This Post is About Housework... Sorta

Okay, so I've been gainfully unemployed for a little more than 8 months.  In that time I've become fairly adept at taking care of a baby and, as I realized last week, very little else.

Somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea of the 1950s housewife (to a point, I'm not putting on makeup for Brian to come home and fixing him a drink).  But I did think that my house would be orderly, dinner would be on the table at the same time every night, and that our weekends would be full of fun and not errands.  And then the reality of how I am hit me smack in the face.

As you might recall, I am not a planner.  I'm not even someone who schedules particularly well.  I am, however, VERY organized.  I know where everything is in my house to the shelf and location. My kitchen drawers are organized by use and my dresser drawers are color coded.  Everything has a home and there is a reason behind this home. But what I found out is that just being organized doesn't get the kitty litter done on a daily basis nor does it make sure that I change and wash our bed linens weekly (seriously, normally that occurs because I wonder when was the last time I did that and then I get grossed out).

And so, I am a firm believer that when you recognize deficiencies in your personality you accept them.  Not like - "Oh well, I guess we will never have clean sheets," but more like, "Crap, now I have to deal with this issue and figure out a way to make sure I clean the sheets."  So, I put my organization skills to good use and made a "chore chart" (just saying this out loud goes against everything I believe in but I think this is important to share - not sure why yet, but I know it will come to me).

Yes, I made my chart in Excel.  Yes, I color coded it. And yes, to share it with you, I put a screen shot of it in PowerPoint, made it reflect, and then saved it as a picture.  And this my friends, is my organization skill at its best.

This chart has everything I should do daily/weekly.  I plan on printing it out and using a new version of it every week.  This is my first week and so far it is working fairly well.  I've fed the cats every day this week (yes, I DID need to put that on the chart... so sad) and I've gone to the gym twice so far (also on my chart).  While this chart may not thrill me, it is nice to have clean bath towels and to know that I will have clean underwear without having to quickly do a load of laundry. 

I think having a kid made me realize that my personality worked when it was just me, but not so much with a family (that and watching a lot of Wife Swap and always identifying with the "quirky" mom who is in to some weird alternative life style and only does chores as needed - creepy feeling).

And so I'm done with this post and I'm still not sure why I shared all of this with you.  I can tell you that I searched the Internet for other mom's "chore charts" and found a lot of conversation but nothing concrete so I'm not the only one dealing with this.  My hope is that these tasks will become habitual and I won't have to use this chart... but the organizational part of me sure does like placing a big "X" in the cell when a task is done.

More Monkey pictures tomorrow. I promise.