Not Quite Betty Crocker

I’m home.  As of this minute, I’ve decided I’m never leaving one day on a 6:00 am flight and returning the next day after midnight.  That might change in the next minute – because I get an extra night at home – but yowza, rough on a woman’s attitude, let me tell you.

I thought I’d be home next week, but no, not anymore.  Not only am I not home, I’m hitting two cities in two days: Indianapolis Thursday and Seattle Friday. Is that even possible?  I don’t know. 

I knew this new gig would require some travel, but not much travel.  And I haven’t even officially started it yet.

So again, I come back to: how does one maintain a happy marriage while on the road so much?  And again, I come back to: outsourcing.

Once upon a time, I moved in with a very clean and neat man (not this one!).  He liked his things just so, while I was (and still am) much more a tornado of stuff.  When discussing chores, we amiably divided them up… then I hired someone to do my half.  See, he felt strongly that cleaning should never be outsourced, that he’d never be happy, that he needed to do it with his own two hands.

Fantastic.  Not me.  I suck at cleaning.  So I paid someone, and eventually we paid someone, and all was well. 

Ten years and many, many raises later, you’d think I’d have figured this out, but no, I still keep trying to appease the cheap-ass in me by trying to do my own cleaning.  And this time, my husband is just as messy as I am, just as frustrated by the mess.

So I’m throwing in the towel and calling in help.  Last night, on my last flight home, my stomach started churning at the thought of being home for a few days because I knew we’d be frustrated by the mess.  It’s okay to deal when you have the luxury of time, but I’m taking 6:00 am flights in order to be able to spend an evening with my husband.  NOT CLEANING.

I keep counting the dollars in my head, wondering what else we should be spending them on, but I come back to: this is no way to live.  We, individually and collectively, are pigs.  We, individually and collectively, are stressed out by our pigness.  We, individually and collectively, have tried valiantly to be cleaner and neater and more in control.

We, individually and collectively, give up. 

And when I think about the money that could be spent elsewhere, I remind myself of the honest-to-gawd joy on the face of our house cleaner last year when she surveyed her work.  We’d hired her to clean in advance of our wedding and it was a Big Job.  Four hours later, she smiled. 

“It makes me so happy to know that you’ll be so much happier relaxing in your clean house.”

People, it’s like I’m spending the money to make her happy, you know?