Finding happiness inside — and outside — the house

Years ago, before I was married, I remember watching my mother running the vacuum cleaner, mopping the floors, dusting the furniture, working every day to keep our house looking nice. She worked hard, but no matter how hard she worked, there was always more work to be done, like laundry, grocery shopping, et cetera. I remember thinking back then that taking care of our house did not look like fun.

Once Taller Half and I were married and had our own place, I found myself doing the same things my mother did. And it was not fun. No matter how well I dusted the furniture, in a couple of days, it needed dusting again. No matter how well I did anything for our house, it still needed doing again in just a few days.

It didn’t take long before I was job hunting, hoping to find something to do that paid a salary and got me out of that house. Eventually, I found something, and I loved leaving our place and doing something other than keeping our house clean. But our place still needed cleaning, so we hired a lady to do what I had been doing, except she got paid.

As time went on, our housekeeper needed raises in her salary to keep her with us. She was certainly worth every penny of her salary. She was doing every bit of work I had been doing, though I never got paid. The more I thought about it, the madder I got.

Finally, one day Taller Half and I sat down to talk. Our cleaning lady was making almost as much as I was working outside our home. How was that fair? Though I had a job outside our place, our cleaner was making about half my salary doing all the things I had done without making anything.

The difference was our cleaning lady seemed to enjoy her work caring for our house and did it very well. I never liked doing housework, and she did. So I enjoy being out and about, seeing and talking with folks, while she is perfectly happy doing things around the house.

Things are working out well. Our house stays clean, and our cleaner is happy. I am doing my things, and I am happy. Best of all, everyone is happy, especially our house. She is clean and orderly and very content. Hope this happiness lasts forever.

Is your house happy? Are you happy?

Laura Moore can be emailed at lehmoore1@gmail.com.