I Miss My Cleaning Lady!

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to know that some decisions just have to be made, like it or not, for the betterment of the whole.
After careful consideration and literally years of deliberation, I have conceded what I suspected needed to be done for a very very long time, my back was up against a wall on this one, I had to let my cleaning lady go.
The decision bears no reflection whatsoever on the quality of her work, the results of her efforts have always met my expectations. She has diligently worked to completion anything I included on her to-do list, some tasks lasting for days.
There were times when I could clearly sense the imposition my demands made on her, but she was loyal to my wishes and dedicated to my satisfaction even as it required sacrifice for her to be so. At one time her schedule was predictable and I knew I could depend on her to get the job done, laundry washed, floors mopped, bathrooms fresh, and kitchen sparkling.
No, certainly she was everything I wanted in a cleaning lady, it's just that as of late, well, lets say she's lost her zest and zeal for the work. My floors barely get swept let alone mopped and she started scrubbing them to apply a fresh coat of shine only to quit half way through the job, 2 months ago! The bathrooms practically beg to be granted the opportunity to get their sparkle on again. Laundry gets washed and dried then laid flat to await folding or hangers, the dishwasher runs and gets emptied because the sink is getting full, and while I consider the deep cleaning that everything really needs I don't dare run it by her, she'd melt down and quit on me!
I always let her pace herself, determine her own time frame, there was an understanding between us that kept everything mutually agreeable. However, I'm sorry to now realize and have to admit that she has for quite some time been taking unmerciful advantage of my continual generosity leaving me absolutely no other choice but to just let her go.
Let her go have her computer time, let her go to the fair, let her go shopping, let her go to bed early, I have been letting her go about her own pleasurable business every day and it's about time for some things to change around here, somebody has got to get this place in order!
I may have to resort to calling my "x" cleaning lady to plead with her to return to me but I'm a little apprehensive about how she'll respond. I know her all too well and wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she refused and told me to do it myself.
Some things never change.
P.J.

The Chair The Window and The Tree

There is a particular chair with a matching ottoman that caught my eye in a catalogue featuring quirky unique designs created exclusively for those endowed with fat wallets, my wallet unfortunately suffers from anorexia. That the catalogue was sent to my address was of itself quirky but even still, to savor its pages of hand painted truffles intermingled with fun out of the ordinary upholstered pieces, well it was a coffee sipping few moments of sheer wishful thinking bliss.
I could use the same several thousand dollars required for that one purchase to instead furnish my entire house, not with nearly as much pleasure but certainly acceptably, if in fact I had a few thousand dollars to fluff up my skinny wallet and spend, on anything. The real point of a catalogue from an arm chair shoppers point of view is to wish anyway, this catalogue inspired lofty wishes.
The seed planted, when I came across a chair (that I really wasn't even looking very hard for) of equivalent shape, with an ottoman, there was nothing to squelch my inspiration and deter my thoughts from going in the "I can make a chair cover to mimic the one in the catalogue that I loved" direction! Plus it had a removable pink cover already, which is what made me take the second look in the first place. I could have a chair that I really loved without the exorbitant expense and it would be a better fit for my home because the cover could be removed for laundering. This place we call home is a well used space, no hoity toity stuff allowed! I made the purchase.
Then began the search for several fabrics that would offer the same look while holding up to the daily use our home is subject to and the occasional washings that would inevitably be necessary. Even after finding what seemed would work out marvelously, it still took months to get motivated to undertake the somewhat demanding task.
I would need several days in a row off from my job so I could devote uninterrupted time to the project once started. I really dislike stopping for trivial things like going to bed so I can get up in the morning and get through the day at work without being exhausted, just because I didn't get myself to bed at a decent hour, a predicament I am not a stranger to!
Finally the stars aligned and the chair was completed. This is MY chair, if I'm not in it it's OK for someone else to be, however if someone else is when I want to be, it may be suggested that someone else vacate and perch else-where!
The chair occupies a spot in the living room facing the picture window that just happens to perfectly frame the live oak tree across the street in the neighbors front yard. From my position in the chair I have been observing that tree for years.
The tree used to share yard space with 2 other live oak trees, no longer there. Since their removal the lone tree has been allowed indulgence to spread and stretch and reach to it's content unobstructed and unhindered.
I have sat in my chair watching out the window as it endured a severe thrashing from heavy winds and wondered if it was possible to come through the storm undamaged.
I have seen it glow, illuminated by the suns last light finally able to shine past the clouds after a day of rain and thought, wow that tree is beautiful, it's branches form a perfectly symmetrical orb of fluttering green atop its srong straight trunk.
I was shaken in my chair when lightening struck through its branches to the ground just a couple feet from its base, I saw the charred earth and hole the strike left as evidence.
I have watched birds fly in and back out and engage in bird folly all around it.
I have conversed briefly on the way to the mailbox with the kid who climbed and blended invisibly into it.
My chair has provided me with a good spot to watch the tree as it had no choice but to endure ruthless peltings in cold driving rain, and from my chair I have smiled as I watched that tree wriggle and writhe in a sun shower and mellow breeze as if it were a laughing child running on tiptoe under a sprinkler on a hot summer day. I could sense it's glee! It was dancing like no one was watching, literally a tree of glee!
I have sat in the chair staring out the window at the tree, thinking I've lost my color, all is gray, I want my color back, and while I was stuck in that dark place the tree just was. The tree actually consoled me, comforted me, just by being. I thought if that tree could stand all that it does and just be, if it could be strong under every circumstance, if it could as only a tree, obviously thoroughly absorb the warm and wonderful along with the woeful and wild, how much more should I as a capable human being with a fully functioning brain be able to shake off my funk?! The tree has been an audibly silent but visually loud therapist as I've watched it through my window, reclined not on a couch but in my chair with feet propped up on its matching ottoman.
Maybe I'm easily amused. Maybe I'm just able to easily imagine the finger of God as He thoughtfully joyfully traces out the size and shape of each tree in hopes that someone like me will take notice, and by noticing the tree, be inspired to look beyond the creation to the creator. It's really He who fixes my funks. Sometimes He uses something like a chair facing a window that perfectly frames a tree.