Coming clean.

My cleaning lady quit.

I came home yesterday to find a beautifully clean, lemony fresh home. And a handwritten card to tell me that she's hanging up her mop. She'll be back once more in June and then we're on our own.

After I read the card, I poured a glass of wine to sit down and figure out what to do. The wine was good but really didn't solve the situation. I wondered if there was a chance that she was just saying that she was moving on because she didn't want to hurt our feelings. After all, we still haven't finished the 'moving the crap back down to the basement' phase of our reno because we just haven't had the time. (And, yes, possibly because, even though we've been plugging away at it, the bottom line is that we have too much of said crap.)

So now the search is on for a new cleaning lady. And we've got to find one soon. This morning, over coffee, Peter was giving the dog a scratch and I found myself asking him to stop. No more petting the dog until we get a new cleaning lady, I said, because every time you touch her I see 60 hair falling to the floor. I've even contemplated moving my family out so that I don't have to clean.

This morning I ran into a friend who shares the same now-retired cleaning lady that I do. She confirmed that she too got a card. Phew, I thought to myself. So it's not just our Hoarder's Haven that she is trying to avoid.... That thought alone was my good little thing for today.