house cleaning

OK, it finally happened.

I have a house cleaner!!! (the human kind, not new brillo pads)

WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

She was recommended by one of the women in my class. She cleaned 5 hours on Wednesday and 5 more today, and is coming back in 2 weeks (for one day, here on in).

I am SOOOO happy! I've been wanting this for so long, but wasn't sure I had the money. I decided: I WILL MAKE THAT MONEY and give this treat to myself, cuz I deserve it.

I hate cleaning. This will be a good thing.

Way to go, Meredith...I applaud you for allowing yourself to treat yourself like this...you absolutely deserve it and I celebrate with you your decision to go with it.

Now, I hope you're not like my mother. After Dad died, we had to move Mom into an apartment. Mom was never a good housekeeper. (In fact, I lived my own Cinderella story; being the only girl, it all fell to me...I had to wash all the day's dishes [including pots and pans] for the entire family of 6 by myself almost every night from the year I turned 9 until I left home at 18...unfortunately I am NOT exaggerating! It used to take me about two hours every night!)

Anyway, sorry to digress into that wee pity party there, Meredith! After a couple of months of seeing what Mom would and couldn't do, we decided to get a cleaning lady in to clean Mom's apartment. But Mom insisted on cleaning BEFORE the lady got there, so as not to be embarassed...but what happened is that my brother, hubby and I were the ones who had to do that pre-cleaning cleaning!

In the end we decided it wasn't worth it, cancelled the cleaning service and the three of us did it all. It was a lot of extra work, especially since my job was very stressful and entailed a LOT of overtime, including almost every weekend and callbacks from vacations. A cleaning lady would have life so much easier.

If anything ever happened to hubby (an ex-firefighter who LOVES doing housework and does most of it here, with my blessing ), I wouldn't hesitate to get someone in to help!

Meredith, I'm happy for you. I know you've been working towards this for some time. Yahoo. The time has finally come!

We have a friend who cleans every other week. Dallas, I have to admit we do a little picking up before she comes. We joke about cleaning for the cleaning lady too. I begin telling my kids they need to pick up thier rooms on Sunday. She comes Tuesday.

Meredith, you will love the feeling you have when she leaves and the house is ALL clean at the same time. Life feels orderly for a day!

I am so jealous! I would love a cleaning lady, maybe once I am re-employed???

I am very happy for you Meredith and that all over house clean feeling is like no other particularly when someone else did it.

Gotta love it.

Lynn

Hurray Meredith! I had to give up my cleaning lady when I retired!

For years, whenever I saw the topic "what would you do if you had a million $$$... or won the lottery... or even had an extra thou-..." my first thought was always "housecleaner."

Forget the fancy toys, the luxury vacations et al; I want service! And time, which is so precious.

No, I didn't clean the house first. That's why I'm paying someone, but I did put away some of the clutter. However, I had to control myself to not look over her shoulder to make sure she was doing it right

Allegedly, my husband has done half the cleaning, but that's only after MONTHS and the house looks like hell, and then he only manages to do 1/3. I work at home (mostly) and it's so much more peaceful when everything looks nice.

Eagle Heart, not to bust in on YOUR pity party (I brought shiny cardboard hats. I brought cheap party favors and cheaper candy! ) but did you steal my story GF?? From about the same ages you mentioned, I had to wash dishes every night for the family of 6, and I was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything until they were done. The night of my senior prom, we finished dinner 30 minutes before my date was due to arrive, and I had to wash dishes or I couldn't go to the prom. And ya wonder why I have cleaning issues and get depressed whenever I have to clean? This, and other stories...

So now, there should be no more cleaning depressions, no more 3 days fighting with husband who doesn't want to clean, and more free time.

All I have to do is work harder at selling my jewelry to pay for this. Of course, that question can also be interpreted as "Which would I rather do, make more jewelry or scrub toilets?"

Any rocket scientists out there wanna hazard a guess?

Good for you Meredith! It helps so much, doesn't it? My mother was and still is the queen of clean. It's too much. Looks like a model home and growing up like that made me nuts. That's probably why I'm not a clean freak. My house isn't dirty but it isn't spotless either.

Meredith, you're my first kindred cleaner! I remember one school night, and it seemed like the middle of the night, Mom woke me up from a deep sleep to finish the dishes...I had left the roasting pan to soak and forgot to finish it...no wonder my hands were wrinkled before their time!

And thanks for the party hats and cheap candy. The last thing I meant to do was rain on your GRAND and WONDERFUL parade...thanks for sharing your kindred story instead of giving me the swift boot out of here that I deserved! Especially since I'm heartily delighted for you and celebrate (with chocolate no less) your newfound free time.

Meredith, congrats to you. What a wonderful gift you've given yourself.

I don't need a housecleaner.. well, okay, I do. But what I need even more is someone to come and organize me. I'm a horrible "gatherer" and I don't know how to make it all fit in my house. I need someone to spend a week with me and go through all my stuff, decide what gets thrown out and what goes to a garage sale, and then help me with a garage sale.

Any volunteers?

