I was gonna tell you about hanging the drapes with a stapler, but they're still in a pile on the floor

This house is chaos. There are piles of laundry (clean!) piles of toys (not mine!) piles of magazines (mine!) papers and bills and shoes and furniture and dust. Oh the dust.

We're all sneezing and blowing our noses like crazy and while I would like to blame that on the burning of sugar cane, or the dry dusty weather, I have to face FACTS. It might be my housekeeping. Or lack thereof.

So I did it.

I have talked about it and debated it and wished and dreamed and scrimped and saved and worked extra shifts and dammit............I hired someone to clean the house.

I am waving the white flag.

This may just seem like a bunch of excuses and justifications, and I guess it is, but the root of the matter is my husband and I both work. My husband and I both clean. The house is still a mess. We are doing it wrong.

The irony: I used to clean houses for a living. I am very good at it, actually. Fast and efficient and thorough. Customers would request me specifically. I enjoyed my work, listening to the radio or daytime TV while I cleaned and polished and scrubbed and mopped. Start on the top floor and work your way down. Start with the bathroom sink, end by mopping yourself out of the room. The was a pattern in every house, a rhythm and a strategy for making sure you cleaned top to bottom, back to front.

Cleaning my own house is a different story.

It doesn't get done. It takes forever. I get interrupted. I get bored. I get the mail. I get disgusted with myself. I get overwhelmed. I have better things to do. I have things I would rather be doing. I don't want to do it. It's too hot, it's too early, it's too late, it's never enough, it's not fair. My husband has cleaned the toilet three times in our marriage. We've had 4 houses, so that means in one of the houses HE NEVER CLEANED A TOILET. 13 years of being the toilet cleaner in the relationship, means I have been cleaning a lot of fucking toilets.

I'm not bitter. Yes I am.

Added to the fact that it makes me miserable and I feel like I do the majority of the cleaning (though he excells at the putting away, thank god) I am also working late hours, and getting up early with the kids in a daze. Or not getting up early and then feeling guilty and ignoring the cleaning to spend time with them.

And so. The house is dirty, and we are at an impasse.

I am not going to be the one to clean it. I am not living alone in this house. I am not the only one with access to the vacuum, or cleaning products. And I hate it.

The idea developed slowly. I don't change my own oil. I could - but I don't. I don't wash my own car. I don't paint my own house. I don't even bathe the damn dog. I work hard, and happily pay some of that hard-earned money so that someone who loves what they do can do what I hate. Everyone is happy.

I am my own stimulous package.
You're welcome.
Vote Daffodil in 2012.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to clean before the housecleaner gets here. My house is a mess. How embarrassing.