Dominican Housewife Chronicles - Swiffer vs Broom War

This week I got the green light to walk along the waterfront in the mornings.  My husband is comfortable with my ability to communicate with others in Spanish now and it's a safe place to walk as it's very heavily patrolled by the police.  I've missed walking so this new morning routine has made me very happy.  I made a short video of the sights along my walk one morning.

I can finally say that I am settled into the new house.  The water issues have somewhat been resolved.  There was an issue preventing the water tank from holding the water.  Now that it has been fixed things are much better.  The kitchen is still small but I'm learning how to navigate my way through cooking with limited counter space.  Speaking of cooking this has been an interesting week for me.  Just when I had gotten comfortable in the kitchen my husband throws me a curve ball.  There are several other dishes that he likes that he wants me to learn how to make.  Pinterest is my new best friend.  I found several variations of the dishes he wants and printed them out.  We sat down and reviewed the ingredients together and he gave me the yay or nay on them.  When all was said and done I had my own version of Locrio de Pollo (Rice and chicken) the first of the new dishes I tried.  I was nervous but I've learned his taste so I was able to add some seasonings along the way as I tasted it so it turned out well.  He enjoyed it and now I am moving onto other recipes that are on his list.

Washing clothes here in the new house is so much better.  The outside laundry area is perfect.  There is a utility sink and a small covered area as well as a nice area outside to hang the clothes to dry.  My biggest challenge now with laundry is getting my husband to actually put his dirty clothes in the hamper.  I know that many others struggle with this issue but it is quite annoying.  When my husband is looking for something to wear he literally unfolds everything on the shelf in the closet and/or takes everything off the hangers. Once he has found something he throws everything in the closet on the shelf.  This also applies to clothes that have been worn that may or may not be considered dirty.  I was losing my mind trying to sift through his closet to find what might be dirty so I gave up.  I told him if it's not in the hamper, near the hamper or visibly dirty and somewhere between the hamper and the wash area outside I'm not including it in the wash.  I refuse to play hide and go seek for his dirty clothes. I even give him a twelve hour warning that laundry will be washed the following day and to make sure that everything that he wants washed is in the hamper.  Thus far we've had one little mishap with this rule.  He neglected to put his dirty baseball pants in the pile to be washed.  He came home from work frantically looking for his uniform for his game that night.  He found his pants right where he left them in his baseball bag.  The other issue with laundry is that I was so happy to find my favorite detergent here, Woolite dark but it's a little pricey so I don't use it for all of the dark clothes only the special ones.  While I was in PA the last time my husband discovered this new cleaner and decided it was great to use to clean EVERYTHING including the car that he washes at least once a day even in the rain. 

Now let's talk about cleaning the house.  This house is bigger than our previous house and there's ceramic tile floors throughout the entire house.  On one of my recent trips back to PA I decided to purchase a swiffer vacuum and put it in my checked back to use here to clean the floors.  Who knew that this little device could cause such a ruckus in my house.  My husband absolutely hates the swiffer.  I think it's the vacuum noise that he doesn't like but I cannot use the swiffer in his presence.  He becomes very annoyed and one time he told me to turn it off and that he would clean the floors as he grabbed the broom.  The first time I used it I was so proud of myself and I showed him the dirty swiffer pad and he said that I should have swept and mopped the floor first LOL.  Um that's kinda the point of using the swiffer to not have to sweep the tile floors every five minutes.  I'm only exaggerating a little bit.  The doors are usually open at least when my husband is home and all types of dust blows in.  The floors need to be swept at least 2 to 3 times a day.  I've hidden the swiffer and when my husband is at work I use it.  When he's here I use the old fashion method, the broom. 

Speaking of brooms let me tell you about something else that happened this week.  In case you haven't figured it out by now I'm pretty sure that I have at least a mild case of OCD.  Here at the new house we have a car port, driveway and front porch to sweep and keep clean.  I didn't like using the same broom for inside the house and outside.  Maybe I'm a nut case but it's my preference to have different brooms.  I bought a new broom for use inside the house.  I knew I was going to have to explain this to my husband and made sure that I got a different type of color so as not to confuse him.  He actually understood perfectly and uses the red broom for outside cleaning and the blue broom is for inside cleaning.  Enter in his niece.  At least once every two weeks his niece comes to the house to "assist" me with deep cleaning the house.  According to my husband this is way too much work for me to do alone so this week his niece came to "assist" me with cleaning.  I'm using the quotes around assist because she actually does everything.  I'm not allowed to do anything while she's here.  Anyway the first thing she did was bring the red broom inside and start sweeping the living room.  As soon as I became aware of what was happening I attempted to explain to her about the two brooms.  I should mention that she doesn't speak English at all so we have to rely on my Spanish or try to google translate it.  As I explained I handed her the blue broom to use in the house and she nodded and said she understood.  About thirty minutes later she was outside on the porch sweeping up the leaves with the blue broom.  So now I have two outside brooms and a swiffer hiding in the closet. 



This week was the one year anniversary of me retiring from my job as an IT Director.  If someone had told me a year ago that I would be married again and living in the Dominican Republic as a housewife I would have called them crazy but here I am.  I am putting the finishing touches on my journey from there to here in my book titled Passport Wife which will be released later this year.