by Leann Zotis

Created on: September 02, 2008   Last Updated: May 14, 2010

It took awhile before I actually took the plunge. I've always considered my home and my stuff to be private, not to be tinkered with by strangers. That's why the idea of employing a maid to keep up with the day to day tedium of housework was a hard idea to wrap my thoughts around for a long time.  The only fingerprints I want to find are my own.

Then, one day, between the laundry piling up in the laundry room, the ironing still stacked high from last week and the carpets that hadn't seen the slightest hint of a vacuum cleaner in three weeks, it hit me. It wasn't subtle. It was more like running full speed into a brick wall. If you can throw money at a problem to make it go away, go for it! And so it was with my housework. For a relatively small investment of money I contracted to hire an energetic, capable woman for eight hours a week to do everything that I would do willingly for myself, if only I had the time and inclination, both of which were decidedly lacking.

By my calculations, this eight hours a week gave me around 400 extra hours a year to spend as I saw fit. There were a lot of simple, sinful pleasures with which to indulge myself in those eight hours if I so chose. I could definitely use an extra eight hours of sleep in any given week. My freezer could be packed with delicious, healthy, home cooked meals if I devoted those extra eight hours to my passion for cooking. My husband could have the pleasure of my undivided attention for an additional eight hours a week. That life long reading list I've accumulated could finally be attacked with gusto.

Yes, worthy goals, each and every one. And, yes, maybe some day I will get to achieve those goals. But not just yet. Right now, with my extra eight hours a week to fritter away as I choose, I have begun to pursue my own interests and educational goals on a new level and for my own purposes. I've signed up for classes in web design. I've signed up for freelance work as a Virtual Assistant. I've created my own blog where I rant and rave to my heart's content about the world as it is and how I think it should be. I'm happy.

When all is said and done, my extra 400 hours is worth so much more than 400 hours to my life, both financially and for the state of my mental well-being.  For an extra 400 hours each year, I no longer have the burden of housework hanging over my head.

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