I officially became a homemaker at the end of January.  Since January, I’ve discovered that I officially suck at being a homemaker.

Our house is a disaster.  When I moved in, the boy already had the house filled with his things, and I liked his things.  Big problem, though, I had boxes and boxes of my own things, and I happen to like my things too.  Right now, 75% of my things are still in boxes in the room that we don’t talk about.

Oh, the room.  Picture Monica’s secret closet, and just imagine it as a whole room.  Okay, it’s not that bad.  It’s not packed full to the ceiling.  There are just stacks of boxes everywhere.  We don’t talk about the room, because every time I go in there to try find something, I end up wanting to cry and then spend hours beating myself up because I have ZERO clue how to organize this house.

Both my mom and my mom-in-law have offered, many times, to come and help me make sense of the nightmare.  And I know that I should accept their help.  I need their help, but I’ve yet to take them up on it because I’m embarrassed.  It’s humiliating to be almost 32 years old, and be incapable of making your house look like grown-ups live there.

I’ve tried.  I honestly have.  It always starts out well.  I do the dishes.  And by that, I mean, I empty the dishwasher of the dishes that have been sitting in it for two or more weeks, and then fill it up from the pile of dishes that has been growing in the sink for weeks.  Then, once the dishwasher is filled and running, if I’m feeling really gung-ho, I’ll wash a bunch of dishes by hand.  Once the sink is empty I’ll turn my attention to the ever-inflating mountain of laundry, and I might even get the bathroom cleaned.

So, it probably sounds like I’ve pretty much got everything under control, and there should be no problem.  My house should be spotless at this point, right?

Wrong.

See, I’ll have a super productive day, and then the boy comes home from work, and I’ll make food.  Making food leads to the sink being filled with a bunch of dirty dishes.  When I look at that pile of dirty dishes, I just absolutely shut down.  I’ll have been so proud of myself for getting things done throughout the day, and the new pile of dishes seems to cancel out everything else I got done and I feel like I’m back to square one.  And, instead of just being an adult, I go into avoid mode…for days or sometimes weeks.

I don’t know why I go into avoid mode.  I know that there are no faeries that are going to come in the middle of the night and clean my house.  And yet, I apparently believe that is exactly what is going to happen.  There’s just something so defeating about doing a chore and  within a few hours you’re back to square one.

I have no idea how moms do it everyday.  Take my sister-in-law, for example.  She’s mom to the two most precious, adorable, energetic little boys on the planet (nope, I’m not biased at all).  She works full time, is always helping out with things at church, and her house is gorgeous.  I am just in awe of her, and I wish I could be half the amazing woman she is.

The challenge here really is just sucking it up and being a grown up.  And now I’m going to go put another load of laundry in the washer because we are officially out of clean underwear.

Also, there’s only ten shopping days left ’til my birthday.