Housecleaning

We need to have guests more often.

The last few days have been a frenzy of domestic activity. We have friends coming to visit and we've been busy styling the house.

Steve returned from Hawaii with a spartan mentality. Our house is hardly spartan. He had just spent 3 1/2 months, living with the bare minimum and he had gotten comfortable. He returned to our small, cluttered life and was immediately overwhelmed with all of our stuff. He's been weeding out clutter ever since.

Housing in Aspen is very expensive. Space is costly. So we all live in small spaces. Our house is approximately 1400 square feet. 3 bedrooms/2 baths with a loft office. It's awesome for us. Rachel has her own room, Steve has an art studio, I have an office. We each have our space.

But it's small. We also live in a place where we do lots of activities. Activities take lots of gear and lots of toys. We have bikes, we have skis, we have kayaks, we have camping gear, we have rafting gear . . .

We juggle the gear. What season is it? Time to cycle the gear. Bring out the ski stuff, put away the camping stuff. Our storage space is like a puzzle. It all fits but if you want something, you have to untangle it.

I need that, so I have to move this and this and this, get that and then put back this and this and this.

But guests are good. We look at our space with a fresh eye. What's necessary? What works?

We need to have guests more often.

Come visit.