I can't keep up with the Joneses

I love my home. Sometimes I think I’m even ‘in’ love with my home. I love it. I love the location and the character and the way we’ve renovated and the different entertaining areas and my laundry cupboards and my outside speakers and my fireplaces. I love it. I feel happy at home and I’m always having people over because I want to share my home with them. I want them to be happy here too but lately I haven’t been 'feeling it'. Lately I've been making excuses and I blame other people. You know... the "Joneses".

Sometimes I hate visiting other people’s homes. 

They’re all neat and tidy and colour co-ordinated. Colour schemes that start at their feature walls and end at their collection of vintage bottles on their Scandinavian side board. [The closest I get to Scandinavian furniture comes with an allen key in a flat pack]. They have timber sayings in their kitchens and black and white photo galleries in their halls and real art on their walls. Their kids have names on their bedroom doors [that they didn’t do themselves in craft] and their walls are clean. Their bedside lamps match each other. Their coffee tables have books about photography and interior design on them and there’s not a corner protector in sight.

When I go to their toilet there’s no wee dribble on the floor or skid marks on the toilet bowl. Their handtowels smell fresh and don’t have the mud that someone failed to wash off in their 7 second attempt at hand-washing. There’s no toothpaste residue in the basin or evidence of last night’s bath in the tub. Their spare room looks like a guest room and not the dumping ground for everything that hasn’t been put away yet in the mad scramble before visitors arrive. Their splashbacks gleam, their cook tops shine and their kitchen floors mock.

I don’t find jocks hidden behind their cushions on the couch or chip wrappers stuffed into the creases of the lounge or half a bowl of popcorn which was dropped and surreptitiously brushed under the furniture for fear of reprisal.

It’s depressing... HOW do they do it??

No matter how I try, I just can't seem to keep up with the Joneses.