Adventures In Domesticity: Chore List

The reason this blog is so dusty, is due largely to the presence of this little nugget:

Gosh, I love her. SO much. She's 3 months old today and oh, how she has monopolized my schedule. And thrown a huge wrench in my ability to be efficient.

I've never really been great at resting. (I come from a long line of women who struggle with it.) I can always think of something that needs to be done. I can't sit down on the couch if I know the laundry is slowly spreading itself through the house like a renegade ivy plant. It's hard for me to just crawl into bed when our dressers are stacked with stuff that doesn't belong and a basket of clean clothes is collecting dust and wrinkles at the foot of the bed. (Neglected laundry is especially bad because I'm averse to ironing. So on top of a messy room, I will also have a husband who looks like he slept in all his clothes for a week.)  And the kitchen? Ugh. Forget it. Our counter space is minimal, so if you don't clean up after one meal, it looks like hurricane aftermath in there.

For these reasons, I am often guilty of being found with a pile of laundry in the middle of our bed at 11:00PM. Or wiping down counters and mirrors in the bathroom when I should be brushing my teeth. Todd and I have argued about this more than once. But what do you do when the house is too overwhelming to clean in one day and there's ALWAYS something to be done?

Allow me to introduce, our new weekly chore list:

MONDAY- Grocery Shopping & Floors
With a small child in tow, going to the grocery store is no small task. So I've made it my only Monday responsibility and it's worked quite well the past three weeks. I usually hit two grocery stores-- sometimes it's Target and Trader Joe's, sometimes it's Schnucks and Aldi. Either way-- we knock this out on Monday and avoid the store for the rest of the week if at all possible.

Todd does the floors (sweeping and vacuuming, we have hardwood with a few rugs). I will if I must, but it's not my fave. We mop once a month. (The first week of the month.) Twice if we're feeling really zealous. That may increase when Violet starts crawling.

TUESDAY- Bathrooms
One upstairs, one downstairs. I've slacked at cleaning the tub lately, but between the two of us, they both get the attention they need, once a week.

WEDNESDAY- Wipe all surfaces and clear away superfluous items downstairs
Wednesday night is when we host Gospel Community (which means roughly 20 people in our house from 7-10:30PM) so we straighten the couch up, take all shoes and bags, etc. upstairs, wipe the dusty surfaces and clear/clean the dining table and stereo console. We also usually sweep again.

THURSDAY- Bedrooms
This means our room and the nursery. Everything that found its way up to the bedrooms on Wednesday before GC gets put away on Thursday. I also wipe down the surfaces in the bedroom and every two weeks, change the sheets.

FRIDAY- Laundry
All of it. All day. Washed, folded and put away. (That's the hard part.) But it MUST be done.

SATURDAY- Kitchen (deep clean)
This means pulling out the toaster oven and cleaning the top of the stove and moving everything on the counters and wiping under it. It also means taking stock of the fridge and freezer, throwing out anything that's been neglected (hopefully not much anymore, thanks to the meal planning) and making note of what needs to be bought on grocery day.

All week, we keep the kitchen in check together; Todd handles the trash and recycling and also helps with meal prep and dishwasher loading/unloading. I do the majority of the cooking and intermittent dishwashing.

SUNDAY- Rest
For real. I need practice, and since our Sundays are usually packed from 8-1, we need a day to chill.

*Since we've recently begun cloth diapering, I actually wash a load of diapers nearly every other day. But it's just one load, so not a huge deal. The kitchen, the trash/recycling and the diapers are three things that require daily maintenance-- there's no avoiding it.

This simple system has made a huge difference in our house and stress levels the past 3 weeks. No more arguments because of a laundry pile monopolizing our sleeping space. No more scrambling to vacuum before everyone arrives on Wednesday. And no more wearing myself out worrying about all the things that need to be done at any given time. Everything has its day-- rest included.

What schedules (big or small) have made your life easier?

Adventures in Domesticity: Meal Planning

Y'all. I meal planned this week-- and it was amazing! I am SO pleased with all the meals I made AND with how incredibly efficient our dinners were this week!

