Thank you to everyone who entered! I love all the meal ideas! Random.org picked lucky #32 as the winner. When I counted entries (taking out disqualified people and double counting some people for two entries), I came up with Shawn from Between the Lines. Yay! I love her writing and her girls are freaking adorable. Shawn, email me your address and I'll get a package in the mail to you.
But wait, there's more!
I thought I would share an embarrassing story from recent memory. It involves a trip to the local post office and I wrote a post two years ago about it.
And more on the whole funk thing. At the end of last year, I had a mini-meltdown because life seemed so overwhelming (wrote about it here). Much of it revolved around Jon traveling so much. Then we had a spell where Jon did not travel much for work and things eased up. Now he's back to traveling a lot. Jon and I spent a lot of time talking this week about how to better manage our to-do list.
Back in December, I was the one managing everything on the list and I was overwhelmed. It felt like I was constantly nagging Jon to do something. We decided to break it up - Jon responsible for some, me responsible for some. With Jon traveling, me working full-time, two kids and a life, it seems nothing on either list is getting done. So we're going to consolidate our lists into one big honking list. And every Thursday, we'll figure out what needs to get done in the following week and how we can accomplish that with Jon's travel.
The end goal is to keep on top of the to-do list but also not feel like we are spending all of our non-working hours doing chores.
Through all of this discussion, I couldn't help but wonder how other two working parent couples manage this? So please, give me some strategies!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Pay It Forward winner & more on the funk
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I think you've heard my spiel about managing stuff on my own: prioritize, and accept imperfection.
When it comes to getting stuff done as a couple, I'm much less of an expert. I'm a list-maker and Lucas is a doer. I manage the list, and we're both okay with my role as the nag. If things don't get done, they can't have been all that important.
Given how rarely Lucas is home, and how little notice we sometimes get about his departure, I keep the essential stuff assigned to myself, and non-essential (but often big) projects assigned to Lucas.
If it's important enough, we pick up each other's slack. (Lucas cares more about laundry being put away than I do. :) )
Husband also travels so I have the same issue. I'm not nearly as organized as you are though so we often start and abandon lists. Instead I just deal with the immediate crises and bemoan how disorganized we are. Sometimes I have breakdowns but usually I'm thankful for putting projects off for more downtime. One thing that totally annoys me is that I want to pay for lawncare/weeding, etc. and Husband doesn't. We make sure to reconnect once a week to talk about weekend plans and he tries to convince me not to overschedule us. That's hard for me.
We also struggle with this. It is just part of life, working, and raising kids. Right?
I too am a 'list maker'. I can't deal with my life without a list. That being said, it is a challenging task to try to balance being 'productive' with actually being PRESENT with the two kids. I think we are still really struggling with this process. We do divide and conquer but I also make a list at the beginning of the week that has the 'big important' ones highlighted and the less important ones lower on the list. I have had to accept that on some level, my house will be messy, my cards to friends will be late and I won't always have everything ready before hand. this is HARD for me to accept. But I also tell myself that I'm spending really important time with my kids which is critical too. That 'counts' as DOING something on the list. I don't have any wise words other than to cheer you on to find that balance. Sometimes Seren helps us which is useful. She helps in the garden. Helps us unload laundry, etc. The concept of 'chores' isn't one we use but she is impowered by helping so we encourage it. But it isn't like she can pay bills! It is tough! I'll be reading your other readers' comments for additional thoughts! we need 'em too!
I'd like to crack a joke about how I handle this by not cleaning my toilet, but I know you are really serious about this. This whole balance thing is tough for someone who's "engineer like" and has one kid, so I would think it would be that much harder for an actual engineer who has twin boys and a husband that travels.
The truth is that I don't clean my toilets. Well, at least not once a week like I really feel I should. I also don't buy chicken breasts in bulk and cut them up and freeze them even though doing so would save me a butt load of money.
I take several approaches to lightening the load. One is to find short cuts. I'm willing to pay more for semi-prepared foods so that I don't have to do the work. Some of it is not only more expensive, but it's not very green either (paper towels, my guilty pleasure). Other things may seem a little self indulgent. Our community has landscapers. Paying people to mow the lawn ROCKS! So, I'll call this approach the "delegate" approach.
