My day started at 4 a.m. this morning. Woke up to Chris yelling, "What the hell is that?" He immediately jumped out of bed and ran toward the sliding glass door in our bedroom. As he was opening up the blinds I saw what looked to be fireworks going off in our backyard. It wasn't fireworks. The enormous tree in our backyard was swaying so violently, because of the storm, that it was literally smacking the power lines. Every time it would hit the power lines sparks were flying and the popping sound the sparks were making were so frickin' loud that it was making our dogs go bananas. The only person to sleep through the commotion was Jeff. That kid can sleep through anything.
Our power kept shutting off and then coming on and it was so freaky how the only light in the house that would stay on during the light show was the hallway light. Apparently that was all the power we were getting until it finally just went black. Chris called the power company to report the outage and we were told that it only affected 12 houses. When Chris got an update at 7 a.m. it was up to 150 houses. All because of the stupid tree. The power company had to send tree trimmers out this morning to cut back the branches before they could repair the lines. I think we got the power back on around 9a.m.
So, being up before the crack of dawn, I decided to get an early start on my day. I had the Clubhouse at the condo association to do and also one of the residents and then I had to meet a new client and clean her house. My new client actually purchased a package that I had submitted to our Church's silent auction to benefit the Singing Christmas Tree's trip to Germany in two weeks. The Silent Auction was in May and since she and her husband are snowbirds they just got in about a week ago. It was so nice to actually clean a house instead of a condo. She has a magnificent house on Bird Key. Very upscale. I remember what she bid on my package and it took every bit of that bid to clean her house. Of course I don't get that money since it went to the Germany trip but she did give me a tip (which I rarely get) because she loved the way I washed her floors. I use the "Steam It" by Oreck. That thing is a blessing. So easy to use. The amount of steam it generates would make the perfect wrinkle treatment, I kid you not. She wants me to clean bi-weekly starting in two weeks. I am so excited to have yet another client even if she is only here for six months. But that is most of my clientele. If it weren't for the Condos I don't know what I would do for income for the rest of the year. I do have to submit another bid for a bar, but I am not sure I will get the contract seeing as how they are paying less for $30.00 a cleaning now. I would charge at least double. The place is huge and it's a bar. Imagine how dirty at the end of the night the place is. The cleaning company they have a contract now doesn't get the bathrooms clean and they skip things all the time. Well... you get what you pay for right? Right! So I am going to be firm on my pricing. After all I have overhead expenses, like Liability insurance, which is not cheap, and I have to pay at least 15% self employment tax and I supply everything that I need to clean. My price is fair and worth it, in my opinion.
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