Tag Archives: kids clean their room

Everyone should have a cleaning lady

I have a cleaning lady.

I can hear you thinking:

  • That’s awesome!
  • I want a cleaning lady!
  • She can afford a cleaning lady?

So, I’ll respond:

  • It sure is.
  • Everyone should have one.
  • Not really.

She’s cleaning my house, and I’m fixing her website. And helping her with marketing her business. She’s totally getting the raw end of the deal.

I don’t think I’m a slob. Entirely. But with 4 surgeries in the span of two years, I’ve had other priorities.

Not that I don’t like a clean house. I love a clean house. A house where everything is in its place, and I know where that place is when I go to look for it.

Thursday, the cleaning lady came over for 4 hours so we could organize my office. Four hours. Turns out the room is bigger than I thought. And, the top of my desk is made of wood. See?
desktop

Those are tic tacs on the desk, by the way. No funny business here.

She also helped me organize my closet. Skirts at one end, pants at the other, dresses and shirts in-between. Arranged by color and sleeve length. I discovered I have a lot of duplicates. Three purple suits, for example. Every woman should have at least one purple suit. I have three. Awesome.

More amazing than the sight of my desk top was the fact that she showed up again today to clean my kitchen. Sally (that’s her name, Sally) said to me, “You don’t have to be embarrassed by your kitchen. This is the kind of challenge I love.” That was her polite way of saying, “Holy crap, girl, when was the last time you cleaned this room???”

In addition to getting all excited about fighting grime, Sally teaches parents how to get their kids to clean their room. I wish I had met her 20 years ago, when my daughter was young. I wouldn’t have been afraid of being attacked by the monsters growing under her bed. And it would have saved her from my endless nagging. We could have spent more quality time together, just hanging out, or taking goofy pictures of ourselves in the 4-pictures-for-a-dollar photo booth at the mall.

Everyone should have a cleaning lady. It’s a liberating feeling, doing what I want, without the drudgery of cleaning house. I can enjoy living here, in the house I chose, sitting on the furniture I bought, and not feel enslaved by housework.

You could have a cleaning lady, too, if you want. Barter is a wonderful thing. What do you like to do, that you’re good at, that someone else would like in trade? Can you cut hair? Babysit? Design a twitter background? Weed a garden? Ask around. Pull business cards off the bulletin board at the supermarket. Get creative.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m headed to the kitchen. Just to stand there and marvel at the sparkling surfaces. Yeah, I could really get used to this.