The Reality...Keepin' This Casa Clean! (Part ONE)

The Reality... is a series of posts that give expression to what life is like.
going from being a family of four with two small children,
to instantly becoming a family of seven
when we adopted our three oldest children.

Today, we're talking about The Reality of...Keepin' This Casa Clean! Well, sort of...it is actually a two-part story about how my expectations were shattered and how I've decided to do what I can to fully embrace the fact that I am not superwoman.

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With more space comes more house to clean. On top of a year like this, I was also adjusting to our new space and figuring out how in the world to keep it clean. 

I would say that I am pretty efficient at keeping things tidy. Like cleaning up the kitchen after each meal, vacuuming the main level every few days, tackling laundry and just putting things in general, back in their place. Ya know, tidying things up.


Our oldest two kids also rotate through cleaning parts of the bathrooms on certain days as one of their responsibilities as well as the weekly task of taking out the garbage and they help wipe the table and sweep the floor after meals.

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Besides that....I couldn't tell you when the last time was that I mopped the floor (with all of the spills around here we do a lot of "spot" cleaning.) In fact, I was chuckling with a friend as I thought, I don't have a "normal rotation" for cleaning sheets, our kids just seem to always be sick, or diapers leak or someone is picking their nose and making it bleed (ugh)...that the sheets just get washed all of the time without a "normal rotation."

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I actually used to clean a few houses when we were first married. It is a great job for OCD people like us like me. However, it is also one of the most humbling jobs I have ever done. Cleaning a work shop bathroom where 15 guys shared one bathroom....yep, extremely humbling to be scrubbing that toilet.

I always used to do a better job at keeping things clean and my floors were sparkly most of the time. My cleaning to do list seemed very manageable...so manageable that I felt fine taking on cleaning jobs and our sheets were changed on a normal rotation. All of those fond memories however involve life before kids.

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A few months after we transitioned to a family of seven (and we moved into our house) the reality of our present life was catching up with me. If I had any expectations of what I was capable of achieving then I needed to just throw those out the window!

One morning, I was beyond excited to see an email for a daily deal site with a 3-hour house cleaning at a fraction of the cost.  My husband knew how challenging things had been and suggested that I go ahead and purchase the discounted cleaning deal if I thought that it would make things easier. Make things easier?! I purchased it in seconds and just like that the thought of making things a little easier (even if only temporarily) seemed crazy AMAZING!

I decided to wait for the perfect time to use my cleaning deal. After all, this was a luxury for us...I had never even dreamed of having someone else clean my house. What better time than days before you are having an open house adoption celebration party at your house???

Throw in there the fact that that same weekend was our court date to finalize our adoption and my parents were flying in for the weekend. This sounds like a GREAT time to focus on other things and enjoy having someone else clean our house (the whole kitchen floor might even get mopped at the same time this way!)

The cleaning appointment was set, the kids were at a friend's house playing for the day, I picked up everything so that cleaning would be a breeze (that kind of sounds like an oxymoron, right?) I didn't go around cleaning before the cleaners came. Oh no, I made sure that everything was dirty which simply meant that I hadn't dusted or vacuumed for days. However, I did make sure to do my part of "tidying up" so that all of the cleaning could be done without having to move things along the way.

The anticipated moment finally arrived. 

I sat on my living room couch like a child anticipating Christmas morning! 

I seriously felt like I had never been so excited about anything in my whole life (ok, so I had but really, I was THAT excited!) :-)

It was now 2 o'clock, a half hour had passed and no one had come yet. I double checked to make sure that I had the correct time. I tried calling the phone number I had but only an answering machine picked up saying that "customer service is busy, do not leave a message but instead call back later."

Picture me calling, and waiting, and calling until TWO hours had passed and still no one had come.

I was beyond frustrated. Especially at the fact that I could have been cleaning the house myself during the two hours that I had sat there waiting.

I finally received an email response letting me know that the cleaners wouldn't be able to come today, but would next week work? After doing some digging it turns out that this particular cleaning company had shut down the week prior. However, the company was trying to string clients along while they switched business names and opened up a new cleaning business. Thankfully I was able to receive a full refund from Living Social but walked away from the experience vowing never to buy another discounted cleaning service again. 

Of course, never say never, and I decided to give a different company a try when I saw another deal come my way. I really couldn't get over how much of a treat this was going to be to have someone else clean my house.

To have my whole house cleaned all at once...even if it only lasted for a few hours, this was going to be great!

Months later, I decided that the perfect time to use it would be to schedule the cleaning on my birthday. That way even if the house didn't stay clean for long at least I could fully enjoy the moments that it did sparkle.

My birthday was last week and...

TO BE CONTINUED (next Thursday)...

(and because next Thursday came and went 
you can find the quick link to part TWO by clicking right here!) :-)