[ July 19, 2005, 06:19 PM: Message edited by: Vicki M. Taylor ]

Vicki, try this it works very well. Make three piles (so to speak.)
Pile #1 put albums, important papers etc. items you have to have...
Pile #2 put items you use "at least once" a month, no cheating.
Pile #3 anything you haven't looked at or used in over a month should be on a sale table.
Now this has to be done seasonally especially for clothes, summer and winter and of course some household things, pools or mowers or snow equipment....this is a proven method.

Vicki, my husband is the pack rat in this family and wants to save every broken piece of garbage that we "might" need in the future.

Case in point: we installed our new water heater today. We bought new intake valves and whatever those crinkly pipe thingies are. He wants to save the 30-year-old parts.

HELLOOOOOO!!

I told him that if he wants to keep them, it has to be somewhere in the garage that I will NEVER see. I told him also that if I ever find those parts in the garage, I'll toss them ASAP and he will never hear the end of it.

So then he asked me if I thought anyone wanted our old water heater.

The one that leaks? Oh, sure. They're lining up now as I type this.

Meredith, dare not tell Hubbo that water heaters can be recycled into great BBQ grills...
speaking of recycled,one of your awards was for recycled bottles? Could you explain?

chick

Vicki, Mom was like that. She saved everything. You can't imagine the job we had when they sold the house where they raised five kids.

Chatty's suggestions are good. Here's another suggestion whilel going through "stuff".

Pile 1- Can't live without
Pile 2- Salvation Army
Pile 3- TRASH!

My hubby's a pack-rat too, stemming from being extremely poor throughout childhood. I long ago made peace with his insatiable need to have two fully-loaded pantries (we have enough tins and dry food here to feed ourselves for six months if anything ever goes wrong). But I only just discovered this past week that ALL of the clothing that I thought "we" had given to the Salvation Army over the past few years is still in bags hidden in various cubby holes in our basement!!! Some of the stuff had belonged to my Dad who's been gone for six years now. And all of Mom's clothing was still there, even though I know I had packaged most of it up to give away. Apparently he's keeping it all to take to Cuba someday.

After re-sorting through every one of those bags, and keeping only the stuff I know for certain will even suit the climate and people in Cuba, I ended up with 8 garbage bags full of stuff for the Salvation Army (and then personally phoned them to arrange pick-up next week!)

The funny thing is that while going through those bags of clothing that were supposed to be given away years ago, I found a few things that I had always regretted throwing away, so pulled them out and kept them. But I didn't tell hubby that. LOL.

Vicki, I am afraid if I volunteer, I will just drag your unwanted stuff to my house

My bio Dad's nickname was "packrat", he even had a stamp made with it on there. In our initial hello, this is your daughter phone call, he asked "Do you collect anything?' I said "I am a packrat."
The apple doesn't fall far...ha ha.

I work at the Salvation Army...I need to bring them a box a day. I should be cleaned out by the year 2010. Then I can to start bringing back some of what I brought home...seesh!

Can you believe, I left Canada seven years ago with only 2 suitcases!

chick

I just have to laugh at myself. While posting my message earlier, it reminded me that the Thrift Store was having a Blowout Sale today, with 50% off everything in the store. So I rushed right over and bought $40 (but only payed $20!) worth of clothing, all for our Cuba friends. Most of it was children's clothing, so with the sale it only cost 50 cents for each piece. So I was able to get a lot of good stuff for that $20.

But where to store it all! My giant suitcase is already filled with girls' dresses, toddler outfits, boys' shorts and Spiderman t-shirts...(the goal is to bring one dress or outfit for each child in "our family" there next February)...and we don't leave until February!

Your suggestions sound good. One of the reasons I want to go through my things and sort/throw out, is because I don't want to leave it to my children or grandchildren to do after I die. It's my mess I should clean it up. :-) And, I want my dining room back. Right now it's filled to the brim with aromatherapy and craft related items.

Vicki,

My parents cleaned house, and set stuff in a great big pile, and gave us the option to take any of it. I was VERY blessed to take some of their "junk" off their hands - as some of it had memories attached to it.

just a thought.

danita

I second Danita's sentiments...some of my most cherished belongings came out of Mom's "junk" drawers. They're extra special treasures now that she's gone. By the time my nieces get them from MY "junk" drawers, they'll be family heirlooms.

I think we already have a bbq. I'm not really sure, though, as no one has ever used it. Either way, I won't mention ANYTHING that can be done with a used water heater, or you-know-who will want to save it.

The recycled categories at the County Fair: you take an everyday object that you might throw out as it has no intrinsic value, and you decorate it or make something useful. Last year's #1 winner (not mine) was a cereal box made into a purse.

quote:

---

Originally posted by meredithbead:
Last year's #1 winner (not mine) was a cereal box made into a purse.

---

I just came here to do a quick browse before heading out to do some errands...but this one stopped me in my tracks. That's too funny. A purse from a cereal box? Could someone actually carry a cereal-box-purse around with them? What happens on a crowded bus, does it get squished beyond use? Or what if you spill water, or worse, milk on it? This has just captured my imagination...now I'm going to be chuckling all the way to the post office.