Forgive our messy house

I looked around at our messy house the other day and had one of those moments of despair all women experience once in awhile, to wit: "Why can't this place stay clean?"

Almost immediately I stopped that destructive train of thought, because I realized what the messiness represented: living.

The evidence?

Here are two bee suits, draped over a chair. It's because we've been working the bees a lot.

Two buckets of corn from last year's crop, which I finally got around to shelling (since this year's crop is coming up). We'll be grinding this into corn meal.

A pile of dishes and a bucket of eggs. The dishes are what I use for our neighborhood potlucks; the eggs, obviously, are the most recent hen fruit.

The chaos of construction as we make a production run of tankards for a customer.

A bucket of whole wheat flour, waiting to get moved back to the barn where we store it (hence the dirt). I brought this in to fill my indoor containers of flour. I use whole wheat for baking bread, which I do two or three times a week (yes, I cheat and use a bread machine, my faithful companion of the last twenty years).

A stack of half-inch oak, waiting to be turned into tankard bases.

A stacked of washed dishes. The kitchen is constantly in use.

I've always heard there is a difference between a house and a home. A home is a living breathing thing, always in flux to meet the needs of its family.

Now compare these photos to sample upper-end houses, where (apparently) the family meets the need of the structure instead of the other way round.

These interiors are extremely beautiful, of course. But does anyone actually live in them? Put their feet up on the coffee table? Bake some homemade macaroni and cheese in the oven? Brush the dog on the floor? Create crafts on the kitchen table? Have toys and books lying around because they were being played with or read? Nah.

As the old song goes, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."