To maid or not to maid...........

March means that MSW is up for his annual performance evaluation. Because raises are entirely merit based, a raise (if one was to be had) would be announced too. He has been trying to get me to hire a maid for years. Honestly, never wanted one. Cleaning for me is therapeutic and if I am being entirely honest I have OCD when it comes to my house cleaning. For example, I own a carpet shampooer and the carpets get shampooed almost weekly. I am pretty sure that I will end up redoing the cleaning anyways because it will not meet my standards.
Sunday afternoons have always been our cleaning day. On pretty days we open the windows, pull out the supplies and blast Marley. MSW is in charge of the floors and toilets and I do the rest. We have a system. We start each week with a spotless house. It is the way we have done things for our 11 years of marriage. However, now we have two littles. We used to have more time and our Sunday cleaning ritual did not take away from the family time as much. Now, Sunday afternoons spell baseball practice and relaxing, long picnics in the backyard (wait until you see my new backyard set-up!) So lately, the cleaning has been getting in the way. MSW said on Sunday if my salary goes to “X amount” we are getting a maid. I agreed, it seemed far-fetched. I got a text yesterday afternoon, “hire your maid.”
I should be excited, right? Let’s stroll down memory lane….My first memory of a maid was, Belia. She was my great-grandmother’s maid. She was like 4 foot 7 inches, a size 0, former belly dancer and about 80 years old. Or at least this is what my childhood mind remembers about her. Mimi was mean to her and in return, she was mean to us when the adults were not around.
The next maid was Martha. Martha was as wide as she was tall, spoke very little English and came to our house every Wednesday. I don’t remember much about her cleaning abilities. I only remember my mom telling us Wednesday mornings to clean up our room because Martha was coming, so she obviously did little in my room. I do remember that she loved her some Carpet Fresh and literally used bottles of that stuff every Wednesday and every tv in the house was tuned in to the Novela channel.
What Martha was best known for was her phone skills. She insisted on answering the phone, we had 3 phone lines that came into our house. “Isss me, Martha. No, its not home.” That was her line. Every single time. So, it became a game for our friends to call and ask for us over and over. You have not really laughed until you have heard Crystal do an impression of Martha. I think Martha cleaned our house (or should I say answered our phones) for about 10 years.
And then I became a big girl with my own house to clean. About 5 years ago we decided we needed a maid. I hired a lady who works in the housekeeping dept. at SAC. She is a sweet lady who also is an amazing seamstress too. She does not drive so I had to take her to our house and then take her home at the end of the day. She was at our house for 12 hours. The only noticeable thing she did was paint my French doors and tie back my curtains with rubber bands. Somehow “clean my house” was translated into “redecorate my house.” That was the first and last day of having a maid in our home. So, here we find ourselves again and the crossroads of the maid debacle. So, If we do venture down this road again I think I am going to go with an agency since I clearly don’t have good hiring practices on my side.