Like most teenagers, I would complain…about everything. I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t want to go to work. (At the time, I was an A-B student, always on the honor roll, and I worked after school at a local McDonalds. That was actually my first job.)

 

My mom, a single parent of three girls, would always say “that’s why they call it work and not fun.”

 

I can’t count on my fingers and toes how many times she told me that. So much so, that I started telling other people that when they would complain about having to pick up an extra shift or someone called out so now they had to go in to work.

 

Most of my jobs were little $8 an hour cashier or secretary jobs, until I decided to start Miraclean. (To get the whole scoop on how and why I started Miraclean, check out my previous blog post here.)

 

Anyway, the other day I reminded of my mother’s famous saying while I was cleaning, except my work WAS fun.

 

Let me start over. Scrubbing soap scum from a leaky shower…not fun. Wiping all sorts of fluids from the bathroom, buggers off of walls, ok, ok, that’s not fun. But, the feeling you get from cleaning is fun.

 

I’ll put it to you this way. I have been procrastinating on cleaning out my second bedroom. I just don’t wanna! It’s stupid, I’m never in there and I keep the door closed so I don’t have to look at it….BUT I know what’s behind that door. Tons of crap that just needs to be tossed, but who has the time for that? Apparently, my boyfriend and I because I told him that was our plan for the weekend and he held me accountable.

 

I came home from work on Saturday and he already had everything pulled out of the closet. (What a guy!) So now there was no excuse. “Fine. Let’s just do it and get it over with.” Three overstuffed trashbags later (seriously, where does this crap hide?!) we have a place for everything and everything in it’s place. It literally took an hour, maybe a little longer with the both us working together. Afterward, we stood back, looked at our room (oh, hi floor…it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!), high-fived each other and took a nap.

 

The point being, we felt that feeling of accomplishment. In with new, out with the old. Now, my skin doesn’t crawl when I know I need something from that room.

 

It’s the same way when you’re cleaning houses. Usually, someone hires us to clean because they either don’t have time or they would much rather spend their free time at home with their family than yelling at the kids to clean up, upsetting the husband for making him work around the house on his day off, whatever, whatever. It’s just easier to hire a company like us to get everything done in a matter of hours.

 

The customer comes home to a clean house and BAM all of a sudden their entire weekend opens up. They can go to the park or take a weekend trip or visit friends and not have their skin crawl thinking they have four dirty bathrooms at home that still need to be cleaned and 100 loads of laundry that need to be washed.

 

That’s what makes me feel good inside. Those families that are absolutely grateful and thankful to have us clean and make their lives easier. So many tell me on a regular basis, “AHH!!! We love Miraclean days!” And that’s what makes it worth it.

I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to know that you are helping someone. Whether it is helping them spend more time with their family or helping them with a problem around the house. We clean for a lot of older folks, too. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve walked into a bathroom with a black tub, not because that is the color of the tub but because it is dirty-dirty!  We get that tub back to its original shade of color, after a lot of sweat and scrubbing, but it is worth it to see the look on their face when they walk into their bathroom and don’t even recognize it because it is so clean.

 

The other day, I was cleaning probably one of my favorite family’s house. They are adorable. Southern belle momma, Daddy brings home the bacon, they have two girls and a boy and a big, beautiful home in Fort Mill. The house takes a crew of two girls a little over three hours to clean, but we absolutely love it! We gawk at the chandeliers in the bathrooms and check out the new coats of paint in the kids’ rooms. It is such a nice house to clean and that’s when my mother came into my brain.

 

“That’s why they call it work and not fun.”

 

But, this is fun. Ok, for the most part it is fun. I get to work with people I enjoy working with, I get to feel appreciated at work (most of the time), and I get to help families. What is more fun than that?