Cleaning Lady Report

I'm going to get back into blogging full swing by offering you my report on a few things that have been going on recently. Hopefully I can think of something to write about every day this week! Stay tuned.

So a few months ago I reported on our new found decision to hire a cleaning service to come every other week. I have to admit that it's going well but it has it's positives and negatives. We'll start with the positives. (Note, because I hate blogs without pictures, I'm throwing some pictures on here from the Realtor photos from before we bought the house. This isn't what it looks like now.)

Positives:

• I am able to forget about thinking of the things I need to clean. When I have a spare moment I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not vacuuming or scrubbing toilets. Because that will be done within 2 weeks.
• The entire house is clean all at once. So at least twice a month I come home to a spotless house that has the toilet paper folded to a point and a nice little card saying "relax, it's done"
• Additionally, the house usually smells really nice when they're done too. They mix it up but lately it's smelled like cinnamon in our house!
• I don't have to worry about Nolan picking up little things in the carpet... and eating them.
• Regular vacuuming has kept the spiders at bay since there are fewer little bugs crawling around for them to eat. BARF.
• Since our house is cleaned regularly, we find it easier to keep up the cleanliness on a regular basis.
• We're giving someone a job. In any economy you can always feel good about being the source of income for a person!

Negatives:

• We clean for the cleaning lady. I cannot state this enough as a negative. Unfortunately we can't just leave the house in it's normal condition and let her have at it. We have to clean up our clutter so she can do the vacuuming and scrubbing. She'll organize toys and such but if we don't put it away ourselves we might notice that things are misplaced.
• It's expensive. I'm trying to get over this point because right now the cost is worth it. But if we're in a tight spot financially this will be the first thing to go as it's 100% a luxury.
• Sometimes the details of how I would like things cleaned aren't met - like there have been times when garbage bags aren't replaced or when a phone charger has been damaged (not to the point of it not working, but making the prong bent)

So overall, I feel like having a clean house is worth paying this rate. We initially started the cleaning service because I felt like the person doing everything at home. Since Brian works such long hours I've felt that the burden of cleaning always fell to me. This became a point of contention between the two of us from time to time and honestly I had enough of coming home to a dirty house after working a full day. 

And the way I figure it, I would LOVE to be a stay at home mom if I could afford it. If I were, I would do my very best to keep the house in order since I would be there most of the day. Because I'm a working mother and I bring home the benefits I feel like it's worth it. I offset my salary with the cost of a cleaning service and it doesn't sound as terrible that way. 

Ultimately, I love being able to do the bare minimum with my cleaning efforts. I recommend it if you can find something you can afford. 

[Posting these room photos makes me want to steal Kate's idea of doing a house tour... after cleaning lady comes tomorrow I'll take photos!]