Mommy TG's Maid Manual: Maid Orientation Materials (Download it for FREE!)

I'm now 39 weeks pregnant and I can feel the heaviness already. I'm so thankful that finally, I was able to finish one of the projects in my to-do list before I give birth -- our very own maid manual!

I first started putting house rules and guidelines for our maids in writing years ago when we had our first baby. It was quite a challenge to find reliable maids/helpers. Maids come and go... very quickly. Some stay only for a few days, weeks or months. We only had a few maids who stayed for around a year. Thus, the need to come up with an orientation checklist for maids arose since I orient newly-hired maids quite often. Having a ready checklist of things to discuss whenever there is a new hire lessened my stress and helped me save time and energy. This could have been influenced by my work background as a human resource professional. ;)

Anyway, so I put together a list of things to discuss to our newly-hired maids. This included house rules, basic duties and guidelines on how to clean rooms in the house, how to wash the eating utensils properly and their daily/weekly schedule. My orientation materials for our maids have evolved over the years as we experienced more maid horror stories and as more kids were added to our family.

Since I'm giving birth to our third child soon, I thought that it would make our lives easier by updating our maid manual/orientation checklist. I want to empower my husband and our maids through this updated manual. I believe that making this manual available to them would help our maids work more independently and help my husband supervise them while I'm on maternity leave. Finishing this project also gives me a sense of peace and fulfillment knowing that these materials would somehow help keep our household in order. I want to have more time taking care of our newborn baby and I don't want to be stressed or bogged down by tasks that I can delegate to my husband or maids through this manual. 

I have included in this manual our employment policies for maids, house rules, dishwashing procedures, cleaning procedures for the different rooms in the house, what to prepare when going out with kids/baby and sample daily/weekly schedule for maids. This maid manual is a perfect complement to my 4-week cycle menu. (You may also download it for FREE if you want. Click here to sign up for it.)

This maid manual/orientation materials had been a big help to me over the years. I'm sharing it here with my blog readers so I can help busy moms like me better manage their households.

I know that as a family gets bigger, the need to be more organized becomes more crucial in successfully managing our almost endless tasks, especially for busy mompreneurs and homeschooling moms like me. And with the addition of a new baby soon, I will be busy with breastfeeding duties as well.

I hope that this manual would bless you and your family as you use it. Feel free to use it as is or to modify it to suit your unique needs/family situation.

Laundry Sat: A Mountain of Laundry and a Torrent of Love

Two plastics hampers overflowing with laundry. There are also plastic bags filled with more laundry -- one is filled with delicates, another is filled with used rags, and another filled with bed sheets and curtains.

 

That was the scene in our maid's room that currently has no occupant because we don't have a maid right now.

 

We've been sending our dirty laundry to the laundry shop outside our village's gate for months. But my husband computed the monthly cost and told me one day that we'd save more money by buying a fully automatic washing machine. Thus, we bought a washing machine one Saturday.

 

The following Saturday (that was last Saturday), my husband taught me how to use our new household help.

 

My first time to use our new washing machine.

 

I needed him to demonstrate to me how to use it because I'm the kind of woman who needs demos to learn with machines and other technology-related items.

 

So, we began by loading the kid's dirty laundry (colored clothes first before the whites) inside the washing machine. 

 

I'm glad that it's so easy to use. You just need to put in the detergent and fabric softener and bleach (if you use fabric softener and bleach) and the clothes. Then, attach it's hose to your faucet. It will automatically fill up the tub with water that dissolves the detergent. Then, it begins to wash your clothes. You just choose the correct setting for the kind of clothes or items that you want to wash. Then, you can do other things while your washing machine takes care of your dirty laundry. You can just come back for the clothes after they are washed.

 

I love how this washing machine can give me and husband extra time! We can clean up or tidy the house while the clothes are in it. I can cook food while doing the laundry. I can homeschool my kids while it takes care of washing our dirty clothes. I can work on my laptop or take a nap if I want to. 

 

You can also dry the clothes in it but we like to hang the clothes to air-dry to be more environment-friendly. Anyway, it only takes a few minutes to hang them. I also like that the clothes are almost dry when you take them out of the washing machine so air-drying them takes only less than a half day or a couple of hours on a really sunny day.

 

So much for our mountain of laundry! Now, let me share with you about that torrent of love. 

 

Since it's the feast day of St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus Christ, I'd like to honor my husband through this post as well.

 

Having him by my side during these maid-less months made these past months less burdensome. He has been there to literally share the load (laundry and all!). In fact, he is one of the reasons why I find reason to rejoice on a terribly exhausting day.

 

I'm grateful that he has been coming home early enough so we can hear Mass daily with our kids and have dinner together. I'm grateful that he makes time to do some chores before he goes to his office or at night.

 

Just like St. Joseph, he is the strong man behind our family. He provides not just for our financial needs but for our other needs as well. He's the one who usually reminds us to pray the Rosary. He also helps me in disciplining the kids. I'm grateful to God that he gave me a husband who chooses to be involved in our children's lives.

 

Here's a blog post I wrote to honor him last February titled Recognize Love in the Little Every Day Things.

 

Do you also have a mountain of laundry somewhere in your house? I hope you find a torrent of love as well amidst the dirty laundry.