On Tuesday morning, I went to turn on the water for the shower. As I stepped away to put in my contacts,(this is a carefully timed operation. I know that getting my contacts in is JUST enough time for the water to warm up, but also taking my medicines will waste hot water) I heard this hideous sound, like a leaf blower in the shower. Obviously, a leaf blower in the shower is just plain weird (or perhaps erotic if you are into showers with gardening tools), so I was quite confused. Instead of investigating, I just got in the shower. When I haven’t had my coffee in the morning, I often have synapses getting confused and running into each other, so it’s better to just shower and get my coffee. I have been known to wash my hair with shaving cream before since things aren’t quite working until I have my coffee.

When I turned off the water, the leaf blower was still going. Okay, I thought, it is not a failure of our plumbing. I looked outside and saw a crew of men from our landscaping company outside. That was it! I had spoken to Jay and he agreed that I could pay for the service of having our beds mulched this year. We do this ourselves every 2-3 years, but this year, I am overwhelmed. I just can’t keep up with everything.

This whole thing has lead to guilt. I pay a company to come and mow our lawn. I paid them this year to clean out the beds and put new mulch in. We pay Silvia, our cleaner, to come by every two weeks to do the heavy cleaning in our house. And I feel guilty about this.

I think the guilt is that we have the money to afford to pay people for jobs that we could do perfectly well on our own. On one hand, I know we just don’t have the time to be with the kids AND do all of this work. Something would have to give and it would either be the kids or the cleaning/yard. On the other hand, I know that helping others by keeping people employed right now is good. But somehow, I feel like this means I am some sort of "trickle down" Reagainst who is trying to make herself feel better with the fact that she is paying people to do what she could perfectly do herself.

I know, we can’t do it all. But the guilt. Sigh