Cleaning for the Cleaning woman

There are 4 of us in our family and none of us have that little neat-freak gene that my sister seems to have inherited from my maternal grandmother. I aspire to clear clutter (I really do!) but am continually fighting an uphill battle. As I said, it just does not come naturally to me nor to anyone else in my family. Both Ed and I work full-time, which makes the mornings about getting everyone up, dressed, fed and equipped with homework, lunches paperwork, briefcases, etc before heading off to school and work. The evenings are for activities (girl scouts & swimming), homework, dinner and hearing about each other’s days. On weekends, between soccer games and play dates, we get laundry, grocery shopping, bill paying, yard work and other errands done. There is not a lot of time left for a rigorous cleaning routine. So we made the decision a while ago, to hire a bi-weekly cleaning person and use that time we bought back to enjoy our family. It has created an interesting phenomenon - the bi-weekly cleaning for the cleaning person. Its not cleaning per say, as much as it is de-cluttering and putting away all the things that have been left out over the past two weeks. Tensions run high on these evenings and the followings mornings, prompting my husband to initiate the inevitable discussion about whether it is all worth it. My answer is always the same - we are keeping our cleaning person. These bi-weekly events are the barrier that keeps us from falling into total chaos and potential squalor. For all the stress it creates getting ready, it is worth it to come home that weekday evening to a spotless home where every carpet is vacuumed and every surface glistens. And once again I am optimistic that we can maintain this perfection for the next fortnight.