Keeping A Dirty Home: 6 Things I Don't Clean

I love browsing on Pinterest and one of the big pins I see quite often is Martha Stewart's Cleaning Check List
It's a really nice checklist for cleaning the house, but when I read through the list, a little part of be becomes exhausted...and I begin to make up excuses not to clean. Her checklist is very thorough, and if I had time I would love to complete it all, but when actually going through the checklist I wonder who has the time to do all of this?

I am a stay at home mom, but I also work part time from home, so my time is limited. (Not to mention my 100s of hobbies I have accumulated over the years.) The last thing I want to do is spend my extra time cleaning. I think when it comes down to "wiping down the baseboards in my closet" it just seems like I have better things I could be doing with my time.

Saying this, my house is not a mess. It's really not. I will never be the person who's idea of clean is something like this:

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I have developed a system over the years where after I get ready in the morning I put everything away. After dinner, we do the dishes every night. I try to vacuum my floors 1-2 times a week. I use hooks and baskets (in almost every room) to hide, organize, and hang up extra items. It's not the cleanest house, but if someone walked in they definitely wouldn't say it's the dirtiest.

With that in mind, I decided to create a list of things I honestly don't mind seeing dirty.

Here's my list and I hope you enjoy!

1. My Windows-
I love seeing the little finger prints and nose smears (the dog) on my windows. It's very fun to watch my son and my dog stand side by side looking out the window. I often wonder what they are looking at, what they are thinking, and if they can some how read each other's thoughts. I do clean my windows when I know company is coming, but on a weekly basis I don't. When I do clean them, they stay clean for an hour, at the most!

2. My Hair
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Yep, I don't mind my messy hair in the morning or afternoon. In the morning, I work in my pajamas until it's time for me to workout, so on a typical morning my hair is quite the mess! I have never been one of those women who wake up and brush their hair. I just don't seem to care that much that my hair is messy. After I fix my hair, there will no doubt be a point (usually a few hours) in which I find myself wrestling on the floor with my little guy. Ultimately, I end up having him crawl all over my head, which results in messy hair. It's not big deal, I think it's a small price to pay for some fun time together.

3. My Plants

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My plants are covered in dust, who knows how thick. Ok, I shouldn't say that, but I seriously dust my plants only when I move houses...which seems to be about once every 2 years. It's one of those things I am sure some people notice, but most don't. I have so many plants (15 in total) that I just don't have time to dust them all. They are HUGE too! My dining room looks like a jungle somewhat. So to me, if you have time to dust your plants, you are wasting precious time that could be used on something more productive in life.

4. My Garage-
I know I just wrote a blog about cleaning out my garage, and it's still somewhat organized but it's officially a mess again! Thanks in part to my sanding of the wine rack I am building. We have a working garage. We are in it all the time, making a mess, changing oil, or building something. If you have a clean garage, it's most likely you are not DIY'ers like we are, or you are just totally a clean freak!

5. My Son's Bookshelf-

This is a pic of the way my son's bookshelf looks most of the time:
He LOVES to pull out almost every single book and look through them. I love that he has a fondness of books already at such a young age. I try to pick them up at night when he goes to bed, but one the first things the does the next morning is pull them right back out. I can't help but laugh when he does this!

6. The Living Room-
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Our living room is covered in toys and I don't pick them up on a daily basis. I think it's so fun to watch my son move from toy to toy, pretending with each. He isn't old enough yet to start practicing picking up the toys (though it is something we should start soon) and once he is old enough, I am sure the room will look a little more tidy then it does now. I vacuum the room twice a week, so I will pick up they toys when I do this, but on the days I don't vacuum I just let them stay where they are. Most of the time the toys don't bother me and they stay scattered about.

That's my list of messy things you will find in my house. I think in this modern day society we have started focusing on how much we can make our house look like one of those houses in a magazine and maybe lost focus on the importance of living life the the fullest now.

So even though I would love to say this is what I dream about:
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In reality, I don't dream about having a super clean house! I would rather take extra time I have and use it to make memories with my family.
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So look around you...your house may not be perfectly clean, but you are adding extra hours to your life by not cleaning it! Those extra hours can add up to wonderful memories that will forever mark your life. And in the end, all you really have is your memories...I would rather remember mine as good times with my family then bad times cleaning.

~Beth