by Mama Butterfly
I've mentioned a few times before that I've been in consolidation mode for the last few months. I think that every time a new baby enters a family, everything gets turned upside down for a bit as new routines are put into place, and life takes a while to even out.
I don't know if it was the transition from one child to two, or the fact that the events surround A's birth were just a little out of the ordinary and difficult to deal with in their own right, but for the last few months I've felt a little overwhelmed. Now that hubby has his driver's license back (yay!) and A is going on 9 months old and is on a nice and mostly predictable schedule, I've been working to switch some things around in my life to make my days a little bit less hectic.
First of all, I work part time from home and was working one day a week at the office. I aim to get about 20 hours each week, and it has becoming increasingly difficult to get close to those hours with two kids. I was starting to overwhelm myself. I felt like I was unable to focus on being a mom and unable to focus on my job, leaving me to do neither well. I decided to up my days in the office to 2 and and stretch the days out from 7 hours to closer to 8. In two days I can get close to 16 hours, which only leaves about 4 to get in 3 days, which is totally doable for me.
Between checking emails here and there throughout the day and answering voice mails, I usually get close to that. It's wonderful! I was really hesitant to be away from the kids for an additional day, but I realized that now when I'm home, I'm really home. I'm not distracted and I can focus on the kids and the house, which I am loving. When I'm at work a friend of mine comes to my house with the kids, and they love her so it makes it easier to leave them.
The second thing I decided to do is plan my meals out a month at a time and do my grocery shopping once for the whole month (minus weekly shopping for produce). I sat down and created a list of meals for the month and then broke them down into weeks. I made one huge shopping list and this past Monday night left the kids with hubby and went to Wal*Mart for the evening. No more staring at the fridge and trying to figure something out. Since I've upped my work schedule, I plan for 3 larger meals per week and then we eat leftovers on my work days. It's especially nice to not have to cook on work days!
And lastly, I've never had a specific day for various household things. I've always kind of done the laundry whenever it needed done, cleaned when things got dirty, etc. I am starting to realize that if I don't have certain days for certain things... they often don't get done, or it gets dirtier/messier than I like. So this is my plan for now:
Mondays - Laundry, unload dishwasher from the weekend. Errand day - Costco & Market for produce
Tuesdays - Work day
Wednesdays - Laundry, unload dishwasher. Sweep & mop kitchen floors, wipe down kitchen, clean bathroom
Thursdays - Work day
Fridays - Laundry, unload dishwasher, work on cleaning clutter/mail that has accumulated from the week in preparation for the weekend, dust
Saturdays - Vacuum carpet
Do you have a set "cleaning day" that you clean? Do you have favorite or least favorite "chores" to do?
Comments (16)
wow.
does the hubby not help out? o_0
My husband deeps cleans the entire house on Saturday. During the week, everything is done on an as needed basis.
I do laundry on Wednesdays and then again on Saturday or Sunday, whichever is less busy for us that week. The rest of it gets done whenever we get around to it....which is really not often enough. But I hate cleaning.......... :)
Gah, cleaning.
Does anyone want to come clean my house?
These days I'm lucky if I get the living room vacuumed once a week and the kitchen swept once or twice. (And we have two indoor pets.) The dishes pile up most days and I am weeks behind on putting away clean laundry.
@MelonCauli@xanga - Oh yes- he's a huge help! He is currently working 60 hours a week because his place of work has some major projects, so he hasn't been able to help out as much. But he does all of the yard work (we have a semi-decent sized yard that needs mowed a few times a week, etc). He also vaccums and he helps me do laundry on the weekends when it needs done. He's also my built in dishwasher most evenings after dinner!
I have my "daily's" that I have to do: wash dishes (I hate hate hate waking up to dirty dishes, or coming home to dirty dishes), scoop the litter box, and a general run-through to straighten up and put things away. A couple times a week I vacuum and wipe down the bathrooms. Usually on Saturdays I do a good clean-up with dusting, wiping everything down, washing the sheets, vacuuming and putting away/filing mail. It seems like I'm doing something everyday and it gets a little tiring, but it's worth it to have a clean house and teach my daughter that we can keep the house clean.
I try to get the big stuff out of the way on Saturdays or Sunday afternoons: vacumming, mopping, laundry, general de-gunking. But dishes, small cleaning, etc. gets done throughout the week. I like to do the big stuff myself because I'm particular about it, but everything else the hubby helps out on.
