This is one of Åsa's first posts about cleaning the house, written on August 13, 1999.

Hi Friends..

I have just sat down after cleaning the second floor all over. I don´t really like cleaning but I hate dirt and messes more so I usually have a clean house. When I clean I do the whole floor at once.. vacuming and dusting all over and I do the bathroom all over.. change towels and sheets.. pick up all the toys and stuff..

We have three bedrooms, a TV room and a big bathroom upstairs.. the bathroom was supposed to be a bedroom but I wanted it to be the bathroom instead so it is big.. On the first floor we have a big kitchen, a big living room, another bathroom with shower, a hall, and a washing room with washing machine and dryer..

It takes me 3 hours to do the second floor and 2 hours to do the first floor if I do not go over the entire kitchen with a sponge lol lol lol This I do at least one day a week (6 hours) not counting every other day when I vacuum the hall and kitchen and everyday when I do some laundry, cocking and washing dishes..and going around with a sponge cleaning up messes. LOL LOL LOL

Is this normal? Or have I become obsessed by this since I have the time now?

Here maybe one in a hundred people have a cleaning lady or a house keeper, even if you can afford the outrageous prices about 25 dollars an hour including taxes, if you get one at the so called black market you might find some student that does it for half, BUT it is just not done. Here you are supposed to take care of your own mess. My husband's doctor collegues, about half are female, do their cleaning themselves.. even though they work, a lot of the women still do it. It is so unusual to have one that others think you are lazy if you do pay someone to do it..

Before I became deaf, me and my husband worked more than full time.. he worked in another city and went to work at 6 am and came home at 8 and I took our daughter to day care at 7.30 and picked her up about 5.30.. she was 1.5 years old when she started at the day care center. I still did the cleaning; even if we back then lived in a smaller apartment than this house it took a lot of time..

Thinking back it really was ridicolous.. all that work..for what? To be able to show others that I was still able to do all that even if I worked full time? I don´t know.. but my mother used to say, "You better have clean and good underwear in case you have to go to the doctor." hahhaha and, "If it is not clean it is dirty." hahaha (These sayings are really funny to try to say in English.) And, "You never know who might come over and see the mess."

Now she has a new one: "Everytime I come over to you, you are sitting by the computer, don´t you need to clean somewhere?" LOL LOL LOL LOL

Åsa in Sweden that can´t hear the vacuum and has been known to go around vacuming with the machine off...

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