The next approach is to prioritize. I'm pretty sure you do this, but maybe go back and go over the list again and see if some of those things really need to be done as often as you are doing them. If you clean bathrooms once a week, try doing it every other week. Yes, you have to lower your standards a little, but a little dirt never hurt anyone.
Here is my most controversial recommendation. Cut down on the screen time. TiVo may be youi friend, but that little happy TV is also your enemy. That list of shows sitting on your TV feels like every other list you make. It hides in the back of your mind calling to you, "Watch me, watch me" If you don't make any progress on it for a few weeks, it starts to nag at you. Then, you start feeling this compulsion to find time to watch some shows, just to clear things out a little. It ends up causing TiVo guilt that seems just as bad as all the other list guilt.
But, whatever you do, don't stop blogging.
We obviously struggle with the same things. Mostly our to do list does not change very much (well, it gets longer). I try to remind myself that they are young for a short time and at some point, the kids aren't going to want to spend all their time with me and I'll have more than enough time to do other things (ha!). I have friends who have a regular babysitter for a couple of hours on the weekend so the parents can tackle household chores and errands. But I have so little time with my kids during the week I'm not ready to give up the weekend hours yet. Maybe I'll feel differently when they no longer nap!
Wow! I won. I won. I won. I can't believe it. : )
First, I'd like to thank my boss for letting me sign up for blog contests while on the job.
Next, I'd like to thank my husband for doing the laundry and dishes every week. lol
How do we juggle? Not without some tension, I assure you. But, I always cook dinner; he always does dishes and laundry. I do everything else or I tell him to handle something I can't. We take turns with drop off and pick up so that one has a good half hour at home alone each day and that helps with keeping up the house a little bit.
But, I don't know that there is a perfect solution other than just being exhausted at the end of every day.
Hi Laura!
I am constantly wondering how others 'get it all done'. Although Brook doesn't travel, he works long hours and he works out of our house, so often spare moments are spent in his office doing work or answering emails. (It is nice that he can throw a load of laundry in during the middle of the day though!) The finances, meals, kids' doc appointments, cleaning, groceries, laundry, errands, etc. all fall onto me and it's hard.
I am the only working parent in my office with children under age 15, and it is amazing how quickly people forget how hard it is to work full-time and be a parent to two young toddlers. I took my first "well" day a few weeks ago and, when I got back into the office the next day, I practically flew off the handle when all of my co-workers asked if I had a RELAXING WELL DAY. Ha! Relaxing? No.
Right now, we are in bare-minimum mode as far as knocking off things on the to-do list. I hate it. But on the "bare minimum" list is getting someone to clean the house on the regular basis and hiring a landscaper to move some gravel around.
We just had our house painted and I think it was the first time Brook and I realized hey, we make enough money that we should hire things out. Time is money and time is IMPORTANT. I much rather be playing with the boys than cleaning the house or moving gravel.
A whole lot of nothin' in this comment. It might speak to my state of mind as well!
I don't know how you do it. I am impressed with all of you who work outside the home and have husbands who travel. It sounds like you have a good plan and like Joanna said sometimes there is just things you have to let go. Even with me staying at home there are things we let go and we make a big effort not to over schedule ourselves. Good luck on this journey. It sounds like other working (outside the home) Moms gave you some great tips.
We don't have travel to account for, but we do have on-call time which essentially means Albert is working some weekends... and given my schedule... we really only have Saturdays as the only full family day. And only if Albert isn't on call. And only if there isn't a visit to my parents or a kids birthday or some other thing planned. TO DO list... well, sometimes it feels like nothing on it EVER gets done. But it usually falls to me to do the most essential stuff since I work less than Albert does. And almost all of the house stuff (which is why we pay happily for a cleaning lady twice monthly and a lawn care service). Sometimes it feels like the rest of it only gets done by the skin of my teeth WAY to close to the very last deadline and I hate that feeling. Please let me know if you come up with a better way to manage the list. I know I need to start with keeping a better master list... instead of six little lists all over the place!
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