my new schedule

Today is errand day. Here is the picture of Parker on the day he got his very own library card. Boy, was he happy. I told him he had to be able to write his name all by himself to get one. As we were going in the library, he was telling everyone, "I am getting my library card today because I can write P-A-R-K-E-R by myself" (he was spelling). So cute!

I am a list maker, schedule keeper, things-to-do kind of gal so keeping myself on task is pretty important to me. I rarely get bored. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was bored, actually looking for something to do. I can always find something. And to make me even weirder, I like to clean things (and organize them) so in a household with five people and several animals, I have lots to keep me busy. My mom should be so proud of me all that nagging in my teenage years must have worked!

After the holidays and January birthdays I found myself very overwhelmed with trying to keep up with house chores and the daily stuff that must get done after the whirlwhind. Compound that with sleep depravity (see yesterday' post) and I was becoming quite a mess. So I turned to what has worked for me in the past, I started writing things down. I wrote down a big list of things I really want to do. Big things like, paint rooms, totally purge some kitchen cabinets (about 6 of them to be exact), tackle the last pile of stuff in the basement that needs to be dealt with, and endless spring cleaning things. Whew, that was pretty overwhelming but I felt better to get it written down, it freed my mind to think of more stuff to do, ha ha. We are still trying to sell our home so we can move closer to Paul's new school therefore the house has to be relatively "show ready" at most times. Now I can assure you it is not like that all the time, but I do strive for it to be clean but, I am always left scrambling at the last minute when the realtor calls to show the house.

I am totally rambling now...

So after I wrote my big goals, I decided to focus on daily tasks. I really like having them written down because I swear having a third kid stripped about half my short term memory from my brain. I chose to do one "bigish" task a day with the hopes that I don't have to have a massive cleaning day once a week. Here it is (after all that blah blah blah!)

Monday: clean the laundry room (this is our primary entrance for our home- it is teeny tiny and it gets totally messy after the weekend) sort all shoes and coats left there from the weekend and Swiffer/mop the downstairs, we have lots of tumbleweeds from the dog and bird

Tuesday: Vacuum up and down stairs (sometimes I flip this with Monday, if it needs to be vacuumed before mopping)

Wednesday: bathrooms (my most hated job, I dread this job more than any other!)

Thursday: grocery shop/clean kitchen

Friday: Dust, finish up anything that I might have missed earlier in the week, also, errand day (library, dry cleaners, post office, yadda yadda)

Saturday: restock day (toilet paper, paper towels, toilet wipes, soap dispensers, baby wipes, the list goes on) kind of an easy day because we usually have a ton of other stuff to do

Sunday: change bedding

See, I like to keep busy. I don't have any rhyme or reason as to why I picked certain things to do on certain days, basically I planned it around the kids' activities. Days I have to run around a lot, I picked easier chores, stay home days have the bigger things.

Also, the laundry monster is always lurking around my house and unless we have the stomach flu and I get behind by about two weeks (oops I said I wouldn't talk about that again!) I do 2-3 loads a day. I am also the laundry-puter-awayer, because you know no one else can do it "right" (I am so anal.) I used to do a massive laundry day but screw that, with five people I would need three washing machines just to keep up.

The kids also have a daily chore list I'll share later, when you are done being mad at me for boring you to death!