My house, the stranger

I end up traveling. A lot. Especially for someone who doesn't like to leave the house.

Many of my forays into the outside world are overnight. If we're gone for a night, I try to straighten up the house a bit before I leave. When we come back, it's no big deal to unpack and get into our routine again.

Some of our trips are more than one night...and for some odd reason the math doesn't work on packing. Instead of taking the overnight trip and adding that much more stuff per day, instead we take the amount of stuff for overnight, multiply it by 3.281, and pack it into every single bag we have.

I clean the house furiously before we go somewhere for more than one night. I like coming home to a clean house...however, 99.8% of the time we destroy the house rummaging through drawers and closets on our way out the door.

When we get home, I have the exponentially enormous luggage to unpack, plus the last minute stuff we drug out, and any presents the animals have left for me.

The house also feels weird. (See? I am finally getting to the point. Don't lose faith, readers!) It's like I can't seem to reconcile it with the house I left...is the stuff in the fridge good? What's even in the fridge? Is the dishwasher clean? Did I take the trash out before I left? What's that smell in the sink???

I walk to the bedroom. Are my sheets clean? Is there dirty laundry in the bins? Did I suddenly get a bed bug infestation? Does the shower still work?? Is that really where I put my jeans in the closet????

See, even a short absence can make me feel like I don't know my own home. It's like I gingerly put stuff away and get to know the place again when we get home. It feels weird to just step back into things...the end result is that my house feels like a stranger; like a beach house you rent where you have to look for everything and get used to its weird smell.

Maybe it's something to do with routines, and not about my house at all. Or maybe I'm just nuts.

And this might possibly be the worst blog ever.