I’m cooking and cleaning and doing laundry for this new man of mine. Help, I’m Down and I Can’t Get Up! I don’t know what happened! I don’t know when it happened! We’re dating six months, we’d rather stay in than go out, we get along great, and we spend more and more time together. Naturally, we start cooking, watching videos, and who does the dishes? Me. Who does the cooking? Me. Slowly but surely, it’s me. He doesn’t do cooking or dishes or laundry, of course, or cleaning either.

He has many other talents and he is awesome. He can cut down a huge tree and make you a bowl in thirty minutes – he really did that one day. He is always busy on projects and he does great things. He takes care of the house, pets, cars, tools, computers and lots of big machines all at the same time. So, I reasoned, I should be able to do the dishes, cooking, cleaning and laundry, when we hang out at his house, right? Wrong!

Something happens to you when you spend six or eight hours on the cooking, dishes, laundry and cleaning for someone else: you stop being interesting. You not only stop being interesting to him (who cares?), but you stop being interesting to yourself! (I care!) I’ve gone from being a career woman, a great mom, a fantastic, lively sexy date, to a maid worried about grocery lists, coupons, cleaning sprays and the broken dryer: for whom? A new man I barely know? How dumb is that???

This is my New Year’s Resolution: I will prioritize my life in this order of importance. First, I will be a great mother. Second, I will excel at my chosen career. Third, I will be a great sexy date and fabulous girlfriend to the men in my life, and I will be a lively loyal friend to the girlfriends in my life. I will take care of ME first. Will there be room for dishes, cooking, cleaning and laundry for a man I barely know? Can you believe I visited his mother?