Hello ladies!
I don't post around here very often, but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and I need some help!
I have an okay daily/weekly schedule, where I do the daily stuff throughout the day (picking up, emptying dishwasher, making beds, load of laundry, etc.), and then each day of the week I clean a different area of the house (Monday - bedrooms, Tuesday - bathrooms, Wednesday - upstairs hall/stairs/entryway, Thursday - Livingroom/dining room, Friday - Kitchen/laundry room). Doing this keeps me pretty on top of the housework, and nothing gets too badly out of hand. HOWEVER... there are some things that just don't quite fit into that schedule. Like today, I'm supposed to be cleaning the kitchen & the laundry room. Which is all well and fine, but my laundry room is in desperate need of some organization. I need shelving built in there (it also serves as my pantry, and my sewing room!), it needs to be painted, things need to be re-arranged and organized. It's also where I store all of our office supplies, since our computer is in the living room and there's no room for that stuff (paper, files, hole punch, pens, pencils, etc. etc.). It seems silly to spend time CLEANING (vacuuming, wiping things down, etc.), when the room itself is driving me insane because it serves so many purposes, and there are other things to be done in there. BUT, I have 3 kids under the age of 6, and if I try to do any of that kind of stuff myself, they would be getting into everything, making it 1,000 times harder to do, not to mention some things I need my husband to do (like build shelving). As I'm sitting in the living room, I'm staring at a half-wallpapered wall, that my husband started over a year ago, and never finished. Walls that need painting. So many of those projects are all over the house, pretty much in every room, and it seems like such a waste of time to be CLEANING, when I've got these larger, more permanent projects that need doing (whereas, even if I clean this week, it will be dirty again next week and will need to be done again. Once the wall is painted, it will stay painted, so it seems like I should be focussing my efforts on that stuff. But then my house would be dirty). Anyway, I'm just wondering if any of you have a method for dealing with this kind of stuff? When do you do these larger type of projects? Do you abandon cleaning for a period of time while you get this stuff done? How do you keep the kids from completely trashing the house while you're doing them? Also, I should mention that my husband has a very busy work schedule, and often works week-ends, so usually we only manage the basics on the week-ends, there's no time for extra projects, etc. Also, we co-sleep, and the baby wakes up the minute I'm not next to him (usually with a boob in his mouth), so evenings are spent laying with him on the couch while he nurses/snoozes and then I take him to bed with me when I go to bed, and I also can't get up before him in the morning or he would immediately wake up. So pretty much anything I need to do has to be done during the day (he also nurses during nap time/quiet time, so that's out, too). I'm feeling very frustrated as things pile up around the house that just aren't getting done, and I feel like I take a lot of my frustration out on the kids. When things are disorganized and laying around, they start getting into it and getting stuff out, which only adds to my frustration, and I spend far too much time just putting stuff away that they've gotten into, whereas if it was organized and stored properly that wouldn't be a problem. My husband doesn't understand my level of frustration with this stuff (because he's not the one who's here all day long looking at it/dealing with messes, etc.), so even though I've asked for his help, he's not really motivated to help me. I feel like I should abandon cleaning until I get a handle on getting stuff organized, but living in a dirty house would probably make me *almost* as crazy.
Please help.
I don't post around here very often, but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and I need some help!
I have an okay daily/weekly schedule, where I do the daily stuff throughout the day (picking up, emptying dishwasher, making beds, load of laundry, etc.), and then each day of the week I clean a different area of the house (Monday - bedrooms, Tuesday - bathrooms, Wednesday - upstairs hall/stairs/entryway, Thursday - Livingroom/dining room, Friday - Kitchen/laundry room). Doing this keeps me pretty on top of the housework, and nothing gets too badly out of hand. HOWEVER... there are some things that just don't quite fit into that schedule. Like today, I'm supposed to be cleaning the kitchen & the laundry room. Which is all well and fine, but my laundry room is in desperate need of some organization. I need shelving built in there (it also serves as my pantry, and my sewing room!), it needs to be painted, things need to be re-arranged and organized. It's also where I store all of our office supplies, since our computer is in the living room and there's no room for that stuff (paper, files, hole punch, pens, pencils, etc. etc.). It seems silly to spend time CLEANING (vacuuming, wiping things down, etc.), when the room itself is driving me insane because it serves so many purposes, and there are other things to be done in there. BUT, I have 3 kids under the age of 6, and if I try to do any of that kind of stuff myself, they would be getting into everything, making it 1,000 times harder to do, not to mention some things I need my husband to do (like build shelving). As I'm sitting in the living room, I'm staring at a half-wallpapered wall, that my husband started over a year ago, and never finished. Walls that need painting. So many of those projects are all over the house, pretty much in every room, and it seems like such a waste of time to be CLEANING, when I've got these larger, more permanent projects that need doing (whereas, even if I clean this week, it will be dirty again next week and will need to be done again. Once the wall is painted, it will stay painted, so it seems like I should be focussing my efforts on that stuff. But then my house would be dirty). Anyway, I'm just wondering if any of you have a method for dealing with this kind of stuff? When do you do these larger type of projects? Do you abandon cleaning for a period of time while you get this stuff done? How do you keep the kids from completely trashing the house while you're doing them? Also, I should mention that my husband has a very busy work schedule, and often works week-ends, so usually we only manage the basics on the week-ends, there's no time for extra projects, etc. Also, we co-sleep, and the baby wakes up the minute I'm not next to him (usually with a boob in his mouth), so evenings are spent laying with him on the couch while he nurses/snoozes and then I take him to bed with me when I go to bed, and I also can't get up before him in the morning or he would immediately wake up. So pretty much anything I need to do has to be done during the day (he also nurses during nap time/quiet time, so that's out, too). I'm feeling very frustrated as things pile up around the house that just aren't getting done, and I feel like I take a lot of my frustration out on the kids. When things are disorganized and laying around, they start getting into it and getting stuff out, which only adds to my frustration, and I spend far too much time just putting stuff away that they've gotten into, whereas if it was organized and stored properly that wouldn't be a problem. My husband doesn't understand my level of frustration with this stuff (because he's not the one who's here all day long looking at it/dealing with messes, etc.), so even though I've asked for his help, he's not really motivated to help me. I feel like I should abandon cleaning until I get a handle on getting stuff organized, but living in a dirty house would probably make me *almost* as crazy.
Please help.
s! You sound very stressed, mama.
