A lot went on this week but I think the most newsworthy is the new cleaning lady. Nut job! Keep reading for the gritty details.
I started the week with a doctor’s appointment, which went well but, no surprise, I need to improve my diet to get my LDL down. Go figure. It was a mad rush as soon as I got to work, helping Mary and Nora prep for an 11:00 meeting. The day was over in a flash and I didn’t swim so was able to go home and grab dinner before knitting. Then it was home to watch Alcatraz, which has sucked me right in. If the rest of the week was as quick as Monday, the weekend would be here in no time.
The event of Tuesday was moving my cubie. I started right after lunch and was done by 4:00. It’s amazing how much dust you encounter when you clean the new cubie, dust everything you move and then dust the now empty old cubie. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. My lungs felt thick with dust. And as soon as I got home, I started neatizing for the new cleaning lady. The house wasn’t bad but my goal was to clear every surface possible. It took more than an hour but I was pleased with the results. I had a couple of areas I was going to tell her were off limits – the top of the desk, the yarn corner and my hassock mainly – but that worked for me.
I left Wednesday morning, excited to get through the day and come home to a sparkling clean house. The day went fast and I swam, which I normally don’t do on Wednesdays because I don’t like the class (Water in Motion), so didn’t get home until 7:00. I opened the door and could smell Pine Sol. Good. The kitchen sink was amazing, as was the toilet, which had had big streaks of hard water stains (have I mentioned that my old cleaning lady sucked?) and the microwave looked great, until I noticed the dust caked in the vents, despite the rest of the microwave being pristine. Then I found her note.
Apparently, she’d spent 4.5 hours in my house and still wasn’t done. When I read that, I looked around and could not fathom what had taken her so long. Yes, the floors were clean and she had dusted but 4-1/2 hours? And at $25/hour, whatever she’d done was costing me big bucks. She had said she’d call so I called Carolyn to fill her in and waited. Well, when she called, the first thing I asked was what took so long. She said she’d spent some time on the sink and toilet (obviously) but also that there had been a lot of dead leaves on my plants! WTF! I assured her that I could take care of my own plants and didn’t want her to touch them. Really? Then I went all in and asked about the vents on the microwave. She said she’d tried but moved on and assured me she’d finish on Friday. She also was way too concerned about the fact that she didn’t have time to dust the top of the china hutch. Now if I were having a basket ball team over for tea, maybe this would be a problem but guess what? No one can see that dust! The clincher of the conversation was when she told me that my house would get cleaner every time she came and I’d get better. Yes, this woman thinks that I’m going to get better, at which point I told her I was fine with the level of clutter in my house, which is light years better than 5 years ago. I also asked her if now that she’d experienced my house, if she could do 2 hours every 2 weeks instead of the three she had estimated. She wouldn’t even consider this. So her services would cost me twice as much as the max I’d ever paid in the past. I hung up feeling like it wasn’t going to work. After Darla called (all my friends wanted an update), I had decided to look for yet another cleaning lady. I don’t need to pay twice as much for the same service and have a guilt trip thrown in as a tip. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Thursday and Friday flew by, Friday helped by having to slam through a big project for the big boss, who had asked the wrong person for the data (typical) and then it became an emergency when said person waited until the last minute to ask for help. Sheesh! I finished just in time and left the office behind, totally ready for my wonderfully unscheduled weekend.
I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday and couldn’t get back to sleep so got up at 5:54, which is the time my alarm goes off. Sheesh! I made pancakes and bacon then had a lovely morning knitting in the sun. When I got up from my chair, I dyed two skeins of yarn, finally getting the brown I was looking for on one that I’d dyed before and recreating Kate’s gorgeous pink/gray skein that had been a happy mistake on Dye Day. I ate some lunch and then knitted some more. Lorri was coming over for tea at 3:00 so I got out my vintage tea set and set a nice table. We had a lovely time and chatted for hours. She even helped me wind my two dyed yarns because they’d dried quickly out on the line. I had planned to bake a chicken for dinner but didn’t have time once Lorri left so I cooked a frozen pizza and watched a movie. I was struggling to keep my eyes open and so went to bed early. What a nice day!
I slept in (6:30! Seriously, that’s late for me) on Sunday and had another nice morning – watching TV, reading the paper and knitting. I had started a tea cosy for the big teapot I’d used Saturday and was having fun with that. I did chores on and off all day and was down in the basement starting my 70’s quilt when the doorbell rang. Andrea had stopped by to drop off some biscotti she’d baked so I put on the tea again and had another nice tea break with a friend. When I asked Andrea if she knew how to change a watch battery, it ended up with her ripping apart 3 of my dead watches. Despite her ministrations, they really were dead so went into the trash. After she left, I made tortilla casserole and broccoli for supper and finished up my laundry. What a fabulous weekend! I need a few more like it soon.
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