Keeping Up

About that lock box I mentioned yesterday...

Travis and I gave in and hired a housekeeper.  For the time being we have her set to come every other week.  If we need to push it out to every three or four weeks we might do that later.  She came yesterday for the first time.  I spent Monday evening in Urgent Care, then last night was T-ball.  I was driving home from practice trying to remember what state our house was in when I remembered she had come earlier.  I had to be very careful with my gas foot because it suddenly got really heavy at the prospect of what was waiting for us.

That woman cleaned things I haven't thought about cleaning since before I had kids.  She dusted the top of our door trim!  She took everything off my nightstand and dusted that! (I usually dust around those items.)  She moved a side table away from the wall in the kitchen to sweep and mop!  She cleaned our microwave.  

Seriously.  This is a big deal.  I don't have time to do many things.  Other items get done once a month or sometimes even longer apart.  The only items I take care of every day or week are my kids, dishes and laundry.  Everything else happens when I have time.  I barely even have time to sit down for dinner.  The longest stretch of time I get to sit with my plate is five minutes.  The rest of the meal is spent feeding Mila, getting Aiden seconds, cleaning up the food or drink someone spilled, etc.  But those five minutes are usually filled with guilt.  That's when I sit still long enough to notice the dust building up on my curtains, or the cobwebs that have formed in the corners.  I always wonder, when will I have time to clean that?  

I used to keep an immaculate home.  All my free time, when Travis was at work, was spent cleaning.  That free time is now filled with other more important items, so I feel comfortable saying I am happy to have a housekeeper.  She was super nice, though I will never see her.  She comes during the day while we are at work.  Hence the lock box.  We have a key lock box (like realtors use) to let her in while we're away.  This way she doesn't have our key all the time.

It's magical.  Absolutely magical.