Cleaning Service

As I move around the house, focusing on this pile and neutralizing this stack and discovering this or that unpleasantness in a corner, I wonder if it is all worth it. Maybe I should be doing something more fun with my day off?

The cleaning ladies come tomorrow. The house must meet certain standards before they will dig in. They could reject me, with a curt note and threats of never returning, the check left upon the table. They are A-rated on Angie's list, they don't need my crap.

Oh the excellent feeling I have when I come home from work and the lemony smell of cleaning products swirls out the front door! I skip into the house and wander around in amazement, gazing at the shiny wood floors, the little vacuum attachment marks on the sofas, the crumb-less stove-top, the expanse of wrinkle-free bedspread with neatly propped up pillows. It's worth the uncertainty and waves of doubt the day before.

The next few days I feel so pleased if someone stops in, and sees the glorious condition of my home. At this time, I would say, it is worth it.

Well I have to go, there are plastic containers all OVER the kitchen....

Housekeeping

Maintaining a clean and tidy home is not one of my strengths. For sure, there are certain tasks I let go much longer than a majority of the house-cleaning population. For instance, earlier this week my uncle gave us a 2 hour warning that he was on his way and would be spending the night in our home. Husband and I scrambled to make the house hospitable, including massive dish cleaning, sweeping up dust-bins full of dog hair and dog food, throwing away piles of accumulated junk mail and receipts, scooping out 3 litter pans and wiping up numerous piles of dried cat vomit. It did all end well, I was content with how the house looked when Uncle arrived and we had a jump start on our cleaning for the weekend.

In older novels house keeping is a time-consuming activity. It is what people, mostly women, do.  I am reading 100 years of Solitude and the wife/mother's housekeeping skills have been described in-depth. In another of G.M's books, Love in the Time of Cholera, the leading woman character's home-making skills are still in my memory even though I read the book years ago. In L'A more of the same; the leading woman's house keeping abilities are described in detail as a way to understand the character, the family and their station in life. In novels that take place in the present, I have not noticed housekeeping having such importance. Either the author must be assuming that knowledge of the woman's skill in this area is not essential to understanding her character or in modern times it is generally assumed that all homes maintain a certain level of cleanliness all by themselves, without effort. This must be the case, since if the character was less than tidy, slovenly, or almost a hoarder, surely that would be used to describe a character that is eccentric, suicidal or a genius.

So what does this mean? For me I am grateful that at some point in time authors appreciated the skills of home-making. They should be appreciated, someone who does it well enhances the well-being of others, and that's a special gift to be able to give.