Why bother?

I had high hopes for my day off on Monday. I was going to get ALL of my homework done, get a little bit of work done to get a jump on the week, and I was going to clean the house up. All of this after I went for a run/walk and did some pilates. Seems feasible....

The mail pile alone took me nearly 40 minutes. I did 7 loads of laundry. Put away Christmas boxes that were stacked all over the dining room. I pretty much just got the cleaning done during the day and then worked on my homework after dinner. I was aiming to get it all done during the day light hours so I could relax with Adam in the evening. The upside is that the house looks better than it has in ages. The downside, Adam makes it impossible to keep the house clean. IMPOSSIBLE. When he got home from work on Monday night, I was making dinner and walked out of the kitchen to say hi when I noticed his coat strewn across a chair and not in the front closet next to the front door. He moved the coat to the door handle of the closet, but not IN the closet. It was close enough for me. As he was taking his socks off, he started to throw them on the floor next to the bed. I told him "put them in the hamper." Yes, this sounds like I am nagging, but I spent ALL day cleaning to have him not change anything or even attempt to keep things clean. Last night I came home to a plate on the counter, next to the dishwasher. I'm not going to the touch that plate. If I have to tell Adam every day that its there, I'm going to do it, but I refuse to put it in the dishwasher.

This makes me realize why I give up on keeping the house clean because I don't have any help. I would like to keep it in the form that it is now, but I know it's also going to drive me crazy since I'm nitpicking everything that is out of order. I can't win. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I'm at least trying.