preparing for parents to visit

Been cleaning like a cleaning fool..I guess we only "deep clean" when someone's parents are coming, cause this is the first deep clean since May when my in-laws came to visit. About twice a year of scrubbing soap scum off showers and scrubbing down the baseboards and washing windows seems about right to me.

My mom's house was always meticulously clean, which I didn't enjoy much growing up (I prefer a house that looks lived in) but which has ramped up my anxiety re: her seeing my house for the first time. Especially since she always makes comments that makes it seem like I'm filthy. Actually the first of 2 times she came to visit me when I lived in Philly, she brought a bunch of cleaning supplies like she expected me to be living in filth. Which I'm not! It's funny, my mom always used to talk about how her cooking was never good enough for her mother- I feel the same way about cleaning and her. Can't really feel that way about cooking since she would never eat anything I cooked anyway! :)

I took down the christmas tree and we're probably going to take down the lights today. I'm not going to take the christmas cards down off my refrigerator though- christmas is over so it's reasonable to take down the tree and the lights even though we would probably leave them up a few more days if my parent's weren't coming to visit, but I like those cards, and if they have a problem with that then maybe they should send me a chanukah card and I can put those up too (we got none of those, but several christmas/holiday cards from B's family and my coworkers).

We are going to get some fruits and entenmenns cookies and bottles of water (we also have canned soda) for snacks when they get here. There's not a whole lot of kosher food where we live, so we don't have many other options.

I wrote back to my dad's email asking if they were going to stay overnight here in our guest room, which we invited them to do about 6 times and he never responded to before, and he wrote back that they booked a hotel in a small city about 45 minutes north of here so they can "get an early start on their drive home the next day." (They are visiting me on their way back to NJ from Florida). Trying to be happy they are coming at all and not focus on these bullshit hurtful excuses to not spend more than an hour or two with me (at my PhD graduation- the first and only time they have met my husband so far- they also booked a flight later that day so they *had* to leave immediately after the graduation ceremony and couldn't stick around at all). Small steps, right? At least they are coming, that is huge, for them to actually spend the night would be insanely huge.

Maybe I'll just blame this on my mom's fear of dogs...I mean my in-laws didn't stay at our house either when they visited cause my MIL is allergic to cats. It's not such a big deal...

Well, it's a new year tomorrow and maybe this is the start of a new relationship. Never in a million years would I have expected my mom to come visit me here- I thought my dad would come eventually, but for my mom to be coming to visit is huge. I hope she thinks my house is as awesome as I think it is. :) More importantly, I hope she sees when visiting that my life isn't bizzarely different from hers- no alters to satan, no crosses hanging on the wall, just a normal looking house. I think part of the problem is she thinks I live a crazy different life and that she can't relate to me, and I hope she see's that other than the dietary restrictions and not using electricity or driving once a week (On her part not mine), our lives are pretty much the same.