Now that three of the children have moved out, all the household chores fall to me, my husband, and my son. It used to be that I divvied out the lion’s share of the tasks among the kids and then spent my days supervising, training, and correcting. (It was exhausting.) And then they grew up and I made them lists and they did all the stuff. (Like, seriously. For years, I almost never washed bathrooms, hung up laundry, or mowed.)
But now here we are. Just three people with a big old house to keep after.
Problem is, my husband works full time, and my son both studies and works (neither full time), and even though I’m at home much of the time and could shoulder many of the household responsibilities, I am also trying to work full-ish time on Milkslinger. So after some thinking, I came up with a plan.
Mornings, everyone is expected to complete some household chores.
Husband: the milking, and other random piddlies that he just naturally does, like emptying the drainer and starting a load of laundry
Son: whatever is asked of him. (He’s supposed to plan his morning so he has an extra 20-30 minutes reserved for helping out. Does this always happen? No. But we persist.)
Me: all the food stuff, like making breakfasts and lunches, prepping for supper, starting a batch of yogurt, wiping down counters.
Throughout the day, I do some “running the household” tasks here and there, like baking bread, doing errands, making phone calls, keep the homefires burning (literally), but mostly I drill down on writing, video editing, and cheese work.
And then — here’s the beautiful part — late afternoon, the guys come home, and while I cook supper and do the other maintenance kitchen work like cookie-baking, menu-making, smoothie big-batching, apple-schnitzing…
They attack the housework.
Sometimes I write out a list of tasks, but usually I just call things out as needed.
“Collect all the dirty laundry and sort it.” “Replace the flytape.” “Feed cows.” “Drainer!” “Vacuum!” “Trashes!”
Towards the end of the week, I add in some heftier jobs so we don’t get bogged by too much deep cleaning over the weekend. For example, last night, Thursday, my husband washed the upstairs bathroom, I washed the stairs and the kitchen stove, and then I started putting away the Christmas decorations, which the guys helped with once they finished their jobs.
Most evenings, we’re done with everything by about 7 pm, at which point we settle in for a cozy evening.
To be clear. We still fight about chores. We drag our feet. We bellow and snarl. We get tired. We fuss and whine. It’s not all roses over here, people. Do not be fooled. But saving the housework for the evening when we’re all around to work together has done wonders for my work schedule, my stress levels, and for the general wellbeing of the whole household.
Second question first. For those who don’t know, Frog and Toad are characters in a children’s book. They have all sorts of adventures. For example, Toad bakes cookies and shares them with Frog, but then the two of them can’t stop eating them, so they try to find ways to keep themselves from eating the cookies: putting them in a box, tying the box shut (because they can open the box), putting the box on a high shelf (because they can cut the string), and then eventually feeding them to the birds (because they can climb up on a stool and retrieve the box).
So to summarize: a Frog and Toad Temptation is the food you have to give away, or throw away or not buy or make in the first place, because you know you will be absolutely helpless against its pull.
First question second. There are lots of foods I find distressingly tempting and have to think twice about before purchasing — Twizzlers, salt and vinegar chips, peanut M&Ms, candied nuts — but I don’t have nearly as much trouble with homemade goodies except for this one thing: caramel popcorn.
If I make a batch of popcorn, I am ruined. The sticky buttery caramel. The crunchy popcorn. The salty-sweet-chewy deliciousness. I just can’t even.
A couple days before Christmas, I made a double batch to give to the kids as their Christmas Eve treat — one batch with candied peanuts for the boys and my daughter-in-law, and one without for the girls. I ate so much caramel I felt ill, but then I boxed it all up so it was off limits.
I stashed the one remaining jar of caramel popcorn in the towel drawer in the guest room and then forgot about (!) for a couple days, but then my husband discovered it. It’s gone now.
