A while back we hired a cleaning person on the recommendation of a friend from the neighborhood who literally stood on the sidewalk and gushed (and I do mean gushed) about how hiring this woman had changed her life. And this is not a gushing type, folks. She's from Scranton, PA for goodness sake! Anyway, Larry and I had pretty much come to the end of our rope trying to keep our house clean, our almost-4 year old happy, our jobs done adequately and our brains still in our skulls. That last thing was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, so we hired the cleaner, and let me tell you folks... it changed my life. Seriously, after agreeing to go out with the random guy who called me at Eddie Bauer after I'd sold him a belt, and bringing the Bomber into the world, it was the best decision I'd ever made.
Suddenly, the house was cleaner than it had ever been and it was made so by someone other than me or my overworked husband (who, I will be the first to admit, has a much lower threshold for dirt than I do, so he'd been doing the lion's share of the cleaning). It was a beautiful thing. Time went on, and for various reasons Awesome Cleaning Lady had to move on, and suddenly, I realized: I cannot EVER go back to cleaning my own house. ACL ruined me forever. After a little scrambling, another friend gushingly recommended her cleaning company and by and by, we hired them.
As an aside, the company is owned by a fascinating Brazilian man who, before starting his own cleaning service, was performer in a German circus in South America, and a valet in Miami, FL. (Who knew people even still had valets?). Anyway, the Brazilian Circus People (most of whom aren't actually Brazilian or former circus performers, but I do like the characters in my life to have catchy names) make poor old ACL look barely adequate. Don't get me wrong, she was awesome. They're just awesome-er. On their first cleaning, which was a deep, no-holds-barred service, not only did they clean things that probably haven't been cleaned since we bought the house, but they made ROSES OUT OF MY TOILET PAPER.
Now I can die a happy woman.
So, the point of this really super-long introduction (yes, there is one) is this. Since the very first day we hired ACL, and on through the Brazilian Circus People, we've always found ourselves running round like maniacs the day before they're scheduled to come, cleaning. For the cleaning people. Even the four year old sees the irony in this. Yesterday while I was frantically stuffing things into closets and trash bags, he said "Mommy, why are you cleaning if the people are coming tomorrow to clean?" That's a good question, kid, but an informal poll of people I know who use cleaning services reveals that EVERYONE does this. I wonder if the cleaning people are sitting home laughing at us. "Can you just picture them picking up all that CRAP tonight? And have you seen how many Legos that kid has?!? And they have to find them all! Suckers!" Is it me, or does anyone else ever stop in the middle of their whirlwind pre-cleaning-people-cleaning and wonder just what the hell they're doing? I never wonder for long, though - i know I have to get everything cleaned up if I want to be found worthy of toilet paper roses.
There, that's my B52OMOLISBE for the week. One down, and 51, more or less, to go. Also, my friend and extremely talented photographer, Karen has decided to join in B52OMOLISBE (whoo! I've started a thing! Or do you need more than two people for a thing?), and her first post has absolutely amazing pictures of snowflakes. So go check them out, okay?
Oh hey. :)
Posted by: Karen | January 07, 2011 at 11:34 AM
Well, cleaning our homes is our duty. But there are cleaning agents that we can hire to do the job. We have to take into consideration that maintaining the cleanliness of our homes is for our own good. This indeed a tasks that we have to do regularly. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts about this topic. More power.
Posted by: carpet cleaning south hill wa | January 27, 2011 at 05:42 AM
"i know I have to get everything cleaned up if I want to be found worthy of toilet paper roses"
Not sure I could handle this kind of pressure. Ok, my house is a mess, but its easy to deal with, I just don't let anyone in the see the mess.
Seriously Jocelyn, you make me laugh. Thanks.
Posted by: Pat | March 07, 2011 at 02:30 PM