It's like Parents' Weekend at college

Do you remember Parents' Weekend at college?  If you lived in the dorms, it was a weekend a month or two into school when parents came up to visit and you showed them your new, groovy life away from home.  But it couldn't be too groovy, or your parents would think that something fishy was going on.  So you had to hide all of the incriminating evidence before they showed up.  You had to stuff everything naughty into closets, majorly declutter, make your bed, and pretend to be the person you weren't.  Maybe it was just me.

My mother is the one person in the world who folds her dirty laundry.  And you can never tell if the dishes in her dishwasher are dirty or clean because she washes her dishes before she puts them into the dishwasher. 

I fail completely as a housekeeper in my mother's eyes. 

Tomorrow morning we have an appraiser come to the house.  It's actually a really, really low stress situation. We're refinancing our 5/1 ARM to a 15 year mortgage that is exactly the same interest rate.  We're only paying $600 in closing costs.  It's an awesome deal to get 10 more years of fixed payments.  Oh yeah, the best part is that it won't be with the devil: Bank of America.  It's with a credit union.  Now if they sell the mortgage to B of A I'm going to be pissed.  But for now, the prospects are looking good for us getting away for B of A.  The house needs to appraise for 50% of what we bought for in December.  Back then it had a crappy kitchen plus old bathroom cabinets and countertops.  The house next door sold 2 months ago for $75k more than we bought our house for, and it's smaller.  And the county assessed our house for $60k more than we bought it for.  So yeah, we're totally going to be fine.  Nothing to worry about.

But yet I'm stressed about it, and I'm running around trying to make it look as perfect as I can before tomorrow morning.  Of course we shouldn't have it look like a total dump, but I can dial it back a few notches.  Still, I worry.  I get nervous about being judged. 

I almost want to go into my hamper and fold my dirty clothes.