Household Help

This will sound so weird... having grown up doing my own laundry, cleaning my own room (Not very often), ironing my own clothes (still not that often) and cooking my own meals, now I have someone who cleans my house 1x a week and a part time help who comes in daily to (up to now) cleans my house and (when the baby arrives) takes over a babysitter...Talk about moving on up in the social ladder.

Truth be told, I am not that conscientious a person at keeping house. As long as I don't sneeze myself to death with the dust in the house, I am pretty satisfied wearing shoes all day at home and ignore (to the best of my ability) the layer of dust accumulation on the floor and furniture. Such is the life of DINKs (Double Income No Kids) before we found ourselves faced with the reality of becoming parents at the end of last year. Even then, I was still cleaning house myself when our families arrived to spend x'mas with us last year. Granted the house was not the cleanest but it was livable.

The first upgrade came about when we hired a 1x weekly cleaner to help keep the dust at bay. Mind you, it was a real upgrade. No longer was the floor clogged with dust or crumbs from the dinner table and for once, I could actually see what colour our furniture is. Not only was the dust sucked up by the vacuum, but ths house was actually mopped and the toilets were clean! My happiest moment had to be the realization that I can always look forward to having a clean stove at the start of every week. Not that I had help with the ironing (which by this point had been delegated, at a price, to the laundromats) nor the cooking or washing up. But the thought that I was no longer in charge of cleaning the floor, dusting the furniture and cleaning the bathrooms was so libertaing that I swore I nearly cried for joy!

And now, sheesh, what a step up in lifestyle for the stepford household. We finally managed to get part-time help every (week)day in the house. The idea was that this part-time help would also double up as babysitter and (sometime)kitchen help when I finally g0 back to work after delivery. And since the baby is still on its way, the part-time help has been turned into an avid fan of the Food Channel. Well, that is very unfair of me to say this. My part-time help has avtually been very conscientious at getting stuff done. She insists on asking me if she should clean the bathrooms everyday, or if the floor needs to be cleaned (everyday). Truth is there is not that much work to be done around the house. Though with the help around, stuff that was pending for like forever did manage to get themselves checked off the list. Take for example, hanging our paintings. For the longest time, all we did was visualize how how paintings were going to look on the walls. When the help arrived, they actually got hung on the wall. Ok, not every painting since some paintings are so heavy, I need another kind of help to drill in nails to get them up. But then still, at least the project got started. Plus the furniture in the guest room got moved to where now I can set up an office to work from. And today. lo and behold! My part-time help actually irons bedsheets! What a joy to have someone carry my groceries for me when we went to the store too.

This is the GOOD life!