New year, new baby, new schedule

For a long time I have envisioned a day when I would once again have a clean house.  I have come to realize that a clean house on a regular basis is a goal to be reached far in the future.  Even my standards have dropped to a level of Don't Gross Out Your Visitors, which is much, much less than Spotless, but a few steps above Call CPS now!  This month I kicked my butt into gear and made up a cleaning schedule.  This was prompted by the following: it is the beginning of a new year (thus a fresh start), we just had houseguests so the house was somewhat clean already, our family just got over the month-long stomach plague and I could feel the germs waiting to pounce again, and I felt like I was drowning in housework with no rescue in sight.  New baby = more cleaning/laundry + less free time.  Winter = more time inside (to scatter toys and dirty dishes) + dirty slush on tile and carpet   everything + more laundry.  We are so lucky that this semester Jason is working pretty much completely from home, so he entertains the older kids more with school and playing, he often walks them to school or home, and he's a helping hand with Violet if I'm making dinner.  Plus he usually washes the dishes and takes out the trash/recycling.  And sometimes even makes lunch or cleans the kitchen!   I know, I'm totally spoiled compared to most stay-at-home moms, yet I still feel like I'm drowning sometimes. 

I am understanding that the more children we have, the more organized I need to be.  In order to have any free time at all to watch tv and play on facebook play with the kids, I need to use my other time wisely.  So, the cleaning schedule.  I took an estimate that a house-cleaning company sent me after they toured our apartment.  It had a detailed list of everything they would clean if I hired them.  I broke up the list into catagories of once a month, twice a month, weekly, and as needed.  Then I made up a monthly schedule that dispersed these chores as evenly as possible, with no work on Sunday and a little more time-consuming on an afternoon that I should have more free time.  Now I only have 3-4 things to do each day and if I stick to the schedule, the entire house should be cleaned monthly.  Please understand that this does not mean my house will look spotless all the time!  There are constantly toys and crumbs everywhere still, but at least our bath and toilets should always be clean.  And I'll feel better knowing that even when our house is "messy," at least it is clean underneath the mess.

I also made a food schedule.  Our breakfast and lunch menus will rotate weekly, and our dinners will rotate monthly.  I always like to try new recipes, so those will be substituted in to the menu at will.  Or I'll just be trying out a bunch of new side dishes and desserts.  The food schedule will hopefully help me a lot with making grocery lists and sticking to them.

Earlier this week I sent out my schedule to friends and family, for two reasons.  One, because it took a bit of time to put it together, so I would love if anyone else can benefit from it.  It's an excel file, so it's easy to change anything to fit another person's needs.  Two, if I tell other people I am planning on doing something, I am more likely to actually do it :)

I have been a week on our new schedules, and so far I love them.  Grocery shopping was awesome, because I didn't get anything at all that wasn't on our list.  No quick meals that I grabbed "just in case."  Whenever I do that I end up making the quick meal instead of the more elaborate one that I bought all the ingredients for, and then those ingredients often go bad before I use them.  My daily cleaning schedule is inspiring rather than daunting.  Once I finish my tasks for that day, I can feel free to relax and not feel guilty about the other messy things in the house.  Or, I can not clean all day and do my chores after the kids go to bed.  Sometimes I even get a head start on the rest of the week.  Most importantly, I do not feel like I am hopelessly drowning in housework any more.  And I'm not too embarrassed when people drop by our house.  At least not until my kids run out into the room with underwear on their heads.  And nothing else on.