Christmas Reflections Two Days to 2011

Tony Decorates the Tree His Favorite Way

A belated Merry Christmas to you and I hope that you and your families had a good season of feasting and celebration! Now comes the time of reflection and goes on every year after the shopping and planning is done, the gifts have been given and exchanged and the leftovers remain crowded into the fridge.

Today I started off trying to plan the New Year; always good to start off the year with a plan. The first change is to outsource the housekeeping for mom and auntie.  It's something I tried to handle myself for some time and doing a mediocre job at it. So to get a head start on finding housekeeping services in our area, after a commercial for Merry Maids (they all looked so happy) . . . . I called the 888 number advertised.

My call was routed to a central information desk and I was asked for my zip code. They gave me a phone number of the nearest location to me but their Street Atlas or Google Map must have been outdated because I reached a number in Mesquite which is a pretty far drive from us. The lady was friendly and helpful with answers to my questions - except when it came for maid service coverage in our area. She was emphatic - we were just too far out. Maybe Plano office could help me. So I wrote down their number and called.

It was the first lady I'd spoken to at the call center again. WHAT? Why had Mesquite given me this number? They don't service my area. Period.

So I Googled: Housekeeping Services in North Texas. All kinds of helpful numbers came up: The Maid Place (I got voice mail so I hung up); Just Cleaning (They won't go more than 50 miles from their base location in Dallas); The Maids ("Just TOO far out. They can't go."); Pop-ins Maid (Sorry); MaidBrigade (No luck) and finally, several phone calls later I was thrilled to find someone who said "Yes!" They COULD service our area. Yahoo!

So they want me to call them back on Monday after the New Year. Okeedokey. . . . .Whatever.