A Quick Poll
So, here's my poll:
How many of you, dear Clergywomen, please note if you are in full-time position, have help (cleaning person/people) in cleaning your house?
Last Thursday, yet once again, LH complains of the cleaning people coming to clean the house. I am tired of his tirades and so am conducting this informal poll. Here is the week in review:Sat. Oct 14th - Up early, for today is Presbytery at town I used to live in and is over an hour drive. Arrive at 9:59 am, register and the meeting begins. Break for lunch and then more Presbytery stuff. Leave at 2:15 pm to drive home. LH's church has their annual Hay Ride and I Must be there. Get home, let dogs out and change into grubby and warm clothes. It's cold and the bonfire will be smokey. Leave for Hayride and finally get home after 8:30 pm. Go over my sermon, prayers, etc for Sunday. Fall into bed and oblivion.
Sun. Oct 15th - taught Sunday School Sr. & Jr. Hi together, led worship, ran to store to get name badges for upcoming Synod Retreat, grabbed a lite lunch. Women's Tea at churchh from 2 pm- 4 pm. Got home after 4:30 pm.
Monday: 9am at church helping women stir mincemeat for 1 1/2 hours. Run to funeral home for service of brother of parishioner, while funeral procession is getting all in order, I run to post office and drop fundraising letters in mailbox, fall into the procession to committal. Have to attend funeral lunch, goes too long. Head back to office, work on my Pastor's report for Session meeting, go out for quick dinner and to clear my head.
Worship committee meets at 6 pm. As we finish, Session members arrive for 7 pm meeting. Have a guest at Session. Good, open discussion over issue. Try to wrap up discussion twice and off it goes again. Finally, wrap it up and go on to the rest of agenda. Get home 10:30 pm, exhausted.
Tuesday - Get up the usual 6:45 am, in the office by 9 am, put the service for Sunday together, all the things I didn't get to on Monday. Made a couple visits in the afternoon. Get home in time to make dinner, clean up afterwards. Look through mail, give greys biscuits, and fall asleep on the couch! Missed the news and the weather.
Wednesday - same as Tues. Get message that an inactive member dies. Call family. Have a preacher in family by way of marriage who they want to give message. Finish items for Sunday am, pull together last minute things for Synod Retreat. Get call from funeral home, arrangements made. Meet with family and local preacher. Get back to church, eat my lunch, start putting service together. Local preacher comes, we go over a few things. Finish putting the service together. Make a visit. Order pizza for Boy Scout and mentor to finish our God and Family program, pick up the pop (soda). At 6t:35 pm, go pick up pizza, arrive back to church, and meet with Boy Scout, summarizing program and having a dinner of heart-burn city and about a 3 on the pizza scale (1o being best- I'm from Chicago, what can I say! Very few pizza's come close to Chicago's!). Get home after 8:30 pm due to a deluge of rain where I could barely see the country road in the black wetness, had to drive much slower. Fall asleep on the couch and miss the news again!
Thursday - Same as day before. Go into church office, go over things
with Secretary. Move the monstrous pew (which is on our prayer list - hoping it will break - pews are sometimes far too sturdy!) and a few other pews for the funeral service Friday morning what was to be my day off.
Get home around noon. Feed dogs and self. Plop down at the computer to write sermon, get started, don't like it, start all over. Cleaning people come. LH pouts and goes into his tirade of am I ever going to get rid of these cleaning people and clean house again myself. I explain that weeks like these are precisely why we still have cleaning people. He is totally unconvinced.
Finish sermon, prayers, run to grocery store for dinner items. Make dinner, clean up, put together funeral service prayers, etc.
Fall asleep on couch. Drat, have I missed the news again?!!?
Friday - get up usual time. No sleeping til 8 am this week. Get to the church 2 minutes after nine and the funeral hearse is already there. Viewing is one hour before the service at 10 am. Family begins arriving. Women in kitchen with food. Run back and forth. Go over items with local pastor, have prayer with family. Officiate the funeral service, walk down to cemetary, co-lead the committal, back to church to say grace for lunch. Stay for lunch. Leave as soon as I can and get home around 3:30 pm. Run a couple errands. Come home, fall asleep on the couch. Make dinner, clean up. Sit and kinda relax with the TV - not even anything worthwhile on the TV.
Saturday- 5:20 am alarm goes off. I stagger into shower. Downstairs, I let the dogs out, make coffee and a bagel. Dogs want breakfast, I tell them it's too early. Arrive at the church 6:50 am, for the Church Breakfast and Bazaar. Sausage is sizzling, coffee is brewing and I wish I was still in bed. Give the opening prayer and then begin serving breakfast til after 11 am. Buy a couple things at Bazaar, slip into the office to make out the two baptismal certicates for Sunday. Go home. Feed the dogs. Take a nap on the couch. Get up, down in the basement for Art Supply box for Synod retreat and a couple trips down into our huge storage room of a basement to get other items and duffle bag to pack. Pack my clothes, and stuff (folders, name tags, etc.). Pack everything into van. Pack a change of clothes and shoes in the van. Go over everything for Sunday morning. Crawl into bed.
Sunday- 6:45 am and off I go. Co teach Sr/jr Hi class. Led worship, with sacrament of baptism. Attend baptismal lunch at church following worship. Slip into the bathroom and change from clergy duds to travel duds. Off to Columbus for Synod retreat and will return Tuesday suppertime.
