Hired Help

I must admit that I am never one to spend money on things that I feel I can do myself. I guess you could call me frugal or a penny pincher or cheap or any other number of names. I'd rather save my money for things I feel are important like family vacations, pool memberships, clothing for my ever-growing daughter, not to mention my mounting medical bills. It's only been recently that I've begun to realize that I can't do everything around the house like I used to.

When we moved into our house two years ago, we decided to continue the lawn service that the previous owners had hired. It's really nice not to have to spread fertilizer, weed preventer and grub killer ourselves. It spares a lot of time lugging bags of poisonous stuff from the store into the garage every spring.

Since my surgery, I have also realized that some of the house cleaning chores are almost impossible for me to accomplish. I can no longer crouch in the shower to scrub the soap scum or push the vacuum over the carpets without hurting myself. Never before this time would I even consider hiring a maid service to do what I consider to be my job as a stay-at-home mom. I'm hear all day, what else am I going to do? Sit around, watch soaps and eat bon-bons? I don't watch soaps and I don't even know what a bon-bon is. Well, today I hired a maid service to come in every other week. Perhaps only until I feel I can manage the chores again myself.

I also determined that I am unable to paint the three bedrooms that desperately need painting. So, tomorrow I have a painter coming to give an estimate. I can't even imagine how that's going to go. Last fall, for fun, I got an estimate for the job. I nearly fainted when I saw the total. At that time, I decided the price was way too high and that I would paint the rooms myself in the spring. Who knew what was to come?