I was think about what expenditure would improve the quality of our life. One idea is to have someone clean our house every two weeks.
One of our best friends has a one-woman housecleaning business, but I think it would feel weird to hire her.
You can have a best friend or a housecleaner... pick one?
Back in our good ol' working days we hired a housecleaner. We were overwhelmed and she was a godsend (our kid was 19 months old at the time). She turned our [-]disaster area[/-] home into a house. Three years later we moved and hired another housekeeper for another three years. She was a struggling young single mother who was turning her life around with our help, and we felt good about everything. She did a fantastic cleaning job, too, along with getting her college degree and a second spouse.
After the marriage she sold her business to the whacko from hell. We hesitated to fire someone who knew how to get into our house so easily. We eventually gracefully extricated ourselves with smiles and happy waves all around... but it was not a comfortable time.
You could start out by telling your best friend that she's your BF and you're worried about ruining the friendship by hiring her as a housecleaner. Maybe she's already seen your house and doesn't want to touch it. See how everyone feels about it. Best result is she's happy to clean your house, worst result is she feels appreciated that you consulted with her for a referral to some other housecleaner.
That is, she'd be like our servant.
No more than a plumber is a servant. You're hiring a professional contractor, not a maid. You'll have to have the house set up exactly the way she wants it and let her clean it the way she feels is best. You'd probably never ever feel comfortable criticizing the work without being concerned about the friendship, but maybe you'll never find anything to criticize.
I've also always been uncomfortable having someone clean while I'm around goofing off.
We made sure we were hardly ever home. It makes things easier for them to clean. You don't really want to know how they're doing it, and you certainly don't want to distract them with chitchat or making them feel as if you're looking over their shoulders. The closest we'd come to "being home" would be staying outside with yardwork or other projects, or running errands in & out during their visit.
Some people feel compelled to clean before the housecleaner comes. ("Eeeuw, she can't see our toilet looking like that!") We made sure that we picked up all the debris so that she could spend her valuable time on dusting & vacuuming, not on putting stuff away.
Plus we'd have to put our sex toys away.
Depends on nature of the "friendship" and whether or not the toys need cleaning!
