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Friday, June 3, 2011

Household manager

This is a question I have asked myself on and off over the years, but lately I have been thinking about it more and more.

I know who I want to be. I have a picture in my mind of being the perfect wife and great mother who gets up before her kids are up, has a clean house, does laundry and actually puts it away, always cooks good healthy meals and still has time to play with her kids and be the great wife who is there for her husband.

But who am I kidding? I am lazy. I get out of bed when Jack wakes up, and am lucky if I am out of my pajamas by the time afternoon hits. My house is always cluttered which drives my husband crazy (unless we are having company, then I scramble to clean!)

It is hard. I want to be better, but it is so hard! I look at other women who seem to have it all together and I wonder how they do it. I know part of the problem is the fact that I need to lose weight. That would give me more energy. I am slowly doing that though. I am below my pre-pregnancy weight already, and want to start linking up to the weekly weigh in. =) But even if I lost weight and had more energy, would things chance then? who knows.... but I do want to try.

I have gotten better a little. I try and do the dishes every night before I go to bed and run the dishwasher while we are sleeping. Then at least that is done. My biggest thing is putting away clean clothes. Why is it so easy to wash them, but so much harder to put them away?

How do you manage your household? Do you have any good tips for me? any tricks of the trade? please share what works for you!

4 comments:

Madeline said...

I have been dealing with the same thing! And it makes me feel sorta defeated when I don't do it well. I have started using GoalForIt.com to create a daily goal chart (with simple things like "go to bed on time" and "read to kids for 30 minutes"). Then I set up two weekly charts for household things, since I figured out I could not clean my entire house in one week. I searched around for lists of household cleaning tasks to make my lists. It has helped me to be able to see what needs to be done each day and I love checking off my lists! I'm still not getting everything done, but at least I know what should be getting done each day.

Janine @ Alternative Housewife said...

It seems counter-intuitive but doing more will actually give you MORE energy. I was so tired the first few months with my son that I wouldn't even get dressed. I would just lounge in yoga pants, play with him and do the bare minimum of everything else.

I discovered that if I make the effort to get dressed and do MORE, I feel better. It's also helped me lose weight. I aim to take walks on all nice days, which is also how I run my errands. I cook and clean while the baby plays and it's a great cure for boredom. It's actually easier to get things done than during naps because I don't have to worry about noise.

Good luck! You can be whatever you want but be sure you evaluate WHY you want to be that way!

Stuff Parents Need said...

I think it is important for women of our generation to openly acknowledge that we CAN'T do everything! The closest I have ever come to doing it all (and I still fell SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO short even then) is when I have hired help! Seriously!

It's all about choosing what YOU actually care about and giving that priority. The rest you have to work on letting go. That's why my bathroom only gets cleaned once a week (and even then it's a pretty quick clean). Same with the floors getting vacuumed. I'd just rather be playing with Darah and working on developing my online business.

A friend of mine has an awesome blog that is all about this tension moms face, and how to make sense of all the pressures we feel. Check out http://www.themsrevolution.com/

Chin up!

Holly Marie said...

We can't do it all!!! Generally speaking, of course. There are some women out there that SEEM to be able to do it all, but there are always things that we can't see...

I think that trying to be supermom/superwife/superwoman is a common pitfall for a lot of women. It is for me, for sure.... Have you ever heard of Proverbs 31 ministries? I subscribe to their daily devotions, and they are really encouraging.
http://www.proverbs31.org/index.php

I fold clothes while I watch Criminal Minds (which A&E will play for hours on end). I don't feel as bad sitting around watching it because I am doing something I loathe.

Check out http://flylady.net/ she has some great tips.

<3 Wish we weren't so far away from each other <3