When we had the housefire in 2000, a blessing that came with it was the insurance-paid cleanup crew that came: if you knew 6 people were being paid to descend on your clutter to carefully wipe and put back each single item, what would YOU do with that?!?!?!?

I did what I hope we would all do-- I used it! And I organized it to stay one room ahead of them.

Each day they'd let me know what they'd be working on the next day, so as they worked I'd be in the next day's room purging, sorting, and moving things to the rooms where they belonged after leaving them in the day's crew-workroom for wiping.

Then at the end of the crew's workday, I addressed everything CLEAN that they had stacked neatly for me to put away.

I averaged 2-3 big trash bags per day and ended up with clean, orderly cabinets everywhere, with clean things IN them. (They said they'd been in homes where every scribbled scrap of paper had to be de-smoked and put back, and loved how I made their work so much easier but yet not less time on the clock.) And this all coincided with our kids all having flown the next-- much-needed purging and organizing.

Well, in case it hasn't been obivious, I've been doing that same approach with the plan to sublet parts of our house. The attic dorm was first but I'm just gathering steam. If I am gonna pay a cleaning lady, she will need some order to CLEAN, so I'm cleaning the "subletter's" shared spaces next-- the downstairs.

At this time of year I am usually doing all the work in prep for my allergic MIL's visit (and possible Mudvisits); this time I am "working for" the eventual subletter and for the cleaning lady they will be paying for-- a room ahead of them, organizing and purging and prettying-up the rooms that have had so much of my work already in the past year... ever since the bulk of my church-admin and diocesan work stuff went up to the home office.

The LR is being left not prettied, but prepped for painting which is one of the barters open to the subletters. This may be the last year the landlords' son will be home and in high school, to be the second pair of hands and legs for the painter. Which will be me (plus, I hope, subletters).

The net will be that we will end up with a downstairs space always, more or less, "company-ready."

It will welcome Hardi home to a gracious and orderly space at the end of each day, while the upstairs becomes increasingly our private space and the downstairs is opened to subletters for their use. Those with kitchen privileges will join us, we hope, for the daily 5PM-ish cooking party; and then all parties can adjourn to their various preferred TVs or, in our case, our evening meetings and ministries.

So! Today it's wrapping up attic hardware and tools to bring down, re-run the ad, and clean the loo applicants will be using and seeing when I show the room Thursday and Sunday.

Tomorrow, town chores. Wednesday, finish cleaning the kitchen and return calls. Thursday, clean the laundry room that is the entrance area ad show the #1 room. Friday, fetch the next vanload of NFU water... about 75 gallons... from the spring at Dharmabum's road.

Next week, start changing over my spare bedroom for an eventual sublet-- because it is the space I COULD have rented first-- heat there is not an additional expense! But Hardi is not yet ready for that one. The occupant of #1 room might need it on cold nights, though.

~Susan