I refuse to sacrifice any more sleep than I already do and I am very interactive with our daughter. I take care of our animals and make dinner and pack a lunch for my hubby on a daily basis, everything else gets done when I can manage to squeeze it in.
I clean on a daily basis. Otherwise when I have designated days... things seem to get out of control and I feel overwhelmed.
I've found keeping up on things and doing a little each day leaves me a few more free hours over all and a lot less stressed. 
Besides, I need the extra hours each day to meet my son's special needs. So over all... it ends up balancing itself out... well most of the time!
If only I could get more "ME" time.
Now that is the REAL challenge! 
I don't have a set "cleaning" day-I just clean whatever's dirtiest that day.
I like to do the laundry. There's something about folding clean-smelling clothes and putting them back in their place that soothes me.
I do with 3 kids, everything has to be a schedule. My middle child goes to PT, OT, Speech and food therapy. My youngest goes to PT and OT along with other appointments at least once a day.
Mine looks like this
Monday- get the boys to school, pick them up from sports and go to speech therapy, cook dinner, clean kitchen, living room, dining room, and the kids rooms, vaccuum 2500 sq ft in our house, laundry is everyday for a family of 5
Tuesday - take kids to and from school PT for both kids that day and I usually clean our basement and the boys playroom and my sons bathroom scrubbing the toilet and shower and sink ect and I get some laundry done and folded cook and clean up dinner stuff
Wednesday- to and from school and sports Food therapy clean my youngest sons bathroom scrub toilet and tub and sink. cook dinner clean up from dinner. vaccuum the house.
Thursday - OT for both kids to adn from school adn sports cook and clean dinner dishes laundry pick up the house
Friday - appointments usually from 9-130 go home rest get the kids and do nothing.
Saturday is my SRUB THE HOUSE LIKE A MAD WOMAN day. I go room by room changing sheets and making sure its perfect. Vaccuum, dust, move the room around, hang up clothes, rearrange the living rooms, go through clothes that done fit. scrub the bathrooms top to bottom clean the kitchen top to bottom....usually my scrub the house days I spend 9-13 hours cleaning. For some thats crazy but I stick on my Ipod and have a blast. Cleaning is relaxing for me. It really is so I dont mind. (my husband helps a lot BTW, I dont do it all alone Im not superwoman :P)
as for what chore is the best and worst. Best is orgainizing anything. clothes, rooms, anything. worst is LIVING WITH 3 BOYS ALL WHO PEE ON THE SEAT IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER I cant stand cleaning toilets!!!!!!!!!
I have to do dishes and laundry every day, dishes sometimes more than once, we have a very large family, vacuuming once a week, sweeping every day, mopping once a week, dusting once a week, give everything a thorough cleaning usually on weekends. I do not like laundry, I do not use a clothes dryer, hang everything to dry, especially do not like cleaning toilets, all boys here but me.
I should make a schedule. I hate all chores except vaccuming and laundry. I have no clue why I like folding clothes.
I am a FlyLady afficionady (for anyone who needs help keeping on top of things: www.flylady.net ). She's taught me the beauty of having daily routines. I do a couple of things every day: Dinner, Dishes, Duds (i.e. laundry). One load a day keeps Mount Washmore away! Also, after I shower, I take a damp cloth and wipe down the bathroom sink, then the toilet - every day.
We deep clean whenever we have time - the floors get done once a week, more if necessary (like in the summer - sandbox time!), I wipe down the kitchen every day, and we run the dishwasher every night and unload it in the morning. That way things don't pile up. One thing FlyLady tells you to do is declutter a little bit every day - but we're failing at that, as of yet (I just started a new job, which means we, too, have to figure out our schedule). Whew! I'm tired
We used to do laundry on Tim's days off when it had to be taken to the laundromat, but since moving, we really haven't had a schedule for things...it gets done when it needs to be done. I work on things like consolidating/decluttering about once a week...whenever the mood strikes. I guess I'm lucky in that I like the sense of accomplishment that I get from clearing out an old storage container or organizing things so that they take up less space. It definitely helps keep the clutter in check. I'm glad that we have tile in all but the two secondary bedrooms (the guest room and Megan's room)...I loathe dragging out the vacuum and carpet cleaner. It's so much easier for me to sweep and mop.