Tag Archive for landscaping

I Miss My Housecleaner

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A little over a month ago our youngest daughter, Hilary, left the nest.  She moved out on her own, got her own place, flew the coop, and is loving her new-found independence.  We’re very proud of her getting out on her own, however it has left me in a bit of a pickle that I had not contemplated too seriously.

For quite a few years now, since everyone graduated from high school, we have had certain “twenty-something” rules and regulations that we have expected the kids to abide by while they are still living at home.

Our rules started like this-
Rule #1:  If you’re living at home and not going to school you will pay rent.
Rule #2: If you’re living at home and going to school you do not have to pay rent.  This was our incentive to be in school, working on your college degree.
Rule #3: While you are still living at home you will be expected to do weekly chores. ie- housecleaning, yard work, pool maintenance.
Rule #4 – If you have friends’ over when we are not at home – The Golden Rule is- No Police, No Fire! Period.

These were the top Four rules.  Of course we expected everyone to be respectful of each other’s space, and live life according to Rules 1,2,3 & 4.

The Rent Rule has been modified a few times over the years.  That’s a parents prerogative.  After all we pay the mortgage.  The second generation rent rule was that everyone paid rent.  It did not matter if you we’re going to school or not.  But, if you we’re going to school your rent was reduced a bit each month.   And we also give a rent credit for the monthly housecleaning skills, and landscaping skills.

As of this year,  the third generation rent rule has seen the abolishment of the rent credit completely for going to school.  But we still do offer a rent credit for your “helping out around the house” maintenance skills.  Oh,  and I should clarify this offer goes out to any of our kids still living at home only, not just anyone who needs to rent a room.

Now,  back to my housecleaning story.  The rent here could not entice Hilary to stay any longer.  She was anxious to be out on her own in the cold, cruel world.  Which meant MY days of avoiding the weekly housecleaning chores were coming to an end.  While Hilary was here doing the weekly cleaning I would usually tackle a big, deep cleaning project once or twice during the month.  This was a great routine, and it was working like a well oiled machine.

Now those days are no more.  My cleaning lady has flown the coop, and I have to resort back to the old days of cleaning the house on my own.  It’s not exactly like the olds days though.  There are only three of us living in the house now, and at one time we had seven of us here.  The bathrooms don’t get as dirty, the floors don’t get as yucky as they used to.  And, luckily I have time to spread out the cleaning during the week if I want to.  No weekend cleaning for this gal!

When the kids were all younger, and I was working full-time we would spend two hours on Saturday morning cleaning the house, and getting our chores done.  The music would be blaring, and everyone had specific chores.  In two hours we would get most everything done and call it a day.  Then we’d move on to our weekend time.

So, even though my little birdies are one by one flying out of the coop we will survive.  The housecleaning will still get done, although I will miss Hilary’s cleaning playlist.  And the bonus for us right now is our landscaper still lives at home, for the moment.  Hopefully he will give me ample notice before he plans to move out.  After all, I’ll need time to hire a gardener.

How are or did you handle your twenty-something’s living at home?

Home Improvement Projects

My wonderful Travel Man has had a few days at home in a row which has been  a rarity since the beginning of the year.  We decided to take advantage of this week, with him at home to get some home improvement projects rolling along.

For most of this week we have been texturing and painting the walls in our entryway, installing new flooring, and getting all of the trim work completed.  We are down to the wire and will be finishing up tomorrow morning.  Travel man is off to Canada on Sunday.  This project has been a long time coming, and it is just delightful to see it all coming together.  I will post a slide show of pictures once we are completely done.

We have also been putting together a plan to landscape our front yard. Our house sits on a corner lot, the first house on the south side of our street.  So we have a lot of front yard going on.  We had the front yard graded probably two years ago now, and have just been keeping the dirt free of weeds and in check since then.  Putting a plan together with a blank slate is somewhat of a daunting task.  You want the grass and plants to look nice, and you don’t want to make a mistake with your plan.  This is why we have waited to spend any money on our front yard.  We had to have the time to get a vision, agree on that vision, and put a plan in place to execute.  That sounds so “Corporate world” doesn’t it?  

Anyway, we have been doing so much planning for the front yard, and supply purchasing for the entryway I told my husband one morning this week that I had a dream we were planting in our entryway!!  My thoughts were a little mixed up don’t you think?  All of this planning an executing has been making my head spin.

The entryway project is coming along so beautifully it is already creating “the domino effect”.  You know what I’m talking about.  You make an improvement in one area of your home, and it pushes the domino into the next room that needs to be painted or remodeled, which in our case is our living room.  And we all know the “domino effect” creates a never-ending “to-do” list.  But I love lists so that’s ok.

Watch for my entryway pictures in the next few days.  I’m excited to get this project off of the “to-do” list and work on the front yard before it starts to get too hot.  Happy home improvement weekend everyone.  How’s your “to-do” list going?

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