Cleaning Service

When Sam started residency, I asked him if we could please hire someone to clean the house once a month.  Of all his wonderful qualities, and believe me there are many, housework is not near the top of Sam's list.  In fact, Sam's version of helping out is usually to rally the troops (aka me) and start the project before melting away into another room where I find him passed out with the dog or reading the newspaper.  

Coupled with Sam's lack of interest in cleaning, he is equally enthused by the idea of paying someone to clean for us.  And I can understand that, my family never had anyone come in to help clean - my mom did it all herself.  But she was also a stay at home mom.  

Second year of residency, the wheels really came off our haphazard cleaning routine.  Sam was on call approximately every 4th night and stayed at the hospital, we had our third roommate shedding all over the house, and I was working my butt off founding a marketing department for a small telecommunications company.  Again, I told Sam I wanted to hire someone to clean the house once a month.  Again, he refused to pay for something we could do ourselves.  

But we didn't do it.  I am mortified to admit that I can't remember the last time I cleaned our bathroom... I mean REALLY cleaned our bathroom.  One time in the last year that does stick out in my mind is when I got so overwhelmed by how bad the bathroom was that I actually started crying when Sam wouldn't help me clean it.  And I don't want you to have the wrong impression, I am a pretty tidy person.  Seriously, you could probably ask any of my former roommates and they would say I am much more of a neat freak than they are.  I am so religious when it comes to dusty and vacuuming every other weekend that I have a calendar event on iCal that goes off.  I'm sure counts for something, but I hate deep cleaning with a passion.  

I digress, anyway, for my birthday in September, I told Sam all I wanted was for someone to come in and clean the apartment.  And he finally agreed.  (Sam's motto about cleaning is that if I leave it long enough he will eventually be bothered enough to do it himself, but his threshold is just much lower than mine... I guess that means the place has gotten pretty bad!)

Sam and I started asking for recommendations from our friends who use house cleaners.  It turns out a lot of the medical students and residents we know use cleaning services, and not just the guys.  We had a couple of friends say they wouldn't recommend who they use, but one of our friends had someone she thought we should try.  Three weeks after she gave me his contact information, I finally got around to making the appointment.  

And he will be here tomorrow morning, bright and early!

I just have to resist the urge to clean the place before he gets here out of guilt!!! 

A Little Life Update

I know I haven't been posting too regularly but I am making an effort to stop sacrificing all of the things I love and enjoy doing in my free time starting in March.

It's been too long since I was at the gym, wrote a blog post, tried a new recipe, etc.

I knew I was signing on for long hours when I took the agency job in December, but I was naive to how long the hours would truly be.  At best, I get to the office at 8:30 a.m. and leave at 5:30 p.m. when my workday is technically over.  The catch, is that there is that things seem to have a nasty habit of popping up between 4:30 - 5:30 just as I'm thinking about winding down.  Or, I start logging my billable time at 4:20 but it takes me 20 - 30 minutes to complete because I make meticulous notes to help my Account Coordinate do the billing.  On top of that, we're supposed to be billable 7 hours a day, which doesn't sound too bad until you think about the time you spend in the bathroom, your lunch break, the miscellaneous time you have waiting for a meeting to start or recapping the topics that were discussed on a call with a client for your billing reports.  So sometimes I have to stay after 5:30 just to try to make my billable hours.

Since taking this job, my TMJ disorder has come roaring back to life and I am not getting the relief from my mouthguard the way I have in the past.  My suspicion is that after 4 years I have probably clenched so much that I need to replace it, and I have an appointment later this month to see my dentist and have new impressions taken.

Then there is the stress level.  I'm going to be seeing a new family medicine doctor next week and I want her to reevaluate my anxiety medication and see if maybe there is something that's a better fit for me.

So things are going to have to change moving forward.

A dear friend of mine (a PR professional who was working at an agency at the time) gave me some very real advice that I pass out as often as possible:

The first three months of a new job are terribly hard because you're just learning the system.  The second three months of a new job are horrible because you start to understand what you really got yourself into, but you're still figuring out your system to be successful.  At six months in, you've started to form your routine and you're beginning to feel like you're able to perform your required duties.

It's funny, in a meeting yesterday I had the mounting feeling of dread that I had so many responsibilities and so many deadlines over the next few days that I began to feel overwhelmed.  And then, an interesting thing happened, the thought occurred to me that I should put all of the pitching deadlines at the bottom of my daily task sheet at the beginning of each month so that I see them all and am reminded to chip away at them little by little.  Wow.  What do you know, I'm starting to come up with my own system for success and I've been there nearly 11 weeks.

Back in January, as I was lamenting the death of my personal life and the onslaught of stress and pressure, my dad told me that it takes roughly one year to become competent at a new job.  He promised me that by Thanksgiving I would feel 180 degrees different than I felt at that moment.

I know he's right, but sometimes I wish the timing of this opportunity had come six months earlier... but then again, I was able to accomplish SO MUCH for our wedding while I was working for my last company that maybe this is all for the best.  I will tell you this much, I LOVE my team and what I do.

I just need to remember that there are less than six months before our wedding, and I am still not in the physical shape I want to be in.  It's tough to leave Hunter alone for another hour and a half and get my workout in on weeknights, but hopefully Sam can help me pick up the slack there because I need to find a routine that gets me moving and commit to making healthy, vegetable laden dinners.

Zero Energy pt. 1

It's not even 9:00 p.m. yet and I am already having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Off to bed!