housekeeping

Ugh.

After yesterday's post I got to thinking about housekeeping. For a brief time in my work history, I cleaned houses. When I was growing up, my mum worked so she had a housekeeper come in twice a week to clean our house & do laundry.

When I was single I was a mostly tidy person, especially if I wasn't working too much. My Sweety... well, he's a messy cook and I always have to go around the house to pick up piles of dirty clothing before I do laundry. He's good at cleaning, but it usually only happens when we are expecting company, or if I express utter frustration at the lack of clean house. So much of the cleaning falls to me. He does appreciate it, but in these past two weeks we've both been working so much that, as I mentioned yesterday, the house was a disaster. I spent much of yesterday cleaning and tidying so that, by the end of the day, the house was in good order.

Then I made a banana cake with almond icing for Kate-Lynn's birthday. Kate-Lynn and her boyfriend Larry are staying next door to us for the summer while they are working at the Canadian Princess. I asked Kate-Lynn what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday and I made it. They came over in the evening and we had cake, tea, and ice cream. More dishes.

I decided yesterday that I will not use this dishwasher again. In order for dishes to come out clean, they have to be rinsed and sometimes even scrubbed before they go in the dishwasher. That doesn't make any sense to me. Then the dishwasher takes a full two and a half hours to run its cycle. In that time I could have all the dishes washed, dried and put away, the rest of the kitchen cleaned. So I am done with this dishwasher. (Maybe others are more efficient?)

I'm also not very fond of this washing machine. I learned early on that the regular cycle is really rough on clothes, so I have been using the gentle cycle for everything. I wish it was a front loading machine. I wish the hinge was on the right side instead of the left, because with the way the machine is positioned, it is awkward for me to get in there.

I do have a clothesline, thank the heavens. Dan strung it up for me soon after we moved here. Today is Day 3 of roofing, though, so I can't put any clothes out on the line, lest flying roofy stuff land on our clean clothes. (Are they going to use tar? O gosh I hope not. I hate that smell).

So I got to thinking: at what point in ones life does one call in a housekeeper? Say if Dan and I were both working full time and had a handsome enough income so as to employ someone? It seems rather silly in some ways that I should consider having someone else clean my house. But on the other hand, I *love* having a clean house and all that time I spend cleaning could be spent knitting instead.

We are far from being able to hire someone to come in, but I am sure tempted. When my mum was living on the Island, she would come out at least once a week to help me with keeping the kitchen clean. I was so thankful when we first moved into this house that there was a dishwasher because my mother wasn't available. But now I'm back to doing it the old-fashioned way: by myself, with my gloves & apron on, by hand. At least I can listen to my podcasts as I do it.