My God, I am so tired.

Not for the usual reasons, i.e. everyday life/too much stress/work/kids/errands, but simply because I didn't sleep well. Because I have a housepest, er, I mean houseguest. My dad, whom I adore and love deeply, has invited himself to my house for what appeared at first to be an extended visit.

Do. Not. Want.

He's being nice. The idea is that since he's retired he'll stay with me for several days and help me finish unpacking and cleaning and will take over the cooking for a few nights. He stocked my freezer full of meats, delivered a jar of his special, secret barbecue sauce for future use, and attempted to entertain the kids so that perhaps I could get a moment of peace. (Didn't work.)

And that my friends, is about the extent of what he can do. Not being hateful, just being real.

Let's put aside my total dislike of overnight visitors for a second, because that's purely a personal flaw. See, the thing is that in theory the things I mentioned above are about the extent of what he could do. The house isn't dirty, per se, and in need of a deep cleaning; it's CLUTTERED. I can be totally upfront and honest and say that the dirtiest things in this house are the bathtub and the kitchen. The tub because, well duh, high usage there. And the kitchen because I will openly admit and scream from mountaintops that I hate doing dishes. I love to cook, but I hate cleaning up. This is a carryover from childhood when my mom, who also hates to do dishes, would have me wash all the dishes long before I was able to even see into the sink. She'd take a kitchen chair and turn it backwards so that it would lean against the sink, take a garbage bag and tie it around me under my armpits and tell me to get started. And if they weren't clean to her satisfaction, back they ALL went into the water. And if they still weren't clean? Or she just didn't want to be bothered with me? Again, I'd be washing. I remember being small, about 4 or 5 and hearing the story of Cinderella and thinking hey that's me! Except I don't have evil stepsisters or a stepmom. My birth mom does this to me. I actually used to pretend that I was this ugly princess and that if I washed the dishes perfectly perhaps my prince would come to rescue me and then when we'd kiss I'd be transformed into this beautiful (white, because that's all I ever saw in my fairytale books) princess and we'd live happily ever after... with a maid. The end.

So, yeah. Cooking, I love. Dishes, not so much.

Anyway, point was that anything beyond that scope of cleaning my dad can't do. And I'm not being bitchy or super anal about this unpacking thing either. See, I'll be at work and he'll be here and unless he calls me for every single thing he unpacks, he won't know where to put the shit. Hell, I'm here everyday and I don't know where to put the shit. This has been a big part of the whole unpacking problem. There is little to no storage in this house. The attic was long ago converted to a second floor and all that remains are two Trinity sized doors that lead to the HVAC systems, so I can't chunk stuff in there. The closets are shallow and super small as is the cabinetry. There is no closet in the upstairs bathroom and while I do have a shed and have stashed many unopened boxes in there, I discovered birds and vermin also nest in there so, eh, not exactly a place for long term storage. But there literally is no place to put my stuff.

What I really need to do is purge. And this is something dad REALLY can't help me with because the man is an insufferable packrat. Things I tried to throw away in previous moves he'd bring right back into the house saying I ought to keep it, it's really nice, he didn't want someone else to get it (?), and so on. Want to know how bad he is about my purging? This last move he snuck stuff back onto the moving truck and didn't tell me until we unloaded the truck here at the house. We ended up unloading several boxes and bags I'd left at the dumpster in the apartment complex along with 5, count 'em, FIVE bags of garbage that were definitely meant for the dumpster. He was shamed enough to carry the bags of garbage with him when he left since I hadn't yet set up trash service here.

So there you have it. Too little space and too much stuff. Stuff that I could give away, sell, whatever. But it takes time to do it and my problem is that rather than take the time, I spend it with the kids. And the rare moment I have to myself, I spend, um, with myself. (NO, not that way! Get your mind out the gutter!) Relaxing and running errands.

And now, tired as shit and looking like hell, I've got to go shower and attempt to look like something human and carry on with this day.