Home, Sweet, Home

Mutter, mutter. "What's that?" M asks as I mutter and haul the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard for the second time on my long weekend Saturday. "Home, Sweet, Home," I mutter once more. I thought I was done with household chores but here I am, vacuuming a bit here and there again.

One day of our weekend is always taken up with chores: vacuuming, cleaning, washing. M is a helpful husband and we are a team in doing household chores. He has his tasks and I have mine. I can't complain about that. I can complain about horrible chores and the time it takes out of my weekend.

I mutter some more to myself. It doesn't help that I've just read an old school friend's blog and seen the beautiful lily-in-the-sunset photograph she snapped in her garden while her housekeeper helped her son learn his Zulu phrases. A housekeeper? Who teaches Zulu phrases and keeps the house clean. Does she cook as well? My disenchantment with vacuuming and housework increases.

It's part of the reason M and I downsized into an apartment. We found our three bedroom townhouse on three floors time intensive to maintain. And here I am still resenting the time it takes to complete household chores. Oh, for a housekeeper, even a maid a few times a week! What a difference it would make.

Then I could live in my little house with its garden patio. I could have my wrought iron set with white cotton table cloth because someone else would iron it. I'd have white pansies in white pots because someone else will dust the pots and water the pansies. Oh, and never mind just some help in the house, I'd have a gardener to help with my flowers and to do the hard work in the vegetable and herb garden. He'd prune our fruit trees and cut the grass.

Re-vacuuming done, I haul it back to the cupboard. I sigh over the luxury of the South African lifestyle of housekeepers, maids and gardeners. It's attainable in Canada but not at a price I can afford or am prepared to pay. I add up the $100 a month it would cost for domestic assistance for a few hours twice a month. Over a year, that's $1,200. I think of what else I can do with $1,200.

No, I'll do my own housework and work through my envy.