Jamie and I have been happily married for 11 years, and we've had a lot of ups and downs in the past decade or so. About three years ago though, we made a big change and it's improved our lives for so much the better.
We brought another woman into our home, and by extension, our marriage.
As I said, it's been almost three years, and I can't imagine my life without her in it. She's a professional, so she comes in, takes care of business, and leaves. We have a set schedule that we go by, and without fail, she shows up when she's expected.
This “other woman's” name is Maria, and she's our housekeeper.
(Where did you think I was going with this?)
I had long dreamed of hiring a housekeeper, but it always seemed like we didn't have room in our budget, or something more pressing put a claim on that money. For YEARS I dreamed of having someone come in to clean, especially on the days when I would finally, grudingly, scrub the toilet, and I'd think about how nice it was having a clean bathroom.
Then, when I was working at a startup, they launched a new benefit, that they called a “Quality of Life Benefit,” and its intended use was for anything that I felt was important for my own happiness.
There was no question what we'd use this money for, and I may have even told Jamie that “Work is getting us a housekeeper!” rather than letting him know that we could spend it on whatever we chose.
I called around and found a highly rated, locally owned business, and made an appointment for the owner to come out and meet us.
She did a walkthrough with us, we talked about what we were looking for (No need to clean the office, for example, because it's basically a pit of despair that I wouldn't wish on anyone lol) and she prepared a price quote for bi-weekly visits with one of her staff.
The amount was exactly what my new payment would be, so it seemed meant to be.
Maria brought a crew of three people the first time she came, and now she comes every other Tuesday, making Tuesdays my favorite day of the week. To come home from a long day at work, and smell the fresh clean of Lysol and Windex, see the vacuum lines in my living room, and the shining porcelain in the bathrooms is worth every penny and then some.
If you've ever contemplated a housekeeper, I can't recommend it highly enough. Rather than spending our weekends scrubbing toilets and mopping the kitchen, we're now free to do what we want with our time, even if that just means binging on Netflix or going out to breakfast.
Have you ever had a housekeeper or wished you had one?
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