One of my girlfriends is about to go through a life changing event. Well, more than one but a huge life changing transition period in her life. She has two wonderful children now… two years old and almost one. She is pregnant with number three (don’t know what it is yet) and then she will have three children two years old and less! She is a very brave woman as far as I’m concerned!!! She was working part time (30 hours) but now has started to work full time to give them some more money to save in preparation for number three. Her hubs works full time and wears a badge every day as mine does (no, they don’t work together). The two little ones are in full time day care.
Once number three gets here she is going to be a full time stay at home mom!!! Yes, I’m seriously jealous of her. She is so happy to be able to do this but the problem she is having right now is how to juggle working full time, two kids, husband, dogs, house, being pregnant (that alone is a serious energy zapper!) and everything else that goes along with running the lives and household for a family of four.
She asked how I get everything done. I work full time, have two little ones, a hubs that works full time as well (and sometimes more with his spot on “the team”), I have a full course load for school (four classes – one in class and three online to teach myself), and just everything else that I try to get done… couponing, Aly’s dance class, shopping at multiple stores with coupons, cooking dinner every night, cleaning our whole house, keeping up the laundry and everything that needs to be done and goes along with life. It’s a huge long list and everyone for some reason thinks I have it all together, my house is always clean, my kids always look perfect, I get good grades in school, I’m excelling at my job and everyone thinks I have it all together, like REALLY together.
Guess what… I don’t! Contrary to popular belief you CANNOT eat off my floors! If you open the linen closet in our bathroom you would see a big pile of dirty clothes. Not to mention the two loads of clean laundry in baskets on top of the washer and dryer that are hidden behind doors yet to be folded and put away. There is a ring around one of the toilets upstairs (gasp!). You know what… I don’t have it all together. Mainly because we are busy people, always on the go, always something going on, taking weekends to the beach and leaving the house stuff for when we get back just to jump into our lives again. I do have it together for the most part but there are always things to get done. The housework doesn’t cease, my to do list grows and grows… seriously it multiplies into ten lists by the end of the week, and the dirty clothes that a family of four can accumulate in two days time is horrendous and scary at best!
Do I get it all done? Yes, eventually it all gets done, especially this weekend while we’ll be home for the first time in three weeks! This is the basic list of how I try to keep everything together. I will elaborate more later but these are my basics. They may sound funny at first or way too super easy or just plain strange but this works for me. It may work for you, it might not but everything doesn’t work for everyone. Take from it what you will but this is how I plan on taking care of me, mine and ours!
· Have a planner… I made my own
· Remember what’s really important
· Plan on doing it all without help
· Clean as you go
· Make a weekly menu
· Limit your shopping
· Make your “to do” list of your top ten
This is what works for me and I will elaborate on each one later…
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