This close to sanity...

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve become an undisciplined house keeper. I don’t want to be. I don’t like living in disorder. It makes me very grouchy.

My mother in law always gave me a hard time about the time I spent cleaning. She would tell me I just needed to relax and play with the kids. Time was fleeting and I would regret spending hours wiping down baseboards when I could have been playing UNO. In some ways she was right. Her time certainly proved to be limited, but she also wasn’t living with two mess generating machines.

It’s important to me that my kids remember growing up in a house of order. We always had a cleaning lady when I was growing up. If we hadn’t had the help of many saintly women, I have no doubt our home would have been in far worse shape. My mom always worked like a crazy person and she simply doesn’t like to clean.

I do actually like to clean. I would rather gouge out my eyes than pick up Legos and Barbie shoes all day, but the actual act of scrubbing down a room is something I strangely enjoy.

That is the reason I’ve been reluctant to hire anyone to help me with our constant mess. I reasoned that I could do the cleaning part, it was the picking up part I hated and who on earth could I possibly pay to pick up our stuff?! I wouldn’t subject Nancy Pelosi to that kind of torture. Well, maybe.

As I got busier and busier with writing and photography the situation with our house became more and more volatile. Any extra time I had during the day or early evening, I was spending on laundry and cleaning. The kids played in their playroom and didn’t seem to mind, but I did.

I finally decided we were either going to find room in the budget for a cleaning lady or a therapist. I can do other things while someone cleans my house. I don’t have time to sob on a couch, much as I’d like to. The cleaning lady won.

My neighbor has an immaculate house and a secret weapon named Maria. Maria is 4’ 11” of cleaning power. She doesn’t speak much English, but all I needed to hear from her was, “Yes! Leslie. I’m happy to be cleaning your house.”

Today was the big day. I’ve been picking up and wiping down bathrooms since Sunday. I know it sounds counter-productive to wipe down our bathrooms, but I didn’t want Maria to run away screaming. I had all the cleaning supplies laid out. I emptied all the trash and gave her a lesson on the steam mop. Then Maria broke my heart. She double booked herself for today. She will be back, but not until Monday. Sigh.

Now that my house is at least picked up, I should probably tackle the closets and drawers where I stuffed all the evidence.