House Organized

Over the years, I have been accused of a lot of things, but never of being disorganized or of having poor time-management.  In fact, the opposite perhaps might be true.  My lists and desire for routine drive at least one member of our household crazy.  I'll give you one guess!

Motherhood has made me even more driven to nail down a routine, not only for Natalie's sake, but for my own as well.  Natalie is my priority during the day, but I am determined to fit in some of the things that make me, well, me.  And, Eric & Ashley time cannot be completely lost in all this either.

Part of my strategy is to divide up giant tasks into manageable chunks.

Example:

Instead of trying to find time to clean the entire house, I broke down all the tasks into a few things to do each day.  So, on Mondays, the kitchen gets a thorough cleaning and the refrigerator gets cleaned out.  On Tuesdays, I do laundry (besides Natalie's; she gets about one load per day, at least) and read the mail, pay the bills, etc.  Wednesdays I take out all the trash and sweep (and mop every other week) all the non-carpeted floors.  Thursdays are bathroom cleaning days.  Fridays are reserved for vacuuming.  Saturday, laundry and dusting.  You get the point.  Every day I need to find the time to do about an hour of cleaning.  Perfect since Natalie usually takes about a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day.

Additionally, I have started sitting down on Sundays, cutting the coupons and making up a menu for the entire week.  From there, I make a shopping list and head to the store for the week's groceries.  Saves time and money, and I don't have to think about what to make for dinner every night.  I am trying to make use of my crock pot as much as possible too!  I love it.

And, on the horizon is a very exciting garden project.  We are going to create a community garden!  I hope that we can decide to take it one step further and keep a few chickens for fresh eggs, and a pig and cow for our own meat!  I am excited about this for myself, but also can imagine Natalie as she grows up being a part of gardening and raising the animals.  Of course, this means the weather needs to warm up.

I am always looking for ways to get more and more organized and efficient, and feel like everyday is an experiment to get it just right....we're getting there though!