two women charge after a throw pillow in the clearance aisle. Sparrows risk life and wing to snatch a bit of fluff from a terrier-patrolled backyard. All for the sake of building a nest for the coming summer season.   

My family has accused me of trying to cause them bodily harm by rearranging the furniture and disrupting established traffic patterns. And while it seems perfectly reasonable to me during this annual drive to alphabetize the spices and relocate every item in the kitchen for greater efficiency, it sometimes takes them months years to reset their KPS (Kitchen Positioning System) to the new location of the silverware or the hot pads. I know they hate it, but I'm helpless under the onslaught of this nesting instinct.

You can feel it coming on the way you know a storm is moving in. There's a change in the way the light angles through glass filmy with winter's leftover grime. Maybe there's an ominous rumble from a cluttered closet. Your heart pounds a little faster and you flip through that magazine article on "how to organize your home like a pro" one more time. Senses heightened, suddenly every chip in the paint and scuff on the floor is in dire need of immediate care. Couple the craving for cleanliness with a rapid-fire succession of bright ideas for decorating your house, crafting new and adorable tchochkes, creatively rearranging your bedroom for the umpteenth time, and you're left with one very frantic bird female.

There must be a way to approach nesting without the Martha Stewart spring cleaning to-do list that's worthy of publication as a three volume set. Surely other people do their spring cleaning AND find time to garden, and decorate, and try out new and entertaining artsy-craftsy projects. Or have I, and so many others, been deceived by our housekeeping magazines and home arts gurus? And since I don't have to actually build a nest, where DOES all this pressure come from?