Friday, November 06, 2009

Clean house

Hopefully, a year from now I will look upon this week as the time when I reclaimed my house from the mess.

Gabriel had been on my case for months (months!) to hire a maid, someone to come once a week and clean the house for us. I resisted. My house was so incredibly cluttered and messy, and we did not have the time or the energy to tackle the whole thing and getting it fixed without help. Everywhere I looked there was a mess, and I had just given up. I felt like a failure and was ashamed to bring anybody here, and felt I had to clean the house a little before hiring a maid. Gabe thought that was ridiculous, and could not understand my guilt and anxiety over the whole thing. Things were tense.

I finally broke down out of desperation and hired someone recommended by a friend. Now I can't imagine why I did not do it sooner. She worked hard for three days and deep cleaned the whole house. She helped me tame the mountain of laundry, load after load after load. It is not perfect, as there are many things left to do (too many toys and stuff I need to get rid of), but I now have a house that I am not ashamed to let other people enter.

I confess that I am a little cautious about claiming victory. I am careful not to be overjoyed, not to celebrate too much this development. What if it all goes wrong? What if six months from now we are back to where we were last week? To avoid that, we plan on hiring the cleaning lady to come once a week, for as long as we can afford it. For our happiness and well being, I hope it's a long time.

5 comments:

  1. This was a SMART decision. Money well spent. I think that our resources should go towards enhancing the quality of our lives. You are working hard and should not feel bad getting the help you need to live a good life! I would also encourage you to just get rid of as much clutter in your house a possible. Donate it to Goodwill, Salvation Army, DVA, ARC--get your tax deduction and use it towards your cleaning help. I read somewhere that we must get rid of clutter in order to make room in our lives for good things heading our way. Go, Ingrid!

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  2. Cleaning ladies RULE and now that the house is back in order its the perfect time to hire a new cleaning person to maintain things once a week! Good for you!

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  3. Thanks to both. RD, I agree that it was a smart decision. I hope we can keep it up, because I do not ever want to go back to the mess.

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  4. I was in the same boat - didn't want to hire a cleaning lady because my house was too messy!! Crazy, huh. I know how you feel.

    I ended up just tackling it myself (I'm a SAHM so it would have been so rediculous for me to hire someone anyway). It's been a long haul, but I'm finally seeing progress.

    I think you're smart to have your cleaner come in regularly - it will definitely help keep the chaos down to a minimum :)

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  5. You are really lucky. I tried but didn't found someone.

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