Thursday, July 4, 2013

I'm celebrating clean house day!

I LOVE Clean house day because that is the day twice a month when I scrape up enough money to pay for someone to come and clean my place.  It's a stretch, but seriously, I don't know how I managed to be a grown-up for all these years without this help! 

It was an important day when I decided to get over my independence, my pride as an empowered super woman and realize that it was ok for me to seek help.  I always thought that wives and mothers, those people not responsible for the messes they cleaned up were the ones entitled to get help from a professional cleaner.  As a single woman with no one to blame for her messes but herself I felt that I was unworthy.... I mean, I don't even own a pet so ALL the mess is mine! Essentially I was determined that if I made a mess, then I would fix it. (Unless of course you name was mom....then you can come over and clean up after me any time)

But then I started evaluating my priorities.  I realized that, like everyone else, I focus on what is important to me.  I convinced myself when I realized one thing.  I want to spend my time doing other things.  Pretty much anything other will do, but when the opportunity presented itself to get someone to come in a clean for me on a regular basis that was at a price I could manage, I JUMPED at the chance.



Imagine my joy when my co-worker promised to speak with the lady who cleans her house and see if she was available..... I waited..... and waited..... and then finally one day she said YES!  and we made an appointment for her to come over and inspect my home to see if it would be something she was willing to tackle.....  OH the HORROR!  My place was picked up and more or less clean but clearly not to her exacting standards......... So we agreed on a very reasonable price and a time frame and now it's been almost a year and I'm not giving her up!  Pretty much, I'd give up every "extra" that I pay for in a month, just so that she can come over and create a clean slate for me to mess up before she comes back in two weeks. 


Here is the pattern.  I come home after I know that she has come to the house.  Everything is tidy, everything sparkles and shines and everything smells clean.  Every time she visits she does one "extra" thing.  Sometimes it's the windows, sometimes it's the oven, I see if I can figure it out because she doesn't tell me....Our arrangement does not include laundry, but sometimes she will rotate what is there and maybe get the sheets done. So when I come in I rotate the laundry and then since I've been at work all day the apartment is cleaner than I am, I take a shower and change into clean clothes and enjoy my apartment.  I watch TV which is super rare, or I read a magazine or maybe I even play my piano for FUN!  If I ever invite you over to my place it will almost always be on a clean house day.....

I can maintain the super clean environment for about 24 hours and then things start erode.  The first to go is always the laundry.  I love doing laundry.  Laundry is easy.  Throw it in, Take it out.... Fold it....what? Ok I'll fold it.... maybe.... but no amount of wild horses can inspire me to WANT to put it away.  As long as I do it immediately I'm fine, but oh my!  If I let one load slip, it's all over and before you know it I have the Mount Vesuvius of clean laundry piles to deal with and this girl just doesn't deal well with that at all..... Plus since everything is clean.... it's not a "real" problem.  Then the projects start encroaching.  First they take over my desk area and then they take over the kitchen table and then the couch.......Oh my goodness!  By this time I have realized that cleaning day is TOMORROW!!!!!!  Yippee! 

So now I get to spend the rest of my afternoon getting the clutter out of the way so that the CLEANING can begin!  Oh NO!  She is going on vacation and won't be back until August?  What? 

I wonder if I can maintain it since it's summer?  I'll have to report back and let you know how it goes!


Truly, for most of us, it all comes down to money and I can say that the only success I have ever had as an independent keeper of my home is when I used the resources and support found at Fly Lady.  Fly Lady is the only reason that even on my messiest days between cleaning days that my sink will sparkle.  Fly Lady is the ONLY way that I ever got any real cleaning accomplished before I had help which was good because otherwise that would have been truly gross.  Fly Lady is what I'm about to do right now so that I can go and celebrate 4th of July with my family. 

Images in this post came from stockxchange

6 comments:

anita said...

I'm so going to break down and take on that expense one of these days...

Unknown said...

*looks at cluttered apartment*

Oh god. This post (and this mounting mess on my desk) really makes me want to seriously consider getting a professional cleaning service.

I don't want to wade through this...but I also don't want to be featured on Hoarders.

Unknown said...

Ya'll it is nice and so worth it! I just got home after being "out" all morning so that everything could be cleaned.... Never mind that I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. shoveling crap into my closets, My floors are vacuumed and my toilet is scrubbed and I didn't have to do it..... "HAPPY DANCE!!!!!""""

Suttons said...

I will never give up my cleaning person! You cant make me do it. Uh uh, no way!

I am already tightening my budget and have decided that direct tv will make a disappearing act when the contract is up in November.

#1 We don't watch much tv
#2 We both see more value in having the house cleaned twice a month.

I completely understand and applaud you!

Unknown said...

Year ago, when my kids were little, I knew the thrill of having someone clean my home.

At that time, it started because a back injury meant I could not operate a vacuum or get down to clean anything. As the kids grew, we started making Thursdays our "clean house" day - everyone had their chore (the oldest was now able to vacuum) and at suppertime we celebrated the sparkling environment with our pizza order - who wants to cook in a newly cleaned kitchen.

Now I have am empty nest and I'm contemplating getting help again. Vacuuming is once again a struggle. I have majorly downsized and now live in an apartment so there's no basement to clean.

Your celebration of a clean house makes me jealous - I want that too! It's time to redo a budget to see what I can juggle so I can enjoy this - maybe not every two weeks, but at least one a month. I should be able to keep it tidy between time.

Thanks for sharing all that emotion!

Anonymous said...

Ohhhh... to have a housekeeper once again. The good ole' days.

I've always loved the "FlyLady" website. One thing, my sink is always clean and *sparkles*. LOL

Thanks for your post. I need to go vacuum now. ;)