And in that vein, I really feel I must 'fess up. Emily, who is currently running the "new mother of two" gauntlet, is feeling a little frustrated. (Y'all remember that beating, right? Shortly after baby #2 arrives, and suddenly it feels like the workload has grown exponentially and the workday has shortened by 16 hours?) She wrote:
How, how, how do you get so much done in a weekend? Tell me your secret, please!!! Somehow we never seem to get done even the basics that we hope to accomplish - the weekend is taken up with catch-up chores and grocery shopping and errands and then maybe, MAYBE we'll get one of our house/garden projects STARTED...sigh.
I was going to sit back and feel smug and organized. You know, bask in the warmth of Adoration and Awe ('cuz I don't get it from anybody who knows me in person, believe me). But, well, I really like Emily, and so, I have to be honest. If you look very closely, you can see my trick. Details. It's all in the details. I write down every. single. move. we. make. Normal people might have written something like this for the "Progress!" post:
We prepped the garden and set the bed. Then we cleaned up the mess we'd made, and took ourselves inside. There, we shuffled boxes and culled a bit. There are slimy things growing on the bathroom counter, and the guest room looks like we have an insane mathematician living in there.
But you see, THAT kind of wording really makes it obvious that we stayed in bed 'til ten, didn't get outside until after lunch, came in when it got dark, and... well, that brings me to my second little trick.
"The Basics" - things like laundry, mopping, airing out the beds and dusting the ceiling fans. *snort* OK, I don't dust the ceiling fans. If you leave them alone long enough, you can just switch the direction of the fan blades and the furry bits fly right off. Kids think it's great fun, and scamper to gather all the "caterpillars", Voila! Put the blades back the right way, and as long as you don't turn the fan off while you have company (or blog it to the whole world), nobody will ever know.
But back to the general point. I don't do those things during the weekends. Weekend time is family time with the family member we miss out on most during the week. We do grocery shopping during the week. I have a husband who is thoughtful enough to keep us supplied with miscellany, should we forget something while we were there, but I don't set foot inside a market on the weekend, if I can help it.
Errands? P'ffft. I'll run errands on Wed, while we have to be in town, anyway. Unless you need me to drop something off to prevent, say, full-scale economic implosion, or a foreclosure on your home, I'm not dropping it off on the weekends. (Well, and chocolate. I will bring you chocolate on the weekend, but that's an act of mercy and love and totally doesn't count as an errand.)
By Friday (or Thursday, on alternate weeks), the laundry's caught up enough that Zorak can get through the weekend and have clothes to wear to work on Monday. The floors are relatively clean, the bathroom has been tidied. There's not much they can do to the house... well, strike that. No sense is tempting fate. I tried for years to have everybody pitch in and let's clean-clean-clean on Saturday morning! WOOHOO Isn't this FUN? (um... no.)
It feels like tradition to do it that way, but in our home, it just makes for a cranky dragonslayer, and an irritable mommy. So, I do those things during the week, and come the weekend, we can hang out, eat late, mosey about, work on whatever needs it, roll around like puppies, wallow in Daddy's presence. No, my home isn't showroom clean. But my family wouldn't be any happier if I spent the weekend getting it that way, and come Monday morning, Zorak would go off to work and the kids and I would be left wondering where our fun time with Daddy went. So I do it that way, and we get more done in a very enjoyable manner.
And then I record every. single. move. ;-)
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
7 comments:
A few years ago (okay, so I'm a little bit slow on the uptake), I started the no cleaning the house on Saturdays idea. Some weeks I would remember, and others, well, lets just not try to remember those weekends, okay. Anyway, I know what you mean, weekends are for being with daddy, spending time together as a family, watching Mythbusters until noon in our jammies, and working at something together until we just get it. Friday is my laundry day too, and every other weekday is specified for doing other chores. The house is never perfect, and frankly my house will never be a contender for "House Beautiful", but I think that's okay with me. We're homeschooling, we're living, and we're happy. 'Nuff said.
Ah, that's how we do it, too. All mandatory work gets done during the week, including shopping. And we don't have school on any day that he has off. Even if he's on leave for what seems like forever. Even if he just got off leave and he has another four day weekend. Followed by another day off for no fatal accidents on post. Followed by two "I don't feel like working" days. Daddy time is much more important than ANYTHING ELSE we could be doing, and time is never on our side.
