We're headed home sometime today. TCG has tomorrow off, but we're headed to a concert and want to clean the house up a bit before his dad and stepmom come over to babysit. It's been a pleasant enough weekend. I wasn't really feeling well enough to go out and do stuff. So, we mainly are and drank tea and tried to read while stepdad blared the TV. I finished up three of the stack of magazines I brought. My grandfather was here and there was so much food! Homemade gnocchi, meatballs, stuffies, etc.

I found them new on eBay for $50 less! YASSSSSS!

Yay! We are home. Time to clean up the house a bit and then do some errands before concert time. But first lots and lots of tea.

Awesome, GC!

Tea is always a good choice, sj.

Score, Glamcookie!

You guys, I'm struggling with my feelings about something. Our house is always going to be cluttered, thanks to the combo of a tiny house and too much stuff with very little storage (hooray 1920s building codes). But it's also *dirty* in a lot of areas -- the bathroom floor and walls, the baseboards, and the kitchen floor and walls/appliances (thanks, pets who wipe your faces on the fridge door WHAT EVEN IS WRONG WITH YOU).

I'm planning (or *trying* to plan) to have a cleaning service come in to deep-clean the areas I mentioned above, so that we have a blank-slate starting point and can (I fervently hope) stay on top of it. Because here's the thing: my stupid back, which is mostly okay most of the time, gets completely torqued and fucked up when I get down on the floor to clean baseboards and behind the toilet and the bottom half of the kitchen appliances (seriously Kato WHY DO YOU DO THIS). And Tim used to do it so that I wouldn't torque my back, but the reality of his RA right now (though I am praying the Humira starts to work [not so he can clean house, but so his overall quality of life will improve]) is that he cannot do that kind of cleaning, either. It will hurt him too much.

What I'm struggling with is 2-pronged: the first is just the moralizing guilt about hiring a cleaning service, because I *could* do the difficult cleaning (I would just injure myself). People who have physical limitations and don't have the means to hire a cleaning service either do the cleaning anyway or they live with the dog slobber on the fridge. Also, it makes me feel lazy. But then I tell myself that lots of people have a cleaning service for all kinds of reasons, including the simple fact that they don't *want* to clean, and they have the means to pay someone else to do it. That's really no different from paying a restaurant to make me tacos because I don't want to cook.

The second thing I'm struggling with is accepting that Tim and I have these physical limitations (which are also influenced by mental illness AND developmental disorders that we both have). It's easier to call myself lazy than it is to accept that I have physical limitations and/or that my depression means it's a banner fucking day when I wash the dishes AND make the bed. It's easier to grumble that Tim isn't pulling his weight in the chore list than it is to accept that he has an autoimmune disease that's never. going. away. and it keeps him from doing things he used to be able to do. It's all bullshit and I don't want to accept any of it. I know we're in our mid-to-late 40s (hell, Tim turns 50 in a month) and we're not as energetic or resilient as we were in our 20s (when we ALSO didn't clean the house as much as we should have), but I keep telling myself that 40s are just slower than 20s, which is different than actual physical illness/injury. But we're not *just* in our 40s; we also have physical limitations, god damn it.

Just...this is all bullshit and I'm struggling with it SO HARD.

Also super glad I went back to therapy, oh my god.

But it's good that you can recognize what you're feeling and why you're feeling it. You both work hard so that you can afford to do the things that are necessary for your life and your health and happiness.

I know what you mean, though. Right now I've got carpal tunnel and a bad back, which is not optimal for packing and moving house. But thinking about having someone pack us makes me feel ridiculous and pathetic, because I'm falling apart physically.

I have a great back and can mop and clean with no issues (and Jason can too) except I hate it. We have someone twice a month and I feel no guilt. If you hire a cleaner you pay directly, rather than use a service, you know all the money goes into his or her pocket. It's a win/win.

The best thing I ever did was hire a cleaning service to come in once a month. Between school and work for me and the kid's work, none of us have much "free time" plus I hate the deep cleaning stuff. I feel extra lazy when they are here because I'm usually home. Working. But I'm home while they are cleaning my house. But I remind myself that I have every right to subcontract the things I don't want to or can't do. Shoot, according to my current Operations Management class, subcontracting out things that aren't your "core business" is the smart thing to do.

Some people never learn to accept physical limitations. This results in people breaking their wrist when they're sure they can catch a falling server rack cabinet instead of letting the damn thing fall over (never let him live that one down).

But I'm no one to try to gloss over the utter certainty that getting help you can afford is a moral failing. I feel guilty for paying for movers instead of finding some way to schlep hundreds of pounds of boxes up a flight of stairs on my own.

But I'm no one to try to gloss over the utter certainty that getting help you can afford is a moral failing. I feel guilty for paying for movers instead of finding some way to schlep hundreds of pounds of boxes up a flight of stairs on my own.

It's nuts, right? I don't feel one ounce of guilt about paying people to make me tacos or wash my car and vacuum the inside (because fuck that, my car gets full of Kato hair and I don't want to vacuum that). But housecleaning hits me in a different place.