3 Days to Go

Warning...this post will be dull, with lots of math. It has to be done. Knowledge is power, so they say. I don't like details, or math, so if reading this is like watching paint dry, think of how I feel ;) The good thing is, once you and I get the planning behind us, we can actually begin to put it into practice.

Today is the day I am going to set aside the time I need to plan my week. Since this experiment is for sixty days, I want to look at the little, everyday changes from a weekly perspective at a glance. I have determined that I will not say, "On Wednesday and Saturday, I will do XY and Z at seven o'clock sharp". What happens when one of life's little curve ball's is thrown into my day, and seven o'clock on Wednesday comes and goes without me doing anything I set out to do? I will feel like I've failed. Instead, I will plan to get things done daily, weekly, etc. So what if I can't do what I had planned on a Wednesday night? If I know ahead of time, I could do it Tuesday. If I don't know prior to Wednesday night, I can always fit it in on Thursday. What do I want to accomplish in that week's time?

Well, I've noticed, for one thing, that dust seems to invade my shelves and knick-knacks within about three days. It takes about fifteen minutes to dust all the (visible) areas in the house, so I will dust twice a week. It takes about five minutes to sweep and wash the kitchen floor, so I will also do that twice a week. Vacuuming the house takes about twenty minutes. This will be done once a week, with a five minute touch up in the living room as needed. I have two bathrooms. It takes about five minutes a day to swish out the toilet bowls and wipe down the sinks. "Clean Shower" works great at keeping the showers nice, and squirting that into the showers doesn't take enough time to even register on my weekly schedule. Adding all that up, it's a little more than an hour a week to keep the house looking pretty nice. Not too bad, I would say.

Laundry tends to pile up if I do not wash every three days. I can bring all the clothes from the dryer out to the living room (our place is one level) to fold and hang while I catch up on the evening news. Does my living room look perfect if someone comes to the door unexpectedly? No, but again, I'm not aiming for perfection. My goal is to try to do what works for me. Folding and putting the clothes away will take about fifteen minutes twice a week (putting things into the washer and dryer doesn't really take enough time to register on the clock).

Eating right means creating a list for shopping. Because I like my fruits and veggies fresh, I will plan to go to the grocery store twice a week. This will probably take a half-hour each time, now that I have a list, and the store is only a block away. It will also probably cut down on the "throw-away" produce that gets shoved to the back of the fridge when it's not eaten within three days.

Exercising has always been better for me in the morning. It just starts my day out right. Because money is tight, I won't be going to the gym, yet. I'll take it outside to begin with. I can spend that time in prayer, as well. Back when I was a runner, and taught aerobics, I was much more motivated with music. Eventually, if I am able to run again, I will definitely want some good music to exercise with, too. I'm going to plan on an hour a day for my exercise, five days a week, which will include showering afterward.

Sleep - 8 hours a night. Because I'm not sure what my work hours will be, I will have to figure out the actual schedule later. If I can't sleep, I will stay in bed for 8 hours a night. The great thing about sleep is that it eventually evens out in the long run. If I give myself the eight hours in bed, sleep will come.

Preparing meals - ugh. Food has never been my "friend". I have either eaten whatever fills the void, or starved myself to lose weight. I need to develop a better way of viewing food. Becoming obese frightens me, so I have always looked at food as a poison, really, instead of a medicine. I think a lot of us do. In reality, food really can be either a poison or a medicine. We wouldn't take a teaspoon of arsenic for a cold when we really should take cough syrup! Why, then, do we eat cheeseburgers when we don't feel well physically, when we should be enjoying a nice, green salad? I swear, humans are the strangest people I know!! So, during my experiment, I will try to view eating as something that is as good for my body as exercise. Hopefully, preparing meals will then become something to look forward to as a means of taking care of my body, and also my children's. Well, it is an experiment, isn't it? Meal preparation will take about 30 minutes a day, which will include lunch and dinner. Breakