Schedules and Menues

I really hate schedules. It's kind of fun to fill them out, but keeping to them is another story. I don't enjoy feeling like my life is regulated, it seems so...well boring.

But since I had Gabe I kind of feel like I'm drowning in house work and just don't know how to keep up. I've been contimplating making myself a schedule for probably a good two months now, and a few days ago I finally broke down and did it. It starts tomorrow. It's not an hourly schedule in that my days are broken down entirely and I have to do certain chores at certain times - since Gabe is not on a 'set' schedule that's pretty much just a laugh and I don't think I could live that way as it is. I might have a meltdown if I tried. Instead I just have a calander filled out with what chores are to be done on what days. For example every other Monday I will throughly dust and clean the living room, the dining room, and vacuum the house. Every other tuesday is an entire cleanup of the kitchen. Every Wednesday I wash sheets and every other Wednesday I clean the nursery. You get the idea. With the way I've scheduled it there are a few blank days during the month so I don't feel like my entire life revolves around houeswork. Those days are for relaxing, turning the TV on, and zoning out (as much as my child will let me anyway). I didn't put dishes or laundry on the calander because sadly those are daily chores, even on my 'zone out' days.

My mom has told me for years that if I would just make a menu for dinner for the entire month and post it up on the fridge, I would be a much happier person when it comes to dinner time. There wouldn't be any more of Nathan walking through the door and me thinking 'oh it's dinner time!' followed by a back and forth "What do you want for dinner." "I don't care what do you want for dinner?"

I have known she's right, but I've resisted doing it because I just didn't want to. But then I figured while I was making a schedule for chores, why not make a menu too? So Saturday I sat down with my pile of cookbooks that I rarely glance at as well as my favorite borrowed recipes that I've written down on scrap pieces of paper and set to work making an entire menu for the month. Nathan helped me, at least in the terms of 'Yes, make that I like it.' or 'No, I hate (insert food item here), don't make that' and 20 minutes later we had the entire month planned. I do admit it makes me happy to have my grocery list pretty much easily filled out just by going off the menu, not to mention I'll probably save myself a good chunk of money by doing many of the easy from scratch recipes I've found. Funny how I never noticed many of these recipes while looking at my cookbooks before. Goes to show how much attention I was paying them.

I'm refusing to call the chore list or the menu New Years Resolutions because I simply don't keep resolutions. It's just coincidence that it happens to be the new year, I swear. ;-) Hoping that having the menu and chore schedule at quick glance will keep me focued in getting thing done throughout the day.