Terrific Housekeeper Gone Bye-Bye

I don't blame her. Undoubtedly, we drove her away with our steep stairs and post-hurricane-like spread of clothes and bags and magazines. Every week she came and restored order for us. Friday nights have become a special gift to myself, where I get to walk into this orderly neat home and feel like my life is just as put together as our apartment. At least for a few hours.

Now it's just me and Ross left to clean up after ourselves. I imagine that if we even really try, it won't go well.

So I am on the hunt now for some cleaning schedules that make sense when the two people who live together work 60+ hours per week and go to the gym and play in fantasy sports leagues (well, when one of them does), and get massages and basically have lots of other things to do than pick up after their spouse who doesn't care if clothes and magazines and shoes are everywhere. Wait, did I say that?

Real Simple magazine has a great schedule for each room with things to do every day, week, and season. Will I do it? Not sure. Can we divide these tasks between us? Probably not. But it's a good start.

Martha has this list of 6 things to do every day. If I add a seventh, fold clothes and put away shoes (which could fall in the clutter category but is really a whole other project in my mind), then our place would look terrific all the time.

The hard question is where is the solution or to-do list that will make me feel like actually doing this stuff every day? When given the choice between chores and something fun, I will choose fun every time. But I guess when Lily's magic touch was always just a few days away I could make that choice. Now it's just us and our mess.

Until we find a new cleaning woman....