FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

DH and I have a pretty good system in place during the week, but I still feel like we spend all weekend doing chores and running errands - especially now that we also need to do yard work.

Our weekday routine is up at 5:30, get ready, and out the door by 6:50. I pick DS up from daycare at 4:30 and then go home and nurse him. We play for a few minutes and then I make dinner. DH get home around 6 and then we eat. After dinner, DH cleans up and I get DS ready for bed. DS goes to bed by 7:30 and then I get our lunches ready for the next day. I shower and relax until we go to bed at 9 (I know early, but I can not function without a decent amount of sleep and my 12 month old DS still does not consistently STTN). I usually try to do 1-2 loads of laundry during the week as well. I clean the kitchen daily. I go grocery shopping on Friday afternoons before I pick up DS.

What types of things do you do to make your weekends "your" time?

ETS: By "your" time, I'm really referring to even quality family time not necessarily "me" time. I actually workout for 30-60 minutes each day so I do get some time to do something for myself.

Message edited 5/1/2015 11:47:28 AM.

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

OMG I could have written this myself -- I'm like a gerbil in a wheel.

I ended up getting a cleaning person. I'm also a single mother so I'm doing the above and it's just me. Not saying it like, oh I have it worse!! But it is just a matter of there's only so much time in the day and I'm just one person... So, I invested in a cleaning person once every other week. She is only sixty dollars (my place is small, though) but her prices are SO reasonable and she's very good.

Anyway, she does the major stuff and then all I have to do is worry about laundry and the little up-keep. It gives me more time with my son after work/daycare before he conks out at 7pm (and he does STTN thank the Lord)... and it gives me more time to enjoy the weekends. I do run some errands like dry cleaning, food shopping, and that stuff on weekends but other than that having the cleaning person has helped me tons. I feel like I run a lot less and like I turn around and it's 10pm and I haven't sat down a lot less often too.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

It is very difficult. I feel like it is worse having to commute (I did work on LI previously) because I can't run errands during my lunch break. Usually on Saturdays I take DD to dance class then go food shopping. Sunday we do all the laundry (sometimes we start it Saturday night if we aren't doing anything) and I also do my batch cooking for dinner and chop fruit and veggies for lunches for the week. Unfortunately I don't get a lot of me time on the weekends. My down time is my commute on the train.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

ugh, that is my gripe, that weekends are never really "me time"
I work full time, get home by 7:15/7:20. dh picks up the kids from daycare/school and is home by 6:15 or so.
some days he cooks, some days I cook. we eat together around 8:15. brush teeth, shower if it is shower night, read a book and go to bed by 8:45ish.
I lay with them till they fall asleep bc I like the quality time and they snuggle into my arms. it is completely relaxing for me. it doesn't matter what kind of day you had or if the kids got on your nerves, at the end of the day, we snuggle and love each other.

after that, I sometimes just keep sleeping ( im pregnant with #3) or go downstairs to put food away. to be honest, sometimes the dinner dishes stay on the table till next morning or they make it to the sink at least. I usually load/unload the dish washer in the morning b.c that is when I have the most energy- pregnant or not.

Saturday: it's take my dd to ballet, clean up the living room, kitchen, dining room, foyer.
Sunday: church at 1030, lunch at 12, food shop if we didn't do it Saturday and hope there is still time to maybe go to the park or something.
laundry is a sh!t show. I wash clothes when we can and then they go from the dryer to the "folding table" where they sit there for eternity.

I always say that I would love to dedicate one or two nights a week and make it laundry day, where I fold at night but im not a machine.
by the end of the night, I just want to veg on the couch and watch tv with my dh.
some weekends, its just work and errands.. and some weekends, its work, errands and go to an event like a birthday party.
oh well...

