There's always a first time for everything
Today was a day of firsts for me. I've never had to fire anyone before. Until this morning, that is. For the last two weeks I've known that this morning I would be telling Henriette, our cleaning lady, that she would no longer be working for us. As if that wasn't stressful enough, I had to do it in French. I don't speak French (except for what I remember from high school French class) and she doesn't speak any German or English. Fortunately, I have lots of French-speaking friends here in Basel who helped me come up with an easy way to explain that, from now on, I would like to do the cleaning myself. She understood, didn't seem to be too upset, gave me the housekey, and ironed a few shirts before leaving. Phew, am I glad that's over.
I know, there are so many people who would give anything to have a cleaning lady. You may think I'm crazy for deciding to fire ours. But it's gotten to the point that her visits actually cause me stress and leave me annoyed rather than appreciative. Discovering 2 weeks ago that she has been feeding Grady was the straw that broke the camel's break (he threw up 3 times that day). I watched an episode of Sex and the City last night (from Season 3) about how annoyed Miranda got with her new cleaning lady who brought her a rolling pin and moved her coffee mugs into a different cupboard and insisted she drink tea instead of coffee. That's sort of what I was dealing with. It's hard to explain, but I guess that one thing I've learned through this whole process is that I am quite particular about how I want our house to look, and therefore, I should probably just clean it myself.
After officially becoming the sole cleaning lady for our household this morning, I went to my first tennis lesson! I have never played tennis before. I didn't even know how to hold a racket. Our sports club (which we belong to through Kirk's work) has a bunch of tennis courts (which are enclosed during the winter months) and I finally decided I needed to take advantage of this great opportunity to take lessons while living here. I'm in a small group lesson of beginners (only 2 other women) and we'll be playing every Tuesday morning for the next 9 weeks. I have to say it was really fun. Of course it was only my first lesson, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of frustrating moments as I learn, but I think I'm really going to enjoy it.
I know, there are so many people who would give anything to have a cleaning lady. You may think I'm crazy for deciding to fire ours. But it's gotten to the point that her visits actually cause me stress and leave me annoyed rather than appreciative. Discovering 2 weeks ago that she has been feeding Grady was the straw that broke the camel's break (he threw up 3 times that day). I watched an episode of Sex and the City last night (from Season 3) about how annoyed Miranda got with her new cleaning lady who brought her a rolling pin and moved her coffee mugs into a different cupboard and insisted she drink tea instead of coffee. That's sort of what I was dealing with. It's hard to explain, but I guess that one thing I've learned through this whole process is that I am quite particular about how I want our house to look, and therefore, I should probably just clean it myself.
After officially becoming the sole cleaning lady for our household this morning, I went to my first tennis lesson! I have never played tennis before. I didn't even know how to hold a racket. Our sports club (which we belong to through Kirk's work) has a bunch of tennis courts (which are enclosed during the winter months) and I finally decided I needed to take advantage of this great opportunity to take lessons while living here. I'm in a small group lesson of beginners (only 2 other women) and we'll be playing every Tuesday morning for the next 9 weeks. I have to say it was really fun. Of course it was only my first lesson, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of frustrating moments as I learn, but I think I'm really going to enjoy it.
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