This morning is a very busy one. In fact, it’s a bit of a madhouse around here, thinly veiled in a single word of truth that has become my, and I’m willing to bet many others lives–procrastination. You see, in just a few hours my partner and I will begin driving from Northeastern, Pennsylvania to Kent, Ohio. It’s a business trip, although thankfully having nothing to do with my business. I don’t think I could take that kind of pressure after three days of making sure we had the right hotel booked for the right dates, picking up last-minute, needed items for the house, particularly items that ease my mind when it comes to leaving my two cats home for two and a half days by themselves, and making sure every inch of the house resembled something that I would look forward to coming back to.

And there, in a nutshell, is the purpose of this post. You may think that traveling and everything that comes with it has very little to do with housekeeping; especially when you’re running around the last few days prior to your trip, making sure your accommodations are correct, that you have everything you need, that you didn’t accidentally leave something that you should have packed laying out, albeit neatly folded on the bed, and so on. I used to think the same thing, but after traveling out of state a few times and spending those couple of days in a nice, super clean hotel room that in such a short amount of time you trick yourself into thinking resembles your life and how things will look when you walk through your front door when returning home, and then returning home to a lived-in, mildly cluttered house, is a very rude awakening. Very rude.

Now, when I know I’m going out of town for a few days, I make sure my house resembles something that I can really look forward to returning to. Sometimes it isn’t enough to know that your cats are home, probably curled up on your great, big bed that you haven’t laid in in days. So, as a rule of thumb, here’s what I tackle before even packing my bags to leave the house:

• Light dusting. Living in the sometimes harsh lighting of a hotel room will make it that much more apparent that there is dust collecting on the shelves, entertainment center and other surfaces of your house.

• Vacuuming. If you have pets, you know that vacuuming is already an everyday or at most, an every-other-day occurrence. Just imagine what you would be walking in to if you let the vacuuming go the day before you left on a trip and returned home a few days later. Hairball and lint central!

• Make the bed. Just because when you leave a hotel room and return the bed is magically made with fresh linens, does not mean when you return home the same thing will have happened in your bedroom. Take a few minutes and make up your bed, preferably with fresh linens and blankets so the first time you go to sleep after coming home from your trip, it will be the most comfortable and inviting it can be.

As for as I am concerned, those are the top three things I have never put that much emphasis on before leaving on a trip, but really make a huge difference when you return home from one. Of course, you’re going to want to also make sure that all of your dishes are done, your kitchen counters are wiped down, and all of your garbage and everything resembling garbage is taken out, but they don’t require any further explanation than that.

So there is just some small, friendly advice from me to you and now I’m off to vacuum my living room and pack before embarking on a 7-hour drive. Obviously posting on Woman Tribune will be light today, but I’m sure you all can understand that.