What is it with working moms and holidays?

Sukkot is my FAVORITE holiday of the whole freakin' year. No, really.

Decorating the sukkah, devising, making, and eating warm autumn foods outside in the frosty (or misty, or slightly freezing rainy) air with good friends, looking up at the sky through leafy branches while the neighbor's cat (who really thinks she belongs to us) sits on my lap...

But what the heck? Where's my prep time? How in the world am I supposed to get the house clean for guests (you know, just in case it rains and they have to come in, or, G-d forbid, use the bathroom), let alone finish attaching the sukkah sides, then add the skakh, then cook, etc. etc. etc???

Is it just me, or do most working moms constantly have to fight clutter and mess from the other inhabitants of the house in the few minutes they have before crashing into bed at the end of the day? (And when they wake up, and as they're cooking dinner, and maybe giving up actually eating lunch to run the vacuum cleaner midday while nobody's home napping)?

OK, enough ranting. If you come back later I'll psot the Sukkot menus for the 1st three nights.