Monday, December 8, 2008

To Clean or not to Clean?

Its a busy time of year. It's an expensive time of year. It's a tight and tough year for most families. So the questions of the day is to clean or not to clean?

In the past when life has been crazy busy and I have had mega commitments outside of the home my DH has 'sponsored' me having a cleaning lady in to help out. Once or twice a month she comes in bringing her bucket brigade of cleaning supplies and whips my entire house into order in just 3-4hrs. Floors clean, toilets sparkling, clean laundry folded, beds made with clean sheets and furniture dusted - it's like buying a new house all over again!

I love it! Really. But I also feel conflicted. It's not always easy to have someone else touching your personal stuff, adjusting your piles of mess (that you really do know where everything is in) subtly adjusting the knick knack you already had just 'so'.

Also I always feel compelled to 'pre-clean' before the cleaning lady even gets here. Which usually involves taking out the garbage, the recycling, doing fast and furious loads of dirty laundry so the hallway is fit to walked through by a human (outside of our immediate family) and of course yelling at DH and the kiddos to "get their stuff picked up because the cleaning lady is coming!!!"

And then there is the financial part of this - cleaning ladies are not free. And even though I can often justify the expense because of my schedule it's hard to do that this time around because money is just so - well you know!

And so even though I hate scrubbing toilets and would rather so just about any other kind of work then fold laundry or do the dishes, I think for now - instead of donning gay apparel I will be donning rubber gloves!

3 comments:

StefRobrts said...

I've always wondered what it would be like to have a cleaning lady come in. I figured someday we would treat ourselves, after all it only makes sense to have someone else do the dirty work if you could be better spending your time on your own business! But I would also have to clean up before they come in, and I don't think I'd want anyone else going through our laundry! Well, as you say, times are tight - it's not a decision I'll have to worry about making anytime soon!

Goofiernu said...

I've finally gotten to the point where I don't think of house cleaning as drudgery. I LIKE things clean and tidy. Sometimes no one else may care that the kitchen has gotten scummy... but I do, and I like it when it sparkles. :) So I put on the headphones, fire up my music and know I will be standing in a sparkling kitchen in about 30 to 45 minutes.
Every two weeks a cleaning lady comes in at work. While it's nice to have the house clean with no effort on my part, I don't think I could have someone else clean MY house for me. :)

Angela said...

i'd welcome cleaning at this point. our house is so torn up, i can't even see where i'm going half the time. we're getting our floor "dried" tomorrow.. which apparently involves drilling and holes in the floor. can the cleaning lady come to our house after? my laundry is clean and even folded, just never quite makes it out of the baskets. i should be cleaning my desk right now instead of reading blogs, but there is only so much one person can handle in a day and i've had my fill for a year. =) Thank God for Christmas vacation.