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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

May 28: A habit I would like to break


I don't speak French. Minor detail.


I am thinking of getting a cleaner.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this cleaner, years in fact.

Mainly on Saturday mornings which is my time to race around and get the house perfect so that I can enjoy the rest of the weekend not thinking about cleaning the house.

Every Saturday morning the rest of the house prepares for me to start giving orders. I begin by telling them to pick things up, put things away, get their school bags onto the hooks and tennis racquets in the cupboard.

One room is delegated Mr H, I beg, plead and cross my fingers that he will actually clean it rather than sit in the room playing candy crush while he uses a tissue to wipe a bench and then declare the room 'DONE".

I have the washing machine spinning, the vacuum whizzing and the dishwasher loaded and at the end of it all I feel awful.

I feel like a nagging fish wife, screaming at everyone to just do their bit. I have hoped this habit would change, I have had hope that the rest of the household would start noticing maybe a shelf in the fridge with beetroot all over it might need a wipe, or that pulling out a table every now and then to vacuum behind it is useful.

Even the youngest members of the family know how to hide when Mum is in 'crazy cleaning mode'.

I can see only one way to break this habit. Paying a cleaner.

Perhaps that might be the way to break some habits around here.







10 comments:

  1. I implore you to get a cleaner, even just once a fortnight to make sure toilets, showers, floor has a decent scrub, house dusted etc. I have one that comes every second Monday for 3 hours, there's 2 of them and they do it in 1.5 hours and I pay $75 so that's $25 an hour. Worth every cent because I'm so busy with work that I used to get stressed to a point about housework and it used to drag me down. Seriously it's one less thing I have to worry about. And as you know with 3 kids under 6 I still clean, sweep, spot wipe every day or so but I know every fortnight the house gets a thorough go over. I hope you can work it into the budget somewhere, you will NOT regret it, and neither will your family (who will love having a less cranky mum on Saturdays) x

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  2. I really like your style of habit breaking haha xx

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  3. I'd LOVE a cleaner. Have been thinking about it a lot too. Let me know how you go, XX

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  4. The only thing about getting a cleaner is you still go into psycho-mum-mode once a week or fortnight -the morning of his/her visit! I couldn't go back now, though. Ours comes only in term time, and even then not every week, but I just love that feeling that greets you at the door when she's been. Calm and clean. Heavenly!

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  5. Mmm, it's the tidying beforehand that I struggle with, and that will remain whether I'm the cleaner or I get someone to do the cleaning. We put music on and I give each girl a job, "You're on books," "You're on soft toys" and together we get it all done and enjoy it for half an hour while it stays like that.

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  6. We have a cleaner who comes once a fortnight. I don't know what they do but the place always looks as shiny as a pin, my heart feels happy and my conscience is clear. The $60 we splash out and the mad tidying we do beforehand is a small price to pay, we think. In fact, if we didn't have to tidy once a fortnight, we'd probably be buried under our own mess, like a bad episode of hoarders. There is nothing like walking into a clean house knowing you didn't have to clean it yourself! It's a bit like cooking, food always tastes more delicious when someone else cooks it, and cleaning is the same, it somehow sparkles more when someone else labours over your lair!

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    Replies
    1. I am just one step closer to being a habit breaker!

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  7. I've been thinking about one for years too. Years I tell you, absolute years. Guess I might do it one day... maybe.

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  8. Clearly a way to break a habit Clairey. We had a cleaner when both of us were working, not something we can justify right now. Like the others we were always cleaning up before the cleaner came.

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  9. I currently have a cleaner - for whom I feel much love. But we're going to be a single income family in a couple of months, and one of the sacrifices I have to make is giving up the cleaner (t'other is the ironing fairy). Sir Reginald will be taking on duties domestic while I continue working.

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