A girls day out

Yesterday was a fun girls day. DD, her best friend, her boyfriends mom and sister and myself all went to IKEA. BF's sister will go going to the same college as DD and needed stuff for her dorm room. DD still had a few things on her list she needs for her apartment, as well as wanted to take a look at their mattresses again. Her BF's mom and sister are very nice and easy to chat with. I hadn't met his sister before then. She's a cute little firecracker of a personality. I hadn't seen DD's best friend since they graduated over a year ago, so it was good to see her. She is back off to college next week.

We walked that store for almost 2 1/2 hours! It was so crowded (as always) and between all of us we had the one cart we were pushing totally full. DD found a queen size mattress she felt she could sleep on and was easy on her savings account balance (most important to her). Then we had to sit and wait almost a half hour for someone in customer service to put together a bag of some hardware that is missing on her IKEA bed frame she has. Well, not missing exactly......it's been stored (still in boxes) at her BF's house and one of their dogs chewed thru the a box and chewed some of the plastic and wood hardware pieces!). She had BF were going back to the store to get the mattress later that afternoon and take it to her new apartment and get some things moved in.


I figured we'd go have lunch somewhere as it was after 1pm by the time we got out of there but we headed home to drop off everyone. BF's mom had bought some of IKEA yummy smelling cinnamon rolls and invited us in to have some.

HOLY MOLY! I had been just inside their front door before and seen how messy their house is, but WOW! I'm not a perfect housekeeper by any means, but their house makes mine look spotless. The small front living room was just filled with stuff laying and stacked everywhere. Pretty much like I saw when I was there before, but worse. I don't even know what it all was. Then we got to step back into the kitchen/dining/family room area. There was not ONE spot open on the counters and in the sink. The dining table (and even on chairs) was filled with stuff. She had to move it all off so we could all sit down to have our dessert. The family room wasn't quite as bad, but still messy and cluttery. I can only imagine what the bedrooms and bathrooms looked like. The cat just hopped up on the kitchen counter and made his way through the foot high piles of stuff. Eek! My cat tried to get up on our coffee table recently (I have no idea why - he knows not to get up on anything but the couch or beds) and I nipped that in the bud immediately.  I don't even know how they could vacuum, other than the walkway area between the rooms.

I would not be able to even think if I lived like that, let alone ever feel like I could ever relax. When my kids were little I had a lot of clutter and now that I got rid of all that, I can't stand having clutter everywhere. It's so much easier to stay organized, to just THINK, when the house is clean and calm. I can actually find whatever it is I am looking for. It's put away where it's supposed to be stored.

So, this morning (yes I did have a few dishes in the sink to put in the dishwasher. I'm not perfect by any means) when I got up, got my cup of coffee and fed the dogs and cat I felt blessed that my home is clean and uncluttered and that I can feel peaceful and relaxed while I get my day started. Time to vacuum - the black dog hair on the carpet is driving me crazy :)