Employing Help

She watches over the affairs of her household...(Proverbs 31:27, NIV)

I tried something new today. I shopped for groceries at ACME online and tomorrow I will be picking up my order. Apparently, when I go to pick up my order, my groceries will be loaded in the car for me. I'm quite relieved for this service because I did groceries with the girls last week and I carried DearDaughter2 in a carrier while I shopped and that was tough on my back. I'm looking forward to just being able to drive up and get my groceries without having to unload the girls.

It's been quite a challenge setting up a grocery day routine. When it was just DearDaughter1, I made Monday mornings my grocery day because the store was the least crowded and the shelves were well stocked. After DearDaughter2 came along I attempted Saturday mornings, where I would get up at 5am, leave the house by 6am, and get back home by 8am while DearHubby and the girls slept. It worked for awhile, but now that DearHubby and I are sleeping in the living room, it's been difficult trying not to wake him while I prepare myself and my list.

I've considered doing groceries in the evening after the girls go to bed, but I am more of a morning person and I am all out of energy by the time evening rolls around. Once the girls are in bed, I get into this zombie like state where I just need to sit down and relax.

So, I tried shopping online today and amazingly, my grocery bill was comparable to what it would be if I had shopped at Wal-Mart. What I liked about shopping online was that my total was calculated for me as I shopped and so if I went over my budget, I could look over my list and remove any unneccesary items or items I didn't necessarily need to purchase this week.

If this shopping online thing works, I may stick with it for awhile.

Another challenge I've had is keeping up with the house cleaning and I've been considering a cleaning service, maybe, once a month. I haven't talked to DearHubby about this idea yet, but I've just been thinking about the things that have been challenging for me to get to and causes me a burden and how I can ease those burdens.

The true burden is purging and organizing and that is where I've been wanting to focus my time on. I created a routine last year where I would spend 1/2 the week working on a major organizational project and the other 1/2 of the week cleaning. The routine worked well when it was just DearDaughter1, but with the addition of DearDaughter2, my time is so much more limited. I barely have time to get to my organizational projects as it is now and so the housecleaning work has just fallen by the wayside even more. My house is not at all filthy as I do vacuum the main areas daily or at least every other day, I clean my bathrooms weekly, and my kitchen and dining table is cleaned daily. However, I have not dusted or cleaned behind or under furniture in over a year and I can just see the layers of dust. Dust accumelates especially quick at my house because we are always under some sort of renovation project. Anyway, as I see my house getting more and more dusty, I become more burdened and more overwhelmed at the thought of getting to those tasks. I guess my goal is to free up my time to be able to focus on our organizational needs and to not have housecleaning so much of a burden. That way I can also have have more free time to be readily available during the day for any playdate opportunities that my arise, because I know that DearDaughter1 is at that stage where play is really important. So, I've thought about looking into Merry Maids and how much they charge and if I can get some housecleaning done for $20 a month, I think I would be interested in that idea.

I've considered swapping babysitting days with a friend, but I wasn't sure if I would really be freeing up more of my time because I would still need to keep DearDaughter2 with me since I'm still nursing her. I tried sending DearDaughter1 off with a friend for a few hours once and I only had 1 hour to really work because the rest of the time I was still caring for DearDaughter2. When DearDaughter2 is weaned, maybe I'll consider swapping babysitting days.

We are by far not wealthy at all and I am not looking into employing help because I'm lazy. I guess I've come to the point where I just find the amount of work just too much for 1 mommy to handle and so I'm looking into ways that I can delegate tasks until things around the house gets settled to a point where 1 mommy can handle it again.