I'm a mess

Awhile back I had this friend (we're still friends now, I hope, but we no longer live near one another and have both gotten busy with life - you know how it goes) and we spent quite a bit of time together. Her house was always fairly messy - not dirty, but full of stuff and clutter. Now, to give her credit she had 2 kids and added a third when we still lived nearby. Meanwhile, I only had my one small child with whom I was able to keep up with mess-wise. But I remember thinking about how she wasn't ever embarassed about the state of her house while I freaked out if there were dishes on the counter and company was coming over (that comes from having a neat freak mother). And I think she even said once that she and her husband would rather do other things besides clean all the time (and I probably thought some catty thought about how they could do both, because that's the kind of bitch I am). However, now that I am older, much wiser, not nearly as catty (most of the time), and have two kids running around whom I can NOT keep up with I totally get where she was coming from. My house is a disaster - all the time, and the kicker is instead of picking it up I'd rather sit my butt on the couch and check my email (or read, take a nap, or do various other lazy activities). That doesn't mean I don't look around sometimes and think "Holy crap! This house looks like shit and smells worse." Seriously, most of the time it's so bad that if unexpected company were to drop by I'd probably have to make up a story about how we're "reorganizing" things and the dishwasher is broken. But I'd still rather play outside, read a book, and have a messy house than the opposite. And for all of you unexpected visitors out there, feel free to stop by every other Tuesday after my cleaning lady has paid a visit.