Something happened today that is very unusual. We had not one but two groups of people doing work on our farm.

For the first time in our lives we hired a housekeeping service. Andrea had been wanting to do this for some time, but I had a hangup with both having strangers in my house as well as having someone else clean up after me.

Over the holidays a flier arrived in the mail advertising a national chain cleaning service. I knew it would start the debate again and I thought about just throwing it away, but then changed my mind. Andrea and I see so little of each other, especially this time of year with her working on budget, that I really don’t feel like giving up my Saturday mornings cleaning. So, with some caveats, I started looking for a service.

We interviewed one woman, and while she would have done an amazing job she didn’t have any insurance. The second company we talked with was a little bigger, and they were both bonded and insured. They were also more than half the price of the first lady’s team.

So today Carmen and Adriana showed up, I gave them a quick tour, a copy of the house key, and I promptly left. It was nice to come home to a clean house. They did a very good job. It wasn’t perfect but it will do, and it should get easier from now on since they have a baseline clean on which to build. They are coming every other week and it runs a little over $100 each time. Easily worth getting a man-day back every week.

The second person was my neighbor Jake. Jake is very handy. He used to restore Rolls Royce automobiles, race Porches and build speedboats. He’s also bored, so he does work around my place for me. Lately we’ve been working on turning my shed into a heated and cooled workshop. Today he sprayed on the primer and tomorrow he’ll paint. Then there isn’t much more to do before I get to move in: Hang the lights and do a little trim work. I’m eager to see the “man cave” finally finished.

The answer to yesterday’s question about what my meal out would do to my weight is: nothing. My 3PS weight was 213.0, same as yesterday. So it looks like I can cheat a little and still do fine.

One of the reasons I never really considered a veggie/vegan diet before is that most people I know who eat it aren’t all that healthy. Turns out that most breads are vegan. So is pasta. I was looking at some recipes in my new cookbooks and they call for lots of oil and salt. One required maple syrup. There is no doubt in my mind that removing animal fat from one’s diet is healthy, but to replace it with a high carb, grain-based diet won’t do anything for my weight.