Ode to a Cleaning Person

If I were really on my game this morning, I would write this in some kind of rhyming prose - since that's what "ode" means to me.  But unfortunately I had a terrible night and am a bit groggy and likely going to be very grumpy today since I was really looking forward to sleeping last night...

Don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but the backstory to my Ode is that my husband and I are not very motivated about cleaning.  Somehow, neither of us got that gene nor did we develop any kind of helpful OCD traits that make it necessary for us to live in a clean house.  And with 2 messy adults, 2 kids, 2 cats and a dog - well the house gets cluttered quick.  So, since Sean came home from treatment in September, and was going to be a SAHD for a while, we agreed that the housework was going to be his responsibility (seriously WE agreed to this).  And boy oh boy, that has not worked out at all. 

I finally told him a few weeks ago that if he did not intend to clean, then he needed to hire a cleaning person.  He also agreed to that plan.  A week later, no movement on that front and the house was out.of.control.  I was learning again the lesson about not being able to control another person and only being able to control my own reaction (which was a very timely and helpful lesson for me actually), and then my Higher Power stepped in... 

Earlier this week, a friend of ours posted on Facebook that she had a friend who needed some extra jobs to pay for her daughter to go to treatment, and our friend spoke to her trustworthiness and said that she also cleans for her.  I emailed our friend immediately - "have your friend call Sean, we need someone ASAP!"  The friend called Sean that night and after a visit to sort of get the lay of the very nasty land in our house, came yesterday to start the job.  Hurray for having a cleaning person!!!   And double hurray that we can also help out someone trying to save her kid from addiction.

The dear woman had to stack up the piles of random crap in every room, in order to clean the floors, but now I think we can actually sort out all the stuff in those random crap stacks, and order will be restored. 

My niece and her friend are taking a spring break trip in a couple months and have also promised to come up and work for us some weekend, to earn money for that trip.  Now with the regular cleaning stuff accounted for, I can set them to some larger nagging tasks like organizing my Christmas ornaments or, if it is warm enough outside, cleaning out the garage.  And perhaps I can then set my husband to some tasks like pulling off the awful fruity wallpaper border that some prior owner put up in the kitchen and re-painting!  Yahoo! 

I also have Kid 1 on a tasks to do an extra chore a day for 100 days - this because Kid 2 is on a more personal quest to resolve a particular nasty habit by avoiding it for 100 days and I needed to have a similar quest for Kid 1 since Kid 2's quest involves a prize at the end and I suppose it's only fair to reward Kid 1 for something too.  We're on Day 6 today and so far so good! 

Geez, I go back and read that list and think I am perhaps a bit of a general - marshalling the necessary troops to fight the enemy.  Too funny.