All in the Family

I know I've done a bit of a blog-fade recently (don't even begin to mention the podcast!) I've really lost my motivation and inspiration. I seem to have totally lost my knitting mojo all together. I may be moving on to other craft areas soon, who knows. I'm drowning in a stagnant pool of ennui.

Such blah-ness really doesn't make for interesting reading so I've spared you all the agony.

Last weekend my in-laws were here for a visit. That meant that most of last week was spent preparing for their arrival. I'm a moderately good housekeeper. I'm not compulsive but I'm no slob either. I readily keep my family in clean clothes, hygienic and sanitary bathrooms and kitchen, and I'm almost compulsive about vacuuming dog hair and other detritus from the wood floors. I've decided to choose my battles carefully when it comes to the girls' rooms. If they want to live in chaos, so be it. I went through the trashed room phase too (sometimes still do on occasion) and eventually I learned the joy of organization and cleanliness. Plus all it will take will be a few embarrassing comments from their contemporaries to make them change their ways.

However, my husband and mother in law have different ideas about what is clean than I do. Over the years I've tried to accept this but depending on my mood (and if I'm taking mind altering medications or not) the acceptance comes harder at some times than others. If it were just a matter of cleaning and getting ready to entertain before their arrival it would be one thing. I enjoy hosting friends and family. What I have difficulty with is when my houseguests insist on "helping" me by cleaning and picking up after their arrival. It makes me feel like all the work I put in prior to their arrival wasn't good enough. It is always nice to have a houseguest that picks up after themself, but when they start picking up after me or doing deep cleaning that I chose to put off for a later time, (like when I don't have guests.) I get annoyed and just a little insulted.

Now in her defense, we were also hosting a dinner party on Saturday night for our church Dinner Club. We decided to hold the party the same weekend as their visit because my mother in law also loves to cook for guests and it would give her something to do while they were here. Plus in my defense, it also meant that I only had to get the house "guest/party ready" one weekend this month. I prepared for their arrival by prioritizing my preparations into two different areas. Before Thursday, I would be sure the basics were done and the guest bedroom/bathroom was pristine and welcoming. I know my house (kids and animals accounted for) would need more preparing before a dinner party but also knew we would have time Friday and Saturday morning to do those things and doing them any earlier would be counterproductive as the kids and dogs would undo half the work anyway.

My intention was that while they were cooking, I'd be cleaning and preparing the dining room for the party. But I also had not had any time with my children Thursday or Friday evening and Saturday morning chose to take a few hours to hang out with them and watch tv and talk. Mr. Mess and the parents golfed 9 holes Saturday morning and so the girls and I had the house to ourselves for a couple hours. We needed that "free time" to just relax and be ourselves. When the golfers returned, we felt like we needed to be "on" again.

In an attempt to be helpful my MIL started cleaning and straightening for the party immediately upon her return to our house. I was trying to get my apple pie made for dessert so I could be done and out of the way in the kitchen when they needed to start cooking the dinner food. She also volunteered to make Creme Brulee as an additional dessert and was doing that while I was making pie. Again, my insecurities were making me wonder why we really needed two desserts and to feel like yet another one of my contributions wasn't being appreciated.

It eventually turned out that I had very little to do to prepare for my own dinner party. I got the pie done and set aside and cleaned up that mess. Then at my insistence, I was allowed to set the table with my good china and set out all the proper serving pieces. Otherwise I spent Saturday afternoon reading a book and trying to stay out of the way in my own home and biting my tongue when the dishcloth was used to wipe cat hair off the dining room chair seats and to spot clean the kitchen floor that I had just told Mr Mess that I would mop as soon as they were done cooking.

I hate to sound so petty and bitchy. I know I'm probably projecting some of my own issues with passive-aggressive behavior onto her and her actions. But I can't help but feel that my own efforts were unappreciated and just not good enough.

I really do like my in-laws. We're very different personalities and I often feel like they just don't "get" me. I feel inferior and unworthy a lot of the time that I'm around them. I spent a lot of the weekend feeling like it was an, us and them kind of situation. With the girls and I being the "us" and Mr Mess and his parents being the "them."

All that said, it will probably be another year before they visit again. We're usually a stop on the way to or from their annual sojourn to Florida for the winter. However, I have volunteered to hostess my family for Christmas this year. Totally different issues there. I don't have feelings of insecurity over my housekeeping with them. The areas of insecurity are much deeper and personal. In addition to the judgmental attitudes I get from certain segments of the family for appearing to have "risen above my raisin'" so to speak I also get grief because it appears to them that Mr Mess does all the work around here and I'm a pampered, spoiled Queen. (Gee, maybe because it is easier to just let him do it instead of doing it myself and having him or his mother come along later and do it again anyway.) At least with them I'm used to them and they with me and we can just relax and let our respective freak flags fly.

Family; Can't live with them, don't have enough space to hide all the bodies...