We outsource a lot of stuff. I don't claim to be the most fun, most do most awesome stuff on the weekend person, but what fun stuff I do get to do is thanks, in large part, to the cleaning ladies and landscapers. Do we have other stuff that should probably get done? Sure. We have a ton of renovation type work that we have yet to start on, but the week to week cleaning and yard work is mostly done by others. When we first bought our house we were doing all of the yard work, but it just got to be too much; we were spending 8 hours/week just on mowing alone. It just wasn't worth it. The cleaning ladies have been onboard since the day we moved in, they were the ones who were commissioned to remove the previous owners' cooties and we've had them ever since.
ebeth - To maintain 13 acres and a small orchard we could easily be out there 40 hours a week if we did it ourselves and wanted everything just so all the time. I think I'm on the other end of the extreme than you with my sprawling yard!
yeah. . . 13 acres+orchard=ebeth's worst nightmare. I don't do 'land'. our backyard seriously takes about 10 minutes to mow. with a push mower. just enough space for a small garden and a table to eat at. all I need.
We have no kids, and I am not a meat freak. We do keep the house pretty clean. I spend an hour or so every weekend deep cleaning one area. The rest we do as we go during the week. I would love a cleaning lady, but it's not in the budget. We do have someone mow and tr the yard every other week.
Post by katandkevin on May 20, 2013 11:40:42 GMT -5
We have a cleaning lady and landscapers. It has taken us a long time to get to that point though. We tried to do everything on our own the last couple years and have failed miserably at it. I found out the hard way that I couldn't keep up with cleaning when I was training for my half ironman. I know I can't do it while training for a full ironman so DH agree to a cleaning lady because he doesn't have time to do it either.
Post by Wines Not Whines on May 20, 2013 13:25:58 GMT -5
We outsource. We have a cleaning service that comes every two weeks. We still need to spot clean and de-clutter in between visits, but it helps a lot. We also have a very low-maintenance yard. We basically have no grass. We get a lot of leaves in the fall, and we hire someone to blow/collect them. If we had a real yard with grass, we'd hire someone to mow.
I try to limit the amount of errands/chores we have to do on weekends. We still do grocery shopping on the weekend, but we also go twice during the week after work (I go one day and DH goes another day), which might seem like more work in some ways, but it means each trip is fairly short. So our weekend grocery trips only take about 20-30 minutes. We order a lot of stuff from Amazon Prime, so that's fewer errands and shopping trips for random things. My office is fairly close to Target, so I usually go once a month during my lunch break.
I still don't have a ton of time to work out on weekends, but I get Saturday mornings, and DH gets Sunday mornings. We get out of the house and do fun family activities almost every Saturday and Sunday. I'm sure it's harder with 2 kids than 1, but outsourcing is key for us.
Post by Stingyshark on May 20, 2013 13:44:45 GMT -5
I have ADD when it comes to cleaning. I can barely make it through one task before I find something else I'd rather be doing. Cleaning the house takes the entire day. I usually do it on Saturday when DH is in the garage doing whatever he does.
I have a cleaning person who comes every 3 weeks, but life with 2 young kids IS constant work. I don't know ANYONE who trains for an Ironman with young kids. Or even with a 9-5 job. A full marathon doesn't really take much time to train for, it just means waking up early.
I feel like I can do more now that my kids are older though. For example, I took them both to the awards ceremony yesterday. They can sit at a table, eat food, and be relatively low maintenance for a short period of time. I also had a garage sale on Saturday and they were pretty easy...mostly played in the car (they love pretending to drive). We had a sale last year and it was really difficult because they were still very young.
One day you can assign chores. That is when life will resume!!!
No kids here, but in addition to working FT, for the past 3 years at least one of us has also been a grad student and DH travels a lot for work. For 1 1/2 of those 3 years we were both working and in grad school.
I thoroughly cleaned my house before I had knee surgery, but it's a mess again. I'm fine with picking up (and DH helps), but I'm calling a housekeeper this week to get quotes. DH spent the weekend rebuilding our back deck and he takes care of the outside chores (we have a pretty big lawn for living inside the beltway), and he goes on travel again tomorrow. He's also helped with laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking so I feel bad even thinking about asking him to dust and swiffer/mop the floors. Hope the housekeeper recs I received are good!
I'm so glad to be done with school and get back into a normal routine soon, but when we decide to start a family I can only imagine it will get crazy again.
Twins must be really CRAZY! If you have room in your budget, it may be worth it to get some help.
Post by jillybean222 on May 20, 2013 15:32:46 GMT -5
I never spend an entire weekend cleaning - i just do a room or two every day or every other day and i do the same with laundry. i like to have a clean and organized house (i am not crazy about it but i do believe in "a place for everything..." my youngest still naps so i just do it then. i straighten after the kids go to bed. i still have to clean my bathroom almost every day b/c kids are gross.
peapod and amazon are my best friends.
my crock pot is my next best friend.
we have flower beds, a garden and a 1/2 acre of grass, but DH takes care of that.
