Come back Carolina!

Our friend and house keeper, Carolina, has taken the summer off.

To truly understand the hardship we face without her for the entire summer let me tell you about the woman that has ruled over our house. Almost four years ago, right after we bought our first home which was a 1600 sq foot 1926 craftsman bungalow , we realized that after working all week it wasn’t fun spending Saturday mornings (1/4 of our waking weekends!) chasing dust bunnies, sucking rugs, folding clothes and cleaning toilets. I can only relax in a tidy clean home, and since my husband travels most weeks with work, the weekends are our sacred time together. Not to mention when we first moved in together my husband thought his mother would magically appear (just as she had done his whole life) and clean and cook and take care of his messes; I had to sit him down and explain to him that I am his husband not his mother.

Carolina entered our life and saved the day! At first we confused her, she asked which bedroom was mine and which bedroom was my husbands, but once I placed our wedding photos strategically around the house she no longer put our clean clothes in the guest bedroom. She was confused no more. We gave her a key to the house. We upgraded houses and she was cleaning as we were unpacking boxes. And after she told us she was going to divorce her husband because after 10 years and three kids he still wouldn’t divorce his first wife and marry her (another story, another day) we asked her to start coming once a week. Even though our house isn’t that dirty; she always finds things to do. She organizes our underwear drawers; she cleans and rearranges our refrigerator, and in fact she has no problem organizing everything in the house- she isn’t shy- once she told me that she feels like our house is her house. Having Carolina come once a week is addicting. We live in a perpetually tidy, clean and organized home. It’s heaven.

We think she adores our dogs, she calls Martha Fauker “Martita” and she calls Trigger “Treasure”, more than she adores us. She brings our dogs treats and Halloween costumes.

So in June, Carolina dropped the bomb that she wanted to take the summer off. She doesn’t have another job- but she’ll be staying with family and spending time with her kids who are out of school.

We could get temporary help, but Carolina rules our house and that would be like cheating on her. At first I wasn’t going to clean anything all summer long so that I could proudly show her our dirty house when she returned- as if to prove that we needed her. I couldn’t hold out- so we’re back to spending ¼ of our waking weekends cleaning house and counting the days until Carolina returns.