One of my goals for the new year was to “spend some time living outside the computer, even though the real world is fast and scary and full of people who wear jeggings.” It seemed a bit loftier than “Not become Lil Wayne” (which I should add, is a resolution I’ve managed to keep for an entire month and a half now) and loads better for my self-esteem.

See, people are all, “bloggers are introverts who have no social skills and hate crowds of people,” which makes me all, “um, not so much.” Because while I may greet you for the first time by humping your leg while eating a hot dog, THAT DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T HAVE SOCIAL SKILLS. In fact, I’d venture to say that it means I EXCEL at social skills. Just ask all the people who have restraining orders against me.

What can I say? I’m a friendly sorta person.

But when I dared to tell myself that I had to be more social, the Universe was all, “bwahahaha, sucker,” and threw me a wicked case of the flu. Two weeks and counting.

(and yes, Pranksters, I’d go to the doctor if I actually had something worth treating)

So when my good friend Dana showed up at my house unexpectedly, I was all, OMG A REAL PERSON IN MAH HOUSE. I ran around frantically to find a hot dog to eat while I humped her leg. It was pretty wicked to have someone over. Especially since I can now make people spend at least ten minutes oohing and aahing over my purple-flavored walls.

We sat and caught up for a couple of hours while Amelia performed tricks in front of her Auntie Dana like a good show-dog. It was nice. I can’t remember the last time I spent any amount of time with someone who didn’t want to talk about work.

She also noticed how clean my house was, which made me all barrel-chested with pride. See, I like a clean house. Problem’s been that my husband works a kajillion hours a week and doesn’t seem to care one way or another whether the house looks like a shot out of a Hoarders episode or not. I’m not entirely convinced he’s not blind.

Plus, the three crotch parasites used to delight in pulling absolutely everything out and leaving it in one ginormous pile for me to break my toes on. I tried to keep up with the mess, but damns, it was hard.

Then a magical thing happened.

My children grew up. They got anal about house-cleaning. Dave started giving a shit about the house. The Guy on the Couch helped me clean.

And most importantly, I have been sticking to my other OTHER New Years Resolution – “one a day.”

I’ve been donating, dumping, and throwing away one thing every single day. It sounds really hard, right? Like, one thing a day for a year is a fuckton of shit to dump. I hate committing to things that take a year (mostly because I’m an impatient sea-hag).

You know what?

It’s been easier than I’d thought. I’ve managed to get rid of more than one thing each day, which means that my house becomes more manageable each and every day.

In the same way that it feels good to hear, “damn, you look like you lost weight” when you’ve been dieting, it felt amazaballs to hear “your house looks the best I’ve seen it,” from someone who knows you well.

(others might have been offended, but not me)

Now if only I could find a home for that stupid monogrammed embosser thing I’d bought (while probably drunk) that I’ll never use.

This post is brought to you by Aunt Becky (me) of Mommy Wants Vodka (my blog) and has been authorized by it’s original author (again, me) to be reused on this site.