I used to be a really organized person. I had a Franklin Covey planner, to-do lists that actually got done, a cleaning schedule that I stuck to, and there was order... blissful, wonderful order. Now? Not so much. About a year ago I was a month away from getting married and our lives went from fairly routine to barely managed chaos. I figured after we got back from our honeymoon I'd easily fall back into my nice, ordered routine... but that was not meant to be. There was house hunting to do, a job change, Christmas, moving, painting, decorating, building, landscaping, a trip back east, summer... and that brings us to now. Yep - a year later and the only routine I've managed to maintain from my previously organized life is my always painfully inefficient morning routine.
So I got to thinking and realized that what I needed most to help me get back on track was a schedule... set days to take care of myself and my house. Here's what it looks like:
Sunday: laundry While I don't love doing laundry, I do love starting the week off with clean clothes and fresh sheets and towels. That should be enough of a motivator to get the laundry done on Sundays, but it's not always. A few weeks ago Jared almost ran out of white undershirts. He has at least 15. It was not my finest hour.
Monday: dusting & floors, Wednesday: kitchen & bathrooms In our old house, Jared and I split the cleaning duties. But now that we have a front and back yard to take care of, he's taken charge of the outdoor maintenance, and the indoor maintenance has become my responsibility. I'm not complaining, though. Jared works his tail off outside, the grass gets mowed every week, the veggies and flowers actually grow... it's impressive. He also cooks us dinner every night. Let's be honest, I have it pretty damn good. Which makes it even worse when I regularly put off my domestic duties. I look at the tumbleweeds of dog hair floating across our beautiful hardwood floors and can't help but feel like a terrible wife. Or at the very least, a crappy roommate. I've been using the approach of super cleaning the house about once a month, usually all in one tiring, sweaty, sigh-filled day. Needless to say, this approach ain't exactly working for us. So I'm hoping that splitting out the cleaning over two days and making sure things don't get out of hand by cleaning every week will make this chore a little less painful. Okay, it'll probably be just as painful... but at least it'll look good when I'm done.
Tuesday & Saturday: running I'm not training for a race right now, so my motivation to run has all but disappeared. But we're going to Hawaii next month and I'm still carrying around the 5 pounds I gained on our honeymoon, so I need to get my butt in gear. Immediately.
Thursday: strength training Speaking of weight gain, I gain all my weight in my mid-section, and running doesn't do as much to firm up that area as I'd like. So I've been trying to add in pilates and balance ball workouts once a week. I've done them twice in the past two months, hence why they ended up on The Schedule.
Friday: date night This certainly isn't a chore or a to-do, but having my favorite night of the week sandwiched in with all this cleaning and working out makes me very happy. I don't really know when Fridays became date night for us, but it's been that way for about two years now. We usually try to go to a restaurant we haven't been to yet, which there seem to be an endless supply of here in Portland. (This past Friday we finally went to Belly and we both had their famous Belly Burger. Bacon, blue cheese aioli, and fried shallots. So freaking good.)
So there it is. The Schedule. A no more dirty floors and buddha bellies master plan. Wish me luck.