The cleaning ladies

I've praised my husband quite a few times on this blog. My in laws however have not been mentioned that often. I have GREAT in laws. No room for mother in law jokes here. They have welcomed me in the family, helped me adapt to the new country, enveloped me in their love and been generally a wonderful support.
This christmas, my mother in law, gave me a wonderful gift. She said that when she had had a baby, her mother in law arranged for a cleaning crew to come once a month for a few months. Not for day to day maintenance, but for those things that you never get to with a sweet little one running around your ankles. She said she wanted to do the same thing for me!

I was thrilled! Especially when I met the man who came to check the house before the first cleaning and he told me that the very first time they came, they would do a deep spring cleaning. He talked about the ladies cleaning things that frankly, I had not cleaned since I moved in here half a year ago.
Besides, since november we have alternated between travelling or being sick. Needless to say, the house needs a bit of attention. Okay, make that a lot of attention. And while I feel pretty guilty at the idea of other people coming in and cleaning my house for me, I am extremely grateful for my mother in laws thoughtfulness.

In addition to that gratitude, the fact that professional cleaning ladies will come into my house today has another positive effect. With the suitcases and bags of three trips, one of them intercontinental, two of them with baby spread around the house, half unpacked and no time for much maintenance tidying when you just run in and out of the house for a few days before hitting the road again, the place had become cluttered. I detest clutter. I HATE clutter. I have almost religious objections against clutter. Unfortunately, like many temptations, clutter likes to keep a close eye on me and if I forgo the fight for a few weeks, it takes control over my house and over me. I become scatterbrained, distracted and don't get any work done.

Still, while I started to do some tidying here and there since last thursday when we we ended the string of holidays, it didn't really have a direction to it. But now, there will be professional cleaning ladies coming in my house. I do not want them to lose their time moving Josephs toys around, or dealing with sixteen little jars and tubes on my vanity table.
In the last three days, I threw out four or five bags of 'stuff', I emptied nearly every single surface, emptied all the suitcases and bags, put all the clothes that were clean back in the closets and those that weren't in the apropriete laundry baskets, and went through Josephs toy and book basket to weed out what wasn't played with anymore to put it away in a bin in the storage closet. The cleaning ladies have not even been here, and my house looks ten times better! Good work!