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I was just stressing about this today. I feel like I need a system and a routine. We had one going in the morning, but my 10 month old DS has been waking up earlier and that's been throwing me off. We do chores on the weekend. I have a cleaning service that comes 2 x a month every other week. That really helps. But I have trouble staying on top of laundry, figuring when to cook. I get home with DS by 4 usually, but husband doesn't get home until 745. Just never feels like enough time in the day.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

We have the same predicament, however what I try to do is get a lot done on Friday night. Laundry I try to squeeze in throughout the week, and our food shopping we do either early morning Saturday or Sunday or Friday night. If we can't get laundry done before Saturday, we put a load up in the morning, and when we put it in the dryer we are ok to leave. We don't have a huge house, so cleaning doesn't really take very long (thank God). We are usually able to get the household and yard chores done by noon on Saturday so we can go out and then other things done either Sunday morning or Sunday evening. This weekend, everything will be done by tomorrow early afternoon because you bet your sweet bottom we will be at the wineries on Sunday.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

That's exactly how I felt when we lived in NY. We were out of the house from 6-6 each work day, so the weekends were just spent catching up running errands. And if we had plans on the weekends and couldn't get our errands done (cleaning/shopping/laundry), the weeks following were H3LL.

We live in AZ now and although I still food shop on the weekends, without 4 hrs commuting each day, I have time in the afternoons to cook/clean/do laundry before picking DD up from daycare, so our weekends are ours again.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

Glad to hear I am not alone! Its like something always needs to be done. Last weekend, DH was going to paint the sunroom and then realized that some of the wood had rotted out of one of the window frames and that took an entire day to fix. The room is still not painted so that is now on this weekend's to do list. It just never ends.

By "your" time, I'm really referring to even quality family time not necessarily "me" time. I actually workout for 30-60 minutes each day so I do get some time to do something for myself. Granted sometimes that "me" time requires me to push DS in the stroller as I'm running.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

we just do everything during the week and weekends at night. so during the day on the weekends we are rarely doing any kind of house work and we spend most the time during the day with DC.
Granted DH might work on something in the house during the day and I will just take the kids out

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I stopped worrying about my house. It gets cleaned and picked up but not like before having a kid.

My house was cleaner when DS was younger now it's just a toy explosion.

I clean on Saturday mornings. I can get through the house in an hour or so if my DH will take DS out of the house.

Laundry is done all week long.
Food shopping is done either 7am on Sunday or Sunday evenings at 5ish. I refuse to deal with crowds. THe rest of the weekend is family time.

We had friends ask us last weekend how we manage to do so much fun stuff......we are up at 7am even on the weekends. They don't get up til much much later.

To me a clean house isn't as important as having family fun. I can have a clean house when everyone leaves for college. If you came over today you would see mail from the week on the table, toys all over the living and dining room. laundry basket int he kitchen (my laundry is in there) and dishes in the sink waiting to be washed.

Oh well....we are having fun and it will get cleaned up later tonight or in the am.

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

My DH is home some during the week so he can run errands and such.

I do laundry various nights during the week. We remodeled a few years ago and put our washer and dryer upstairs and it's been a godsend - it's right next to the bathtub so I usually throw stuff in during bath time.

On the weekends - if errands need to be run, they are done early in the morning. I don't go to stores that aren't open by 8am anymore - I shop online there.

I have a cleaning lady come 1x every other week which helps - and we try to straighten up quick at bedtime.

I also work at home one day so I drop the kids off early in the morning and run errands before working, and sometimes at lunch...

FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I am out of the house from about 7:15 am to 6:00pm mon-fri.

Laundry I try to do during the week. Sometimes I throw it in the wash before I leave from work (if the woman that lives downstairs is already at work-washer is in the washroom right by her door) If that is the case, then when DH gets home, he'll throw it in the dryer. if not he'll start it when he gets home. (usually about 5) By the weekend I am just usually down to one load of the white clothes.

Dishes go in the dishwasher every night, so they are not in my sink.

Food shopping usually gets done on weekends (takes about an hour), unless we get really adventerous and go on a friday night. LOL. If i have to go to Target, I try to go on my lunch hour at work.

Dusting, straightening up, is usually done in between during the week or first thing on the weekend. DD is usually up between 7-7:30 on weekends so I can get some stuff done before we take her out for the day.

I gave up on trying to keep DD toys under control...it is an explosion in my living room. Most of the times she's good at cleaning them up, but then she dumps them all over again 2 minutes later.

I am sure there are more things that I do during the week but I can't think right now.....

