After fellowship my husband and I moved to a city where the cost of living is much less than anywhere we've ever lived. The housing, food, gasoline, soccer camps, music lessons, utilities, everything is cheaper... not to mention we hardly drive much because it is a smaller city, so we don't need to gas up like we did before. The low housing prices meant that we could purchase a large home for our growing kids for an extremely reasonable price (to be fair I should mention that we are coming from Seattle, where real estate is ridiculously expensive, so our perspective is probably a little warped). Anyways, we found a pretty house with gorgeous dark wood plank floors.
Of course I fell in love with the floors.
But, these floors cover nearly half the house, large living area, dining area, kitchen, hallways, sitting room...and they need to be swept often, (like every few minutes), because one can easily spot every tiny little spec that has fallen on them. Of course I don't sweep that often, so by the time I sweep (usually within 12 hours or I start going crazy) it takes a long time to sweep all of the floors.
Many people have asked me if we plan to hire a maid now that my husband is done with training, and maybe because they notice the tiny little specs accumulating on my floor. Of course I've always been repulsed by the idea of hiring someone to clean my house - I have issues, I guess. I hate the idea of people cleaning up after me and always have. Plus, I've always held firm the idea that it is my responsibility to teach my kids how to work, and what is better than for them to help me clean our house? I can't think of anything better... since we don't have a farm.
Today I had to sweep my floor. It was filthy. Dust flew everywhere. I had waited for days to sweep because I was sick and then two of my kids were sick. By the time I had finished sweeping, I had completely rationalized the idea of having someone come clean my house, and in particular, my floors. My reasoning included ideas such as how I should be sympathetic to people who desperately need cleaning jobs, who were not able to attend school but are hard working individuals that need employment; how good it would be for our small city's economy; how I could spend so much more time volunteering in the community if I didn't have to spend so much time cleaning my wood floors.
Holy cow.
Now that I've thought through it and written all of this down, I've changed my mind, I've decided to teach my 7-year old how to sweep, and how to sweep well. This will be his new chore, every other day, required for his weekly allowance. I've created a new job chart for my kids in general. I desperately want to move back into our small and manageable house where we lived during medical school. Of course my husband and family like this house, so they will have to help me, daily, to clean it.
It's amazing how powerful the brain is in our decision making and eventually the choices we make. Sometimes I wonder why my brain is so weak, It must be because Christmas is only a few days away. Yes, stress leads us to make crazy decisions.
Luckily I thought this one through before I made any drastic moves.
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