Outsourcing the To-Do List

Remember the Lipton giveaway that we featured during FBM’s birthday week? I’m following up to report on the awesomeness. Because when Lipton offered me two hours of freedom from chores, I started brainstorming what I wanted to have someone else do. Clean the house? Power wash the back deck? But then I landed on having the pros do something my husband and I have been putting off for two years: painting the front porch. It’s not a difficult task, but it’s one that we just hadn’t been able to make time to get done. And it sorely needed to be done because so much paint had cracked and scraped off that it was just looking like it was in disrepair.

I was planning to surprise my husband and get it done while he was at work one day, but as the days ticked by and I hadn’t had the baby, I figured I had better let him in on the big secret. Good thing, too, because they showed up to paint the day after the baby was born. So those extra two hours I got chore-free? I sat in my hospital room and relished the fact that someone else was doing it for us and that we got to relax with our new baby a couple of extra hours instead. It was so nice to have someone else tackle a project, that I’ve been brainstorming what else I could hire out. Unfortunately an in-home chef is off the table (har), but maybe a once-monthly deep clean of the house? Or hire the neighbor kids to rake the lawn when the leaves fall? Now that I’ve tasted freedom, it’s tempting not to outsource everything.

Do you outsource any of your to-dos regularly? What did you take off your plate? —Erin