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I keep the house neat all week - things aren't left all over ...partly b/c I can not function in a mess, it gives me severe anxiety.
I do laundry on the weekends, but laundry is never a big deal to me, it takes a few minutes to throw a load in the washer or switch to the dryer ......maybe 10 to fold a whole load? KWIM
I clean bathrooms ALL week because I have 3 'peeshes' in my house .......two of them are little
The kitchen is wiped down every night, beds made every morning

I change sheets on Sundays, and do the full bathroom cleaning and mop floors at some point over the weekend depending on what eles is happening and where I have to be.

My Mom is at my hosue on Tuesdays w/ my son, and she thankfully helps me a LOT w/ dusting and going over everything.

I spend a good 2 - 3 hours. But I don't let it take up my whole weekend. I refuse to do that anymore. The house is clean. Can you eat off the floor? No, but who the hell eats off the floor anyway?

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

DH does the laundry during the week (he is actually anal about it, so I just let him do it). I try to sweep each night after dinner and pick up after my DS toys. Weekends I will try to squeeze in more "deep" cleaning such as bathrooms. I don't go nuts though if things aren't perfect.

ETA we do our food shopping on Friday nights

Message edited 5/1/2015 1:38:46 PM.

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

It definitely is not easy. To help me out, I have been doing the Shop Rite from home grocery shopping. I'll order my food online and then I schedule it to be picked up on Sunday. It doesn't save me time per se but at least I'm at home, on my couch, doing the shopping.

I would really like to get a cleaning lady but DH doesn't like the idea of a stranger being in the house. Instead, he helps me out with the cleaning but my house is nowhere near as clean as I would like it to be. I do the cleaning on Saturday mornings. I do laundry throughout the weekend.

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I do laundry in the morning while we are getting ready to leave. I throw a load in about 3-4 days a week before I get in the shower and then I can throw it in the dryer before we leave. I fold the laundry at night. Surprisingly, that small chore frees up so much time on the weekends.

As for errands, we try and do those as early as possible. It's usually just food shopping because I run my smaller errands during my lunch breaks at work.

We clean a little bit each night. I'll dust one night and do bathrooms another night. All of the little things help free up our weekend to do things like bday parties, or sports or fun family stuff.

And we also go to bed early. DH and I are in bed no later than 10pm every night (including weekends ). So here's a breakdown:

6:00: Up, throw a load in the wash and get in the shower
6:15: In the kitchen to get coffee and breakfast and last minute lunch items together (empty the dishwasher if needed). Get kids dinner ready for later.
6:30-6:45: Kids start waking up, get them dressed and fed.
7:00: start getting ready (hair, makeup, get dressed); make beds, straighten up around the house, throw clothes in the dryer.
7:45: Get kids out the door in the car (include last min peeing, diaper changes, sneakers, jackets)

Work 8:30-5:30

6:00pm: Get home, warm up dinner for kids, feed said kids
6:30-6:45: showers and/or playing and prepping for next day
7:00: Bedtime for youngest child
7:30: Bedtime for older child
7:30: Start dinner for DH and me; dust or clean the bathrooms.
8:00: DH gets home, we eat and watch TV/talk
9:00: Clean up toys, fold laundry
10:00: BED!! Or as I like to call it, the finish line.

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I really try to get everything done during the week. I do laundry on 3 nights during the week. I run any errands right after work. I food shop on friday right after work too. I do have a cleaning person that comes so obviously that's a huge help. Sometimes I need to do work from home too, but I make sure to set aside one night during the week for this. I would rather push myself to get stuff done during the week and have a free weekend. I leave my house very early in the morning but I am home by 4.

Re: FTWM - Chores and the Weekends

I sometimes feel like this is the bane of my existence. My house is constantly messy. I would be mortified if someone just dropped by. My biggest issue is my family room. It's DD's play area and there are toys everywhere and she is just in everything. My other huge issue is my kitchen table, which becomes a dumping ground for just about everything.

I'm just resigned to the fact that while I have young kids, this is life. We are expecting #2 this summer, so it's not going to get better any time soon. My house is a bit too large at this point for me to really take care of it the way I'd like, so I think we are going to get a cleaning person and I'm hoping that will help.

Unless things are completely out of control, house stuff is secondary to family time.