Just do the list...

In one my random bouts of energy, I decided to tackle the corner of my living room that held all my Mary Kay/Scentsy stuff. Really is just was a pile of stuff and an excuse of where to throw stuff. It was making my living room so cluttered. While sorting through stuff, I foung the Daily and Weekly Cleaning Routine I had typed up when I first became a stay at home mom. Oh the positive energy I had back then! Ha! So I decided that since nothing else I was coming up with was working (although let's face it, anything would work if I just did the work) I reverted back to that cleaning routine. I made some minor tweaks but I figured out my Daily Cleaning tasks and my Weekly Chores.

My Daily Routine consists of a Morning Routine and an Evening Routine. Here it is:

Morning Routine:
Wake-up, Get Ready (no more grungy Mommy)
Make Bed
Empty/Fill Dishwasher
Wipe Down Table and High Chair (From Breakfast/Snacks/Lunch)
Swish/Swipe Bathroom (From Flylady)
Start Laundry
Quick Pick-Up/Odds & Ends

Evening Routine:
Fold/Put Away Laundry
Empty/Fill Dishwasher
Put Away Dinner
Wipe Down Counters/Table/High Chair
Sweep/Shark Floors
Quick Pick Up/Odds & Ends

Now there are two ways to do weekly cleaning and it just depends on your cleaning style and schedule. Some people do their weekly cleaning once a week and focus it on one day. Others do little chores everyday to space it out. I have gone back and forth ad figuring out which one was for me and I finally came to the simple conclusion that while I would love to do all my weekly cleaning in one day and get it over with, I just don't have the time or the week day that I can do it all in one day. I am constantly running around and I just don't have a day of the week that I can pick that I am home long enough to get it all done. Plus, I don't think I have the stamina. I think I would mop the floors, give myself a gold star and skip the rest. So I will be breaking up into daily chores. Here it is:

Weekly Chores:
Monday: Kitchen
Tuesday: Bathroom
Wednesday: Vacuum/Mop Floors
Thursday: Mirrors/Windows/Dusting/Garbage/Recycling
Friday: Bedrooms/Change Sheets
Saturday/Sunday: Laundry

Now the beauty of this list is that when I feel overwhelmed or I find myself sidetracked by weird random tasks, I can just do the list. Refocus and do the list. Even if the living room is full of toys and I am feeling stressed, just do the list. At some point  I will get to those toys in a my quick pick up. Or I can work on my list and make the kids clean up their toys. The answer to my crappiness lies in the list!

We are all Crappy Housewives

Knock on wood but I think this sickness is over in my house. I seriously feel like the last whole month was a big blur and boy did my house take a beating. But we are back on the healthy side of life and catching up on household stuff.

I went to a Girl's Night last night and the host was telling me how she had been reading my Crappy Housewife Blog. Really!! Cool! She then continued to tell me how she can relate! WHAT? Her house was so adorable! So neat and clean! She had the cutest decorations. She told me that she has a catch-all room which is her office. So when company is coming over or she is doing a quick clean, things get hidden in the catch-all room. So that is when I realized that we are all crappy housewives!! We all aren't perfect. NO ONE has the perfect house (well ... wait .... I seriously know someone who has a super clean, organized house in every room.) Some of us show our crappy housewife ways through our whole house and some of us have a room or closet.

But you know what? It's ok!! It's ok to be crappy!! All I care about is that I am trying to be less crappy! Who else is trying to be less crappy?

2nd Shift

Let me first apologize for my lack of posts the past couple weeks. The sickness has continued in my house. A couple of posts ago, I said how my whole family had the flu, then we all got bad colds, and then my 11 month old got pneumonia! Well it didn't end there! My son finished is round of antioboitics so we went on our planned vacation. On vacation, my son and daughter got pink eye! WHAT!!??! PINK EYE??! Where the heck did we get that? Just typing it makes my eye itch. We got home from vacation and I ended up having to take the kids to the ER. We followed up with our pedetrician. He followed up on my son's pneumonia and check their pink eye. But then he wasn't done! He told me my son had RSV. Oh man  ... it is just one thing after another! Come on Spring!!!

Today I have been thinking about the idea of 2nd shift. I know there are people out there who have 2 jobs that they do back to back. I did that once! I was working my regular 8-5pm job and I decided to get a temp holiday job at a clothing store. I figured I would pay off some bills and be able to buy a few extra Christmas presents.  So I worked 8-5pm and then worked from 5:15 to 11pm. I only lasted 3 weeks. It was too much! I applaud people who can do that and have to do that!

As a parent, we all have 2nd shift. Whether we work outside the home or we are a housewife, we have to deal with the dreaded 2nd shift. 2nd shift starts after your first job ends. In my case as a housewife and a stay at home Mom, I work all day with my kids. I drive them to school, run errands, clean-up etc. And I celebrate when my husband comes home a 5pm. But then that is when 2nd shift starts! I have to regroup, do dinner, homework, baths, and bed. And after all that, I still have nightly clean-up to do. I'm exhausted!!! I don't know how to get through 2nd shift. I can make it through dinner but then I collapse and I want to rest.

