Self-Appraisal.

I'm in the mood for a self-appraisal! You know, that thing you do at work when you put your amazing feats of the past year on paper in a way that downplays your awesomeness but also makes it clear that you ACHIEVED because, dammit, the rest of the morons on your team didn't do anything. You want so badly to check the "above target" box but play it safe with "on target" lest your boss use it as an example when he cites your high sense of self-worth as an area of opportunity, which he will tell you is 100% inappropriate for the office, but which everyone a few pay grades above also seems to suffer from. When you finally sit down for the review your boss says, "I have some great news...you're above target!!" and all you can think is "God dammit. What does it take to get Significantly Above Target up in this piece? I'm a hi-po! Does that count for anything?"

Just an FYI, if you've never had this train of thought, you might not like me.

So, back to today's self-appraisal. I'm going to go ahead and give myself a Signifantly Above Target on my Homefront Management of the past week. I'm not doing this because the CEO can do whatever she wants, but rather, because I earned it.

My husband, who I do love, went back to Dallas on Monday. I remained with our six month old, our mini dinosaur (aka the Golden Retriever), and our soon-to-be sold house. During naps, after bedtime, and sometimes with him strapped into the Baby Bjorn I whipped this place into a Dwell cover contender. It involved managing the handymen doing the odd repairs we should have done years ago, thinning every single room out, painstakingly choosing the books to display on bedside tables and in the nursery, transforming my husband's office from Sportmart to Indiana Jones' research library, touching up my office so it looks like a cross between a writer's haven and cozy book nook, and scrubbing like an ugly stepsister who doesn't have a hope for the shoe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying, "Annie, the results are what matter."

Today, the realtor's photographer came over to, as his occupation suggests, take photos. "This place looks amazing!" he said upon entry. Upstairs in my office he yelled down to me, "I LOVE this blue room. I can just imagine curling up with a book here."

I wanted to say, "Pssssht, this old place? I used to manage a $200 million business (Holy hell, just did the math on what I managed. Were the people I worked for NUTS?), these rooms were nothing."

What I said instead was, "Thank you," because it was, perhaps, the most difficult job I've ever encountered. At every turn, I asked myself why a prospective buyer would think, "This house will make my life better!" From every angle in every room I questioned whether or not the hopeful house hunters would exclaim, "This is the missing link to my utopian lifestyle!" If the answer was no, I plowed on until the answer was "Yes!" in every single room.

It will either be the 'Make Way for Ducklings' / 'I Love You Forever' book combo in the nursery or the 1950s black and white photo of my grandfather as a radio announcer in the entry that will seal the deal. If not, they are excellent Golden Retriever tumbleweed distractors. Don't even go there. Tumbleweeds were out of scope. I am still Significantly Above Target.