Having people over, even if your house isn't perfect

A friend came over for a visit yesterday. She invited herself over to see my recent home renovations. Now, I say "invited herself over," which usually has negative connotations but seriously, if you want to come to my house, waiting for me to ask you is going to take a long time.

Because just the THOUGHT of asking people to come to my house causes me ginormous gurgles of anxiety in my stomach. So I don't tend to invite people over.

The gurgles are partly anxiety in general and partly because, well, I usually feel my house is a disaster. It is definitely not ever going to win "neatest house on the block." Not by a long shot. The pressure to clean up is completely anxiety-inducing.

And since my favourite solution to anxiety is avoidance, I just... don't invite people over.

Now, because I have decided to embrace the state of the house and not make excuses for it (we'll just call it a work in progress) I decided not to tell her that the contents of my (former) office* are currently hanging out three feet away from my front door.

That was a bit of a surprise. Yay! Surprise! Thankfully she didn't run screaming from the house. I gave her a nice tour of our new kitchen and the finished basement. And showed her how empty the (former) office* is.

My point? I emptied out two boxes from the shelves last night. Got rid of 38 things and put a few more in the donate box (they don't count until they actually LEAVE the house).

* bedroom status pending