TMI Tuesday: Who Knew Cleaning Was So Much Fun

Our Son's New Toy!

My wife and I entered the childcare search with a little trepidation not really knowing how to approach the process. We have already found a great daycare in the area but there are times when we would like to get out for the evening or have someone at the house when either the daycare is closed or when our son is home sick. While we know that our family is there whenever we need them, we can’t expect them to make the long drive out to us all of the time. We also have a number of people that we know in closer proximity but that is where the allergy part of the equation comes into play… our home needs to remain free of cats (and their dander), nuts, and shellfish.

In the responses that we received through Care.com there were a number of them that pretty much disqualified themselves simply in how they responded to our posting. Some didn’t bother reading what we had written (to the point of addressing their communication to some other name entirely), others had no business in childcare, a few wanted us to pay them for dropping our son off at their house, and others touted their love of animals of all kinds (see the first noted disqualifier). As for the other, thankfully, my wife’s background has been tremendously helpful in weeding out some of the “candidates”.

It took some time but finally we came across someone with a background that we were looking for, the clearances we were requiring, and a personality that matched well with our family. Despite our son’s grumpy sleepiness, this initial impression was proven correct when we met with her last week. As a bonus, she was also willing to take on the chore of cleaning our home on a weekly basis eliminating our need to conduct a second search. Sometimes things seem to just fall into place.

Not wanting to waste any time, and also wanting to get a handle on the cleaning, we had her start this past weekend to see how she would interact without our son and how our son would interact with her. After only a few minutes it was as if they had known one another all along and our son even “helped” her clean a little following close behind with a duster double checking her work and pushing his “vacuum” back and forth across the play room taking care all of the spots she missed. More importantly, he was comfortable having her around and the two of them played and read together for much of the morning which allowed my wife and I to take care of some organizing around the kitchen.

It took some time to find someone but sometimes you have to wait for the right opportunity to come about to find that perfect fit for your family. Fortunately, I also had a copy of his baby book on hand to get her up to speed! Looks like things may work out and we should have some time for ourselves moving forward and a clean house every week which will allow us to spend more quality time with our little boy on the weekends. And that is well worth the extra expense of having someone come in once a week.

A means to get the care giver up to speed!

Mortgage Monday: The Work Never Ends!

Or Both!

 While it has always been a constant project on our list of things to do, now that we own our own home, cleaning is something that I try to put greater emphasis on. And with so much more room than we have previously had in rentals, there is a lot of cleaning to do. It is a never ending list of things that need to be scrubbed, swept, washed, or rinsed. And that is just the things on the inside of the house.

Now that we have some property (and no management company), there is a lot of yard work that has yet to be done. While I should have taken care of many of these things immediately after settlement, it was a project that was quickly put on the back burner once the temperature got colder and the snow began to fall. After all, nothing like a fresh blanket of white to hide all the leaves still covering most of the planting beds.

We have been pretty good about keeping the interior of the house in relative order (organization is still lacking) but, now that the weather has turned warmer once again, all of the things that we have been putting off in the yard have to be addressed and, at this point, we are ill prepared to tackle the task. The first step is going to be buying a tractor and a better rake or leaf blower. After that it is all about setting aside the time to get things done.

However, the more I think about many of these things, the more I find myself considering hiring a cleaning and/or yard service company to take care of all these tasks. While it would undoubtedly add an additional line item on our budget, it may be worth the money so that we can spend more time with our son. After all, our schedules are still quite a bit hectic and blocking off another brick of time would be less than ideal. Definitely something to consider.

While the extra time and effort has been inconvenient at times, it is still well worth it as we are taking care of a place that we own rather than someone else’s property. It is important to remember that there are great things about being a homeowner and they definitely outweigh, by a large margin, the inconveniences, but it is not a utopian dream. There is work that comes with home ownership and also a sense of pride in caring for your property. Sometimes, though, you just have to figure out the best way to balance everything and we are definitely still working on that aspect.