Friday, April 09, 2010

Let Me Count The Ways

Lately, the word BUSY seems to be in my mind.  I know moms are busy. OBVIOUSLY.  I've been thinking about it all the more since a friend asked me the other night, "What would you rather be doing?  Being out there working a job and bringing money in?  Or, staying at home doing nothing?"  When I posted that on my facebook page, I had girls lining up wanting to slap him.  Me too

At Wednesday night church service pastor mentioned the importance of having a prayer life and spending time in the bible.  I agree.  Not having a personal relationship with Christ, like reading the bible and praying, is much like trying to get somewhere fast while holding your breath.  It may be okay for awhile but, sis, you may need to bring in some oxygen before you pass out collapse.  Christianity is much like that.  It's really, really, really hard to keep going in your faith when you are not walking with Him daily.  I'm not the super spiritual time.  Nor do I hold my "sister" friend's hand and greet them with a kiss.  My friend Kristy would agree that I'm very down to earth. 

Pastor said that we can't hide behind "busyness".  I know I'm busy.  I have laundry to wash!  A gym to workout at!  Diapers to check!  A floor to mop!  Dishes to wash!  My son's basketball game to attend!  It is not a good idea to replace the most important thing in our lives...God....for earthly duties.  Of course we have our duties, but there is a time and a place for replenishing our leaky vessels.  So, this got me thinking.  How busy am I?  How can I put some order into my day?  My week?  I know I have a simple list but it was time to get more detailed. 

I grabbed a huge whiteboard from my husbands office and I seperated it into three parts.  Daily schedule, Weekly activities, Clean schedule.  I didn't have to think about it, I was already doing it.  It was just on the top of my head.  It goes something like this:

Wake up time
Deal check on frugal blog
Start chores
all boys homeschool
lunch
Deal check
All boys finish homeschool
Ashley naptime
Snacktime
Deal check for frugal blog
Start chores
Dinner
Bedtime and Devotions
Blog on my family and Asperger blog.

I didn't put the times in there, just a general idea.  Now, that's simple, but take the things below, activities and cleaning schedule and fit in between.

Next was:

Activities:
Monday: YMCA PM
Tuesday-YMCA PM/Library night
Wednesday-Church pm
Thursday- YMCA PM/ Chaz basketball practice
Friday- Boys class/biblestudy
Saturday- Outside chores, Chaz's games, family fun day, Church Concerts PM
Sunday- Service AM and PM

Just to clarify on the one below.  LOL.  I don't mean I don't clean anything else.  It just means that on TOP of all my other cleaning duties.  I focus on this one room on this day of the week.

Deep Clean Schedule:
Monday-Wash Charles' clothes, deep clean kitchen
Tuesday-Wash Virginia's clothes, Sanitize and deep clean bathrooms
Wednesday-Wash linens, go through all mail and declutter
Thursday- Wash boys clothes, deep clean master bedroom
Friday-Wash girls clothes, declutter all kid's rooms
Saturday- Wash van, outside chores
Sunday-no chores

I know I don't mention that my kids can be human tornados and can make it hard to keep things up at times.  Stinkers!  :)  Regular maintenance cleaning fits in between all that too.  I KNOW you moms understand!

So, I'm gonna take this whole list and tape it to my friend's forehead that told me I should be bringing in money rather than staying at home doing nothing.  What do you think?

3 comments:

Chris H said...

I think having lists and being organised is essential to running a home properly!
Particularly when one has lots of young children!

Anonymous said...

Can you explain how you sort your laundry and where you place your hampers? I want to try this way of laundry system. I've tried something similar...

Hugs!

Virginia Revoir said...

I don't do it extra special. It's just that I put laundry hampers in every single room and one in the laundry room for linens. The boys have their own, the girls, Charles and I, and then the linens one. Since I different everyone's laundry seperate, Charles' clothes on Monday, My clothes on Tuesday, etc, I sort whoevers clothes it is that do and do as much as I can that day. I only worry about who is alloted that day. I tried doing special sorter baskets but this seemed to be the easiest route for me so far. :) Also, I don't fold socks before putting in the drawer. I put each persons socks in their drawer and let them pick their own socks each day. It's a lot easier if each person just matches their own socks rather than have me sitting at a huge bin trying to do it all mixed together.