Fake it till you make it!

In terms of my homemaking abilities, on a scale of 0-10 with zero being a sloth and 10 being MerryMaids on roids, yesterday ranks about a two. I just could not get my act together. I spent the majority of the day lying on my bed, minus regular trips to pay homage to the porcelain God. The kids stayed in their pajamas and we ate my leftovers from my date the night before for lunch. I let my son eat chile verde enchiladas! with his hands! on my white spread! I let my daughter climb the shelves in the pantry to get her own pretzels. Encouraged her even! Cuz that's how chill I am. (wink) Replace 'chill' with lazy or desparate and that's a more accurate description.

I begged my husband to come home early and rescue me with a Coke Slurpee from across the street. I almost burst into tears when he arrived and told me they were out. I sent him back across the street around dinner time with the charge to return with five Whoppers. I again ate on my bed. I think my children ate. At least I threw away empty paper bags later and my kids usually make more than a peep if they miss a meal.

It sounds nice to spend a day lounging in pajamas doing nothing, but the reality is that it's only fun when there are fewer things that NEED doing. I could have spent several hours reading or knitting, but I felt guilty not having even done the dishes or even brushed my hair yet. Don't judge.

At 7:15pm I received a text that extended family we rarely see was a hundred miles away and would like to see us tomorrow morning. Somehow this morphed into me politely offering a place to stay for the night, not really expecting a response. Within minutes I was on my feet flinging garbage into a bag and running the hot water for dishes because ready or not, here they come! With the help of my husband and Miq we managed to wrangle my disaster into shape in time for them to show up an hour later. The bathroom was clean, the floor mopped, most of the handprints removed from the surfaces Porkchop's height. And it was all done even though I still didn't feel like doing it.

This morning I showered, dressed, bathed my grubby Gremlin, and started breakfast. With guests still here, I continued my charade and started the dishes directly following the meal. The last time that happened was probably the last time we had guests.

As we said our Goodbyes and closed the door, I practically raced to the bathroom to relieve my body of breakfast. I came back to the kitchen and husband asked, "Where did that come from?"

"I've been trying not to throw up for the last forty-five minutes."

"Really?"

"Uh huh."

"Well babe, you put on a good show."

Something about that last statement has nagged at me all morning. My husband is great and if he has expectations he rarely voices them. He picks up where I leave off in lots of cases, and maybe I haven't been fair. The truth is I can do better than I've been doing. If I can play perfectly happy house, complete with mom in an apron, for practical strangers my own family deserves at least half that effort even half the time. Even if I don't feel like it. Maybe especially when I don't feel like it. There might be something to this "Fake it till you make it!"

Ack! I'm practically on the verge of implementing FlyLady (for like the fifth time), aren't I? Maybe I just need to do more of the things I don't want to do, so when my energy/motivation does come back I can use to do more of the things I want to do. Guilt free.