Our secret: we have 3 day weekends every week. 10.5 hour workday Mon-Thurs. Makes for really long week days though.
I have a cleaning lady, but the biggest thing she does for us is bathrooms and sheets. Everything else I have to redo inbetween visits anyway.
Errands - we try to be purposefully when we're going out and hit more than one place in a trip since it takes us 15 minutes just to get anywhere.
I don't do a lot of pre-cooking for the week. But when I do it's either during nap time or after he goes to bed. For example, once a month I have to prep dog food for the month which takes 2-3 hours to prep. I feel like it kills my whole afternoon, but I've gotten faster as I've gotten a system together. Otherwise I just cook more when I do cook and freeze a portion then.
Yard work - we have a small yard. At our last house mowing/weed eating used to take DH all day. It now takes 2 hours max. Life changing. We also went from an inground garden to 3 raised beds which has greatly reduced the need to weed and chores related to the garden have gotten a lot quicker (unless you count the slow down having a 2yo help).
Laundry - It goes on throughout the day for 2 days over the weekend. I try to fold as each load comes out to reduce the overwhelming feeling of having it all in front of me. If it doesn't, it waits until after bedtime then DH and I do it together and get some time to actually talk.
Training - I work out either starting before 5am or after 9pm. Never more than an hour during the week and just get in my long run on a weekend day.
With DH and I both training for Ironman, household chores are tricky to schedule. On top of our teaching jobs and training, we are both the president of our respective teachers union, which makes for a busy (sometimes unpredictable) schedule. We are looking into grocery delivery, which will help, but we do our own yard work and gardening. Our windows are in desperate need of cleaning, but that may have to wait until school is out!
And we don't have kids. I'm pretty sure that if little ones were around, there would not be two of us training for Ironman!
I have time to do what I want because we live in a small apartment (fast to clean, no outside work) and we have no kids. I think it's really that simple - kids and houses take up a lot of time.
I have ADD when it comes to cleaning. I can barely make it through one task before I find something else I'd rather be doing. Cleaning the house takes the entire day. I usually do it on Saturday when DH is in the garage doing whatever he does.
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OMG me too! The last time I totally cleaned out my fridge it took me three hours. I don't know what I did that took that long, but I just get distracted so easily when cleaning.
MrsE, I love my cleaning lady if you are looking for references. We are in Fairfax, so I'm not sure how far in she'll drive, but she is AMAZING.
Our weekends are usually cramped with yard work, DS's soccer games (b/c we are both coaching) and other household chores. I usually run errands while DS and DH watch an EPL game on Saturday. We rarely get our to do list done. I think that is just life with kids and a house. We do plan one special family outing a month, like an amusement park, walking the battlefields in Concord, skiing, going into Boston, etc. Honestly some things just don't get done and that is okay. It took us both a while to adjust to the new routine or lack there of with DS (DH adds 2-3 hours for every task now b/c of the play interruptions or "help").
Post by mollyrunner on May 21, 2013 9:38:43 GMT -5
My priorities has shifted a lot since having DS. I don't get double workouts anymore, and the house is not as clean. And somehow I don't have time for things like watching TV anymore either. With my commute I am gone 9.5-10 hrs a day so with my non-work time I make sure to prioritize a workout before he wakes and an hour of family time when I get home from work and before he goes to bed. We are getting an every other week house cleaner though because it is driving me nuts not to have things as clean as they once were. I can't even imagine what we will do when we have more kids. And more than 2 hours of fitness a day blows my mind and just wouldn't seem to work right now for me. Good luck!
I have ADD when it comes to cleaning. I can barely make it through one task before I find something else I'd rather be doing. Cleaning the house takes the entire day. I usually do it on Saturday when DH is in the garage doing whatever he does.
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OMG me too! The last time I totally cleaned out my fridge it took me three hours. I don't know what I did that took that long, but I just get distracted so easily when cleaning.
MrsE, I love my cleaning lady if you are looking for references. We are in Fairfax, so I'm not sure how far in she'll drive, but she is AMAZING.
I could only dream of paying someone to do some of the work around our house. Because I can't, there is some stuff that just doesn't get done as often as it should, especially in warm weather. We have so little of it where I live, I am not wasting a beautiful Saturday afternoon scrubbing floors. It can wait. As your kids get a little older, they can help out too. Picking up toys, putting away clothes, gathering up what is theirs that need to be washed, etc. is all something they can start doing around school age.
I used to feel a little guilty about going for a run and leaving the kids at home with DH, while they did chores, but now that they are a little older, I found out that they think it is really cool and are very proud of the fact that their mom is physically fit. My oldest son actually tells his friends all the stuff that I do, and he asked if he can run with me this summer. Totally worth the time put in!!!
We have a gardener, a housekeeper, a nanny during the week and I still feel like I can't get things done. My house is usually picked up, but it's an organizational disaster. I try to run errands on my lunch hour as often as possible. Honestly, I think it's just what life is like with kids. A lot of projects go unfinished or don't get started because I would rather spend quality time with my son on the weekends.