We've recently revamped our FLOM (Family Logistics and Operational Meeting) by digitizing our agenda on google sheets, and also using tabs to followup on actions from meeting to meeting. Last week the AOB agenda was
- House Stuff - things we need for the kids rooms, trying to get new curtains for the lounge and a new rug and a new IKEA bench for outside
- Lily's birthday party - invite list and who is coming and what we need
- Back to school - what we need, who is responsible for buying it
- Gifts - all our kids have September/October birthdays, and then Hanukkah and Christmas after... so I figured maybe we could plan and order all the gifts now.
Laundry
I am the laundry person. Our Nanny does laundry when she is here, but she only works 4 days a week, and that means I'm thinking of laundry 3-4 days a week. I'm also better about tracking when beds and towels need changing.
Ironing
I never iron. Neither does Andy. I didn't see the point, until I realized that all my clothes are wrinkled and look *soo* much better when ironed. But also, I have no interest in ironing. So, do I find an ironing person? Also, I only own 6 shirts, so that's probably not enough for an ironing person. But also, I have no interest in spending any time ironing. This does not have a solution at the moment.
Cleaning
I do more cleaning than Andy, but neither of us do a lot of cleaning. Except the evening house reset - chucking toys back in boxes, sweeping floors, wiping table and counters. I used to refuse to hoover/vacuum but I'm also tired of living in a somewhat yuck house so now I do try and hoover every few days.
I would love to hire cleaners again, but I failed to hire cleaners 3 times last January and it turns out it takes the same effort to fail to hire a cleaner (three in a row showed up twice then said they couldn't do it... maybe our house is really really gross?). Also, since the twins are generally always home, it's hard to hire a cleaner who can come when they are out and I don't think cleaners like working in a house with toddlers running around.
Food
I recently delegated the food shopping to Andy. His first response was "great, where's the list?" and I almost laughed. "oh no..." I replied, "there is so much more to food shopping than that"
- Scheduling the order. When will it come? Who will put it away?
- Checking the list
- Checking the cabinet to see if we are running low on things we use often
- Checking the meal plan and ordering whatever is needed
- Checking the perishable fruit and veg situation and considering what we may need in 2-3 days time
- Thinking about what other things we may be doing that might need more or different food (ie, might we have friends for lunch? order more rolls! Might we have people for dinner? Perhaps add some cans of something?
Yes, it's all a lot and I think that the best that any of us manage is doing most of it some of the time. In a perfect world I would have a spotlessly clean house, which would be maintained by all members of the household cleaning up after themselves as they go, but it's not a perfect world. It makes me feel better to be in a clean orderly environment, but since I have a family the second best option is letting my standards slide so that I'm not constantly on housekeeper duty.
ReplyDeleteThe keys to success: visiting castles, and not doing some but not a lot of cleaning.
Thank you! Success is castles and standards sliding... but maybe not sliding quite as much as I'm currently sliding.
DeleteThe mental load of household management is high. I agree that delegating a task takes quite a bit of effort. I used to have a monthly house cleaner which I felt made my house cleaner but didn’t actually lower my work load. If it’s workable in your house I highly recommend a robot vacuum. I basically never vacuumed and my floors were kind of gross but with the robot vacuum I usually get the main areas done once a week.
ReplyDeleteThe castles visits look fun. I’m impressed with how much you do with kid outings, work, household management, fun and sport.
I think I felt the same about a house cleaner when we had one - my house was clean but I had a biweekly stress to get the house tidy so it could be clean. I probably spent more time sorting the house, but it definitely looked better, which I guess is a win?
DeleteWe had a robot vacuum but we never used it and I felt like it was always getting stuck on or under furniture. Other people love them though, so maybe its a future idea? If only they could clean stairs!
I think my accomplishments look bigger when I only blog every other week about them - a lot of my life is just incremental small things and some days are basically no things. But I do admit it looks like I do a lot when I blog about it...
Hi Rachel, OMG you laid out all my mental load so clearly!!! I do everything you described, and constantly feel tired about it. Writing it down on the sticky notes helps a little, as well as organizing/bundling stuff together. For example:
ReplyDeleteLaundry: I start a load of laundry first thing in a morning, before making coffee. In our household, it is around 7ish. By the time the kids are gone to school at 8.00 am, and I head to work at 8.30, one load is done!
Bedding, towels, etc. - I have two sets of everything, so i change it every 2-3 weeks, but wash about once a month.
Food: it is easier for me to do a huge haul of food, time-wise, rather than 'stay in a budget" every month. I place a huge order of non-perishable items about every other month, like olive oil, sunflower oil, pasta, flour, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate chips, etc. It is just easier for me to do this order every few months, rather than watch every week, if we are running low on choco chips or cinnamon, for example. So I only shop to re-plenish my supplies. The bill is obviously huge, but it is more convenient for me. Other than that, my husband goes to Costco about every 2 weeks (the man likes this store!), and stop at the local grocery store/farmers market once a week to get fresh eggs, veggies, fruit, etc.
Cooking: I cook a lot of things on repeat, and do at least one food prep per week to ease my week-nights dinners. For example, Tuesdays is always Taco Tuesday, and i usually have cooked ground beef ready (done on the weekend), so i only make some rice in the rice cooker, and put together a dinner in less than 15 min. Hubby does one massive grilling job every weekend (Sat/Sun). He cooks hamburgers, chicken or salmon that I further freeze and use for week-night dinners.
Cleaning: Its an ongoing buttle, exactly for the reasons you described: i work from home 2X week and tend to "see" more stuff. We have a monthly cleaner, and my wish is to have her bi-weekly. I actually found her contact in our neighborhood chat - my advice is to keep asking! Years ago I had a cleaning lady, who loved coming early on Sat morning, yes they like when the house is empty, so i was taking my kids to the library back then for 2 hours, and enjoyed my coffee there, and then was coming back to the clean house. It was a dream!!! I am sure you can find someone! Just keep asking around! Sending hugs!
Thank you Irene! I have decided to keep looking for a cleaner, you're right if we could do Saturday mornings or once a month or basically anytime it would help a lot.
DeleteI love your grocery shopping method and it makes so much sense to me. I wish we had a bigger house with more storage space, but I've started to really stock up on certain things and it does help a lot.
You are totally right about writing notes / sticky notes to get things out of my head. Thanks for your support/commersiation/and advice... it means a lot.
I also find it harder to delegate than to do it on my own in many cases. I obviously do everything myself, but don't have a bunch of kids, so if I leave something somewhere, I know where it is and where it belongs, which helps! My trick for saving time for food prep when I was helping my friend with her kids once or twice a week was that I always made the same thing. This meant I did not have to think about it, she could pick up the same groceries every time, and everyone knew that on Thursday it was going to be tofu stir fry, or salmon, miso and broccoli (sometimes we would go crazy and have breakfast for dinner). For myself, I don't mind eating the same thing for a few days, so I just make a big batch of it on Sunday and eat it 3-5 x the next week. Do your kids like lasagna, mac & cheese or chili (or any bean dishes), as those are my go to "feed a bunch of people and have good leftovers" dishes!
ReplyDelete