Ok, so that is a new idea for me. :) I think that I like it, except for the niggling little part of my brain that is telling me that I can never actually accomplish all the chores during the week and all the errands in one day (pant pant pant!!!) But PLANNING the weekend just to hang out and do cool stuff with Daddy? That sounds pretty good!
And you know, Dy, maybe I'm trying a little too hard...since I actually DO dust the fan. But only four times a year! :)
Thanks for the response - it's encouraging.
Jennie, YES, I forgot to add that. No School on Daddy's Day Off. School Rule #... well, it's in the top ten, but it's mandatory. (That's why my laundry gets done by Fri or Thurs, as Zorak has alternating Fridays off.) It doesn't matter what our school schedule looks like, really. They're still going to read, and learn. But they will learn SO MUCH MORE from spending time with Dad... I could write an entire post about that, alone. I agree, wholeheartedly.
Dawn, good to see ya! It's funny how sometimes we're slow to catch on. I admit I spent a number of Saturday mornings staring at the back of Zorak's sleeping head, trying to will him to spring from the bed, ready to clean. Oy, what *was* I thinking! LOL! Talk about a V-8 moment!
Emily, ok, I do clean the ceiling fans. Usually just twice a year, though - when we do actually change their directions. The big fall and spring cleaning. But the general point is that if we want to focus on our families, then that's what we need to focus on, and work the rest into it. One lady describes her work time as being done "in the interstices", and I love that phrase, b/c it's true. You have the bulk - the life, itself - and then what you use to fill the little spaces between... such beautiful imagery, no?
I'm glad you are encouraged. You're doing great!
Dy
Another idea... and this may seem kind of weird, but here it goes. :-)
Lower your standards.
Not forever, mind you, but perhaps just for a little while. Do things *really* need to be done as often as you're doing them? If you think that you are as low as you can go, have someone else look over your chore lists and such for a reality check (preferably someone who won't be horrified to find out that you only clean x once a month *grin*) because maybe you are expecting a too much. Not that I'm saying it's time to live in squalor, but there may be some room for adjustments.
Also, if something doesn't get done one week when it is scheduled, most likely the world will not end if it doesn't get done that day/week/month. Wait for that chore to come around again on chore list and do it then - granted, this can be a recipe for squalor if you take a pass too many times, but if you are judicious with your use of this, it can be a big sanity saver. It can be quite a relief to not have the culmulative list of everything you missed hanging over your head as you proceed through the week and month!
Additionally, keep the errand lists as simple as possible. Keep lists of what you need to get at different places, and try to go to those places less often. Keep the lists in a prominent place so that you can think about if the things on it are really that necessary. Try to prune the lists of places you "have" to go - maybe you can get some things somewhere you already go, or maybe it is something you can do without. Also, you may think you need to get something right away, but most of the time it really can wait another week or two when you have other things you can get at that store (or maybe by then you've realized that you don't really need it at all!). If it can't wait, think about buying more of it at a time so that you don't have to go as often. Errands are such a huge time-sucker, but when carefully planned and managed they can be less time consuming.
I do all the housework, errands, laundry, etc. during the week - the weekends are for playing, projects, and visiting. It is a much better way to go about things, I think!
OK, that was a whopper of a comment. Thanks for letting me add my (long-winded) two cents, Dy. :-)
Thank you, Dy! Between your ceiling fan admission and Stephanie posting the link to "Mom My Ride", my husband is beginning to see the light. Or he will, when he remembers to bring home the lightbulbs I keep neglecting to buy...
Great post, Dy!
This is a struggle that I have fretted over many, many times.
We now do something similar. We live by "PLAN the weekends, DO the weekdays". No, it never all gets done in the week, but guess what...the next week comes and all the things that didn't get done last week are still there to do. And we don't waste our weekend worrying about them.
Weekends are for planned little trips, projects, games and fun, fun, fun with Dad.
Yes, my "to-do" list is now contained in a notebook. And I live with all boys, so my bathrooms are rarely ever totally clean. But it will only be that way for the next 18 years and after that I will have OH SO MUCH time to clean and get organized. (BTW, this never sunk in until recently after we had our final baby).
Now, The Dude does get a little wonky with the clean house thing. So, after realizing that it just wasn't possible, he has decided to get a house keeper to come in every other week, or so, just to get the floors scrubbed and the pb&j off the windows, and such. So we will have at least a couple of days lemony fresh scent! :) And yes, I did the Snoopy dance when he told me!
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