Now I ask you, just when was I supposed to clean house?!!!? Am i that out of line to have help cleaning the house? Let me know, please!
15 comments:
Enough. I am overwhelmed with your week. I thought I worked hard.
Just what does he mean, I thought you were going to clean? Excuse me, you both pastor and you are going to clean. No but H*double L no.
We have had a cleaning person when we both worked. It was the only way the house was clean. When we moved here Bob promised to clean as long as he doesn't work. I await the day he goes back to work so it will be clean again. And he even admitted we needed one.
Perhaps you two need to talk, but I don't know when, about some compromising, like he not be home when they clean, or they come on a different day or he cleans. I am sorry I know I have been a little overboard. But I think when two of the couple work, that either both clean or there is a hired cleaning person.
So no I don't think you are out of line. This may be about a deeper issue though, and needs to be talked out together.
And yes I am full time clergy woman.
I am so tired for you.
I am not yet a pastors wife, but this is the agreement...If we both work, we have a cleaning person even if it is only twice a month.(Present circumstances do not permit this but it is our agreement) Our pastor (and field ed. supervisor) recommended it.
There is a book that is called "A Housekeeper is Cheaper than a Divorce", maybe you should pick it up at the library and leave it somewhere conspicuous!
I'm a full time seminarian, part time church worker and have no one. And any time we have people over (which is every Monday for Bible study) the house must be cleaned beforehand. It is a disaster every week. I am trying to stay ahead. It is impossible.
We have not found a cleaning service who charges less than the place that changes oil in your car... so we haven't gotten one yet. But we are looking.
d
I am not a full-time clergy person but I do work part-time in ministry and part-time from home, my husband works out of home full-time and to save our sanity we pay for someone to come clean every other week. It makes a world of difference, especially because my cleaning standards are far greater than his. We consider it a small price to pay for some peace between us.
I remember being told in seminary that the first call you make in your first parish is to a cleaning service. Married or not. Kids or not. It is a holy experience to walk into your humble abode at the end of a long day and realize that someone has cleaned your baseboards. It's a sacred thing.
(A cleaning team -- yes it takes a whole team around here -- comes once every 2 weeks.)
I am not a pastor, so you should keep this out of your poll!
But, just IMHO - Until your spouse is willing to be as responsible for the cleaning of your home as you are (I assume you both work full time) he needs to shut up. Either/both about the un clean ness of the house, or the cleaning people.
I work 2 jobs and do most of the housework (my DH is 15 years older than I, and a hard working contractor, and comes home exhausted, so that is OK with me). I have muddled along with not-very-clean or tidy and that is okay. Then last week we had cleaners (due to our home improvement debacle). We are electrified! We are having a cleaner from now on.
Though I still can't find anything. Because the cleaners put it away!
Not a clergywoman here, but a fulltime worker for years -- and no cleaning crew. Great idea. But when would we find the time to hire one?
We have a rule around here - if it bothers you enough to complain about it, it's yours! (Kind of like the "you break it, you buy it" rule.) We've been saving money like mad to help our daughter with wedding expenses - after the 1st of the year - there will absolutely without a doubt be an angel in this house once a week who is paid to help us keep the dust bunnies at bay.
Side note - once had a lovely old widow in my church who told me she never cleaned the dust from under the bed. She said it wasn't Biblical. After all, God had made a man from dust once - who knew, maybe God would bless her by doing it again!
And yes - both my husband and I are fulltime in church work.
I have househelp once a week.
If you work outside of the home, even for one hour a week, have small children or just want help: get a house helper.
Do without something else to pay for help.
I agree with what's generally been said. And we have cleaners every other week. Both work full time.
Jledmiston is right--it is a sacred thing and part of my self-care. I certainly do my share of tidying and cleaning but having everything sparkling and new every couple of weeks--it's like a spiritual reset.
I work fulltime and then some, and we have a domestic goddess who comes weekly. As I look back over the past ten years (seminary and then ministry), I can tell you that my mental health has *always* been better with household help. ALWAYS. It is not only a relationship issue, it is a self-care issue. I pay $60 for a massage once a month because if I don't my neck gets so tense that I am non-functional. This is no different. We feel better, sleep better, work better, relate better in a reasonably clean and tidy environment.
I will leave you with this: after Easter worship, my sister-in-law came over to my house to cook the holiday meal. She said, "I do not see how it would be possible for a person to do the kind of work you do and keep house, too." Hearing that from an accomplished homemaker gave me a release from guilt, and I am not going back!
Not a clergywoman (yet?) but it's agreed that when we get there, we will have help. You simply cannot do everything.
(In the meantime, I'm too embarrassed by how dirty my house is to let someone in to clean it!)
I am a full time clergywoman with a spouse who is a full time Dad. He does most of the cleaning/dishes/laundry (probably 80%) and I do the other 20%.
When we both worked full time (which was true for our first 10 years of marriage), we had a less than spic and span house that was cleaned in time for guests! But we have always shared the housework... it used to be more even... and always shared. Seems to me, that is the real issue... why is it your responsibility to have the house clean?
Good to hear from all of you! Nice to know I'm not out in left field with this. Actually, LH does the majority of the grocery shopping, empties and runs dish washer (we share that duty), mows and weed whacks, does his own laundry and ironing. So we do split up our chores.
Mrs. m, not to worry. I'll just bet most cleaners have seen worse.
Although, I admit, that I sometimes touch up some areas and things between cleanings, because "they just never do it as well as I can."
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