About 3 months ago, I decided I didn’t like the way our cleaning people were cleaning our home.  I would come home and find the basics done and a lot more for me to do on my well deserved weekends.  I told them good-bye and thanks and to please take their cleaning products and move on.  Week #1 without a cleaning crew meant my “tribe of 5” and favorite hubby all got a floor and hit Mom’s cleaning 101 class.  They have all cleaned before, but never the entire house in 3 hours.

I bought 8 different kinds of cleaner, mops, rags, 6 Swifter products (who knew they had so dang many?!) and we did it.  The house was spotless, it smelled amazing I decided this was the way it was going to stay.  No more cleaning service!  I told one of my best friends, Jackie, who never hides her feelings and always (and I mean ALWAYS) keeps me in line.  “WHAT THE HELL?!”  Yep — no more cleaning crew.  “You have 5 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 6,000 sq ft and two parents who work full-time.  Do you REALLY think you are going to be able to clean your house each week?!”  Bammo – right between the eyes.

Most of the time I do listen to Jackie – at least eventually.  She is wise, a straight shooter and the single most honest person I have ever met.  She doesn’t suger coat anything … ever.  You get what you get with Jackie … like it or not. She was raised by a strong German woman and those traits were passed to Jackie without question.  You would think that I would have listened to her, picked up the phone and called Merry Maids immediately.

This is the one and only time I didn’t do it.  Here we are 3 months later and we just finished our Sunday morning-clean-a-thon.  Jim turns his Bose up about as loud as he can get them … everyone takes their weapons of choice and we all head to our part of the house.  We have it down to 2.5 hours now … lots of signing … lots of spraying .. lots of vacuuming and we have our home spic-and-span clean.

I see all the little cars pull up on my cul-de-sac around 8:30 each weekday.  Three to four women pile out of the cars with their buckets and mops.  Do I miss coming home to a clean house after a long week at work? Not really.  There is truly something about seeing all 7 of us working together early on a Sunday morning that warms my heart.  I love that time together — hearing everyone signing — talking and doing something that makes a difference for each of us.  We are all busy — sports – school – band – work – side businesses – friends, so those Sunday mornings are sometimes the only time in the week where we can all be together just “being”.  I love it – I look forward to it — and I even think the kids like it down deep.  They love being able to show us how clean their spot in the house looks and they seem to take care of the house more now.

Goodbye to Maria, Noe and Nicci … thanks for all the scrubbing you did for us.  I have a new cleaning crew and they are doing just fine … and they are lots CHEAPER – just a few meals each week and some spending money.

Teddi