Housework

I've been falling a bit behind on my housework as of late. It just seems kind of pointless to me. I spend a couple of hours each day cleaning for what? To do it all again the next day or even the next hour? Right after I had Nohea and was training for the Hawaii Half-Ironman, I hired two ladies to come clean the house. They came every other week, and it was like heaven to walk into a clean home. But it seemed I spent at least an hour to two hours cleaning up in preparation of their coming, so I stopped seeing the point. Plus, bills were tight. So now it's all up to me again.

But today I got a reprieve of sorts. Lilia has a friend who is about a month older than her that lives on our block. She loves to help me clean my house, and who am I to deny her of the privilege. She helped me put the girls' toys away, then she asked if she could vacuum. She didn't do the best job vacuuming, but you know, I'll live with it. I used to love a perfectly tidy house, but the older I get, the more I realize, just tidy enough is perfectly fine.

To my dismay, one of the things I am most ashamed about is my drive for a perfectly clean house. My upstairs neighbor at WyView was moving about six years ago. I had planned a day to ultra-clean my apartment. They were busy moving. On my trip out to the dumpster, I met her coming out of her apartment.

"Looks like it's moving day for you," I said to her. "Is everything going okay?"

"Yes," she said. "We just have to clean the apartment now."

And that's when I said the proverbial phrase, "Well, call me if you need some help." And I left back inside my house to clean my own home. I didn't have children at the time. She had a little boy. I didn't have to work that day. I only had one, small 400-square foot apartment to clean. Why didn't I stop what I was doing and help her out? I found out later that she was really sad that no one from the neighborhood came over to help her move. I was so ashamed.

It's said that we regret the things we don't do more than the things we do. Thanks to the little neighbor girl who showed a great example of service to me today.