I just wanted to share in case anyone else has been thinking of trying this. I'm going to try and a make a habit of this, because 1) my daughter isn't getting any less mobile, so I need to maximize my efficiency at everything and 2) because it made my *grocery shopping day WAY less stressful. As in, I actually stayed UNDER budget for once because instead of buying a bunch of things we might eat for dinner, I only bought what I needed for these meals.

Thanks to Pinterest, it's a new dawn, it's a new day. :) Here's my meal plan from last week:

MONDAY- I'd planned on cooking this (via one lovely life), but Todd brought home Bread Co. leftovers from a late meeting and we had that instead. So we'll be eating this NEXT week. :) And I'm excited about it because I've never had quinoa before!

TUESDAY- Chicken Gyros (via The Girl Who Ate Everything)

Todd made the marinade (which is delish) on Monday night and we threw half a package of chicken tenderloins into it and let it marinate till Tuesday evening. We cooked it all up in less than 30 minutes and had enough left for lunch the next day. Also, we didn't make our tzatziki-- Trader Joe's sells a yummy one for like $3.79, and  I'd bought it last week in anticipation of making these. (And also ended up eating it with beef quesadillas and on pretzel thins. Yay fusion!) This super easy meal will definitely become a staple in our house.

WEDNESDAY- Garlic Parmesan Chicken & Noodles (via BHG)

Before work, I threw a package of 3 chicken breasts into the crock pot, submerged in water with a bit of salt and cooked them on low all day. When I got home, I shredded all three for use over the next few days. Tuesday night, I made this super easy one pot meal. I used half and half instead of cream and I did not make my own bread crumbs, because I had a box of panko-- and I love panko. It was yummy, and since we didn't have company, we had 2 portions left over.

THURSDAY- Sweet Potato Topped Chicken (via BHG) 

Rather than using canned yams (and because I knew I'd need more later in the week) around 4pm on Wednesday, I peeled, chopped and boiled 4 smallish sweet potatoes. I mashed them up with a bit of butter, put half in a tupperware for use later in the week and then used another 3rd of my previously shredded chicken for another yummy one pot meal.

FRIDAY- I had planned to cook, but ended up being treated to dinner at City Diner with the in-laws. Yay meatloaf and mashed potatoes!

SATURDAY- We had a pool party/cookout to attend during lunch, but for dinner, we finished up the leftovers from Wednesday and Thursday.

SUNDAY LUNCH- Sweet Potato Burgers with Avocado (via Healthy Happy Life)

Y'all know I love meat. So the fact that I didn't miss it at all while eating these burgers is really saying something. Truth be told, I've been looking forward to making these since I pinned the recipe 2 weeks ago so I had high expectations-- and this did not disappoint one bit! We didn't have lettuce, so we went without. And I didn't have white beans, so I used black. It didn't matter. Also, we halved the recipe and had enough for 4 patties. I used dijon mustard on mine, like the recipe said, but Todd chose to slather his with BBQ sauce (which is what he always uses as dip for sweet potato fries) and said it was delicious too. 

Addendum

SUNDAY DINNER: Chicken Noodle Soup & Grilled Cheese (via Cooking Classy)

I had leftover ingredients from the week (a bit of shredded chicken, some onion, baby carrots, a few stalks of celery, egg noodles and grape tomatoes) and I found this recipe on Pinterest tonight. So, I adapted it, using what I had in the cupboard. It turned out delicious! Todd insisted on having grilled cheese as well, but we only had two slices of bread because I'd forgotten to take a new loaf from the freezer. However, I still had one pita left-- hence the modified grilled cheese you see in the pic. :)

I'll be trying to meal plan again this week-- but this time WITHOUT going grocery shopping. Our food budget is maxxed out till next month. But fortunately, we're stocked with frozen veggies and fodder for side dishes-- and one of our amazing friends brought us back a cooler full of grass-fed beef cuts, courtesy of Southern Farms (her Daddy's farm) in Louisiana. So we'll manage. :)

*That's right. I have a grocery shopping day now. I'll share my life-changing chore schedule in another post.