So how do you get through 2nd shift?

Let the Cleaning Begin

Oh my house is such a disaster. And I have had zero motivation to clean it. I wish I was a natural cleaner, but I'm not so I just need to make habits. This morning my husband asked me what I was doing today and I told him I had to go to his Mom's to clean her house (I do this every week to earn a little money. Funny how I do that, but can't keep my own house clean! Hmmm ... ) He said, "Don't you think you should focus on our house first." He was right, as much as a hate to admit it. Whether I like it or not, I honestly feel that the housework is my job. When I complain to friends about the state of my house, many just point the finger to my husband and tell me he should help more. But call my old fashioned, but I really feel that if I get to be home with my kids then keeping up with the house is my responsibility. Now that is not to say that he can't help me every once in a while and we are working on that. But the day to day tasks should be my job.

So I need to understand my primary job/responsibilities and get my butt in gear. I've got music on. I've got my 2nd load of laundry in and my dining room picked up. I've moved into the living room. I've attempted to get my girls to work on their room but you would have thought I asked them to like shave their head. THEY FREAKED OUT!! So I need to set a better example for them so they don't think cleaning is so horrible!!

Off to work on my house!

Oh the Sickness ...

Words cannot even describe the sickness that has been going around my house since my last post. 3 weeks ago, my whole family got the flu. (Oh the flu laundry  ... yuck!) Then my kids and husband got a bad cold. Then that cold turned into pneumonia for my 11 month old son. So now we are on day 6 of antibiotics and he is finally getting better. But of course, now I have a sore throat. Ahhh ... it' never ending!

So this morning I woke up extra early (again thanks to my 11 month old) and I decided to get my butt in gear. My house has exploded! Laundry is everywhere, dishes filling the sink, clutter, just everything. So I got up, got ready to go, and went and started a load a laundry. Well thank heavens I was dressed with shoes on (thank you Flylady!) because I locked myself in the garage and out of the house. REALLY! Now for those if you who are reading this and do not live in the Eugene/Springfield are, one thing you don't know that it snowed this morning! So here I am at 6:30am, tromping around my snowy front yard, trying to figure out how to get in my house. I ended up tapping on my bedroom window to wake my husband up!

Maybe I should try again tomorrow for a better start!

Clean Eating!

One of my goals to be a better housewife includes meal planning and the idea of homesteading. I recently was introduced to the concept of clean eating and now I am totally obsessed with the concept. First I was interested in it as a diet to lose weight. Eating clean foods is a way to eat better, without counting points or calories. But as I became more interested in the idea, I started reading more about how food really fuels our bodies. It's the whole idea of eating to live instead of eating to live. Using food as a tool. Can food help me have more energy? Can it help with stress and anxiety? I blame so many of my "issues" with being a crazy Mom with 3 kids. Of course I would be tired and cranky. But could my issues be solely because of how I eat? I eat too much processed foods, fast food, and meals filled with a lot of fat. But what is I learned to switch it? Eat healthy proteins, fruits and vegetables - put together the correct foods to boost energy. I am totally into this new concept and maybe this will make me a better housewife!

A Sick Crappy Housewife

You know the one thing I haven't really gotten used to since leaving my job and staying home to be a housewife/mom is what to do when I am sick. When I worked I had these glorious things called "Sick Days" in which if I was sick, I would call in sick to work and still be paid! Of course the kids would still go to daycare and I would be left at home to truly rest and get better. Ahh the good old days!

Now if I am sick, I still have kids to take care of and a house to take care of. I don't get a sick day. I just have to modify my day, pop a Tylenol, and make it work. It is these days where I would completely let my house go! So then my house would be trashed and a couple days after I would get out of my sick fog, I would have a big mess to clean up!

Most of the time when I get sick, I can figure it out. A cold doesn't really stop me. But the flu is another case! That is what is happening to me this week. On Monday my son got the flu. On Wednesday morning my husband and I BOTH had the flu. We litterally traded back and forth, one person sleeping/throwing up, the other laying in the living room watching over the kids. I tried to be different this time around and keep up with the house when it was my "shift." I had the kids pick up their toys that they had scattered around the living room since they were given free reign. We made sandwiches and only used paper plates to keep up with the kitchen. I also tried to pick up little things here and there as I staggered through the house.

Now that I am feeling a bit better and that my other 2 kids are sick, I'm trying to get back on top of things. Of course, I now have a lot of flu laundry. I am just trying to catch up from my day in a complete fog and not let it stretch out a week or two. It's so much nicer because I can do little things here and there and give my attention to my kids! It's how it should be!