Faking it 101 - Cleaning

Before I start, let me first say that I have this anal-retentive desire to have my home in complete order at all times. I am an organizational neat-freak and suffer from perfectionism on this front as well. As a result, I spend waaaay too much time sorting, organizing, reorganizing, resorting and then just end up putting things in piles that I never seem to eliminate. I'm trying to embrace the FlyLady routines as my own, but I often find myself getting irritated by the whole thing. All the emails get dumped into one folder and I can easily have 20 of her messages pile up in an afternoon. I'm thinking this is supposed to be empowering somehow - so many people write in to thank her for helping to eliminate the clutter, clean the house, blah, blah, blah. Then there's me. I'm thinking, "Back off, FlyLady. Quit looking for my missing shoes and piled up laundry, damn it!"

On better days, it helps me to remember that I'm supposed to actually *do* something around the house that doesn't involve checking email or scanning TV listings for every possible X-Files episode that will air in the next 48 hours. I also find that using a timer actually *does* help keep me from over/under-doing it. So - the FlyLady stays. At least she keeps my focus on one room at a time. I'm notorious for starting in one room, finding something that belongs in another room and getting sidetracked on my way to and from. Mommy ADD, I guess.

So here I am, on the eve of a morning playdate for which I can't possibly plan to be awake and I'm feeling the urge to give the house a complete scrubbing, top to bottom. I swear - I really don't want my house to shine as a way of making myself look better than all those other moms out there. But - I actually feel kind of high when someone tells me that they could never have a house as neat as mine.

Here's the problem - I promised my family that I'd stop going off the deep end with my "cleaning disorder" before each and every visitor arrives. Really, does the living room need to look perfect when the UPS guy drops off a delivery? (Yes - I'm *that* insane.) So, I'm trying to figure out what would be a normal amount of cleaning to do before a visit from friends. I'm thinking I can do a once-over of the main bathroom and a quick mop of the kitchen floor. Heh - maybe I can just spray some cleaning products throughout the house so it just *smells* like I cleaned...

Am I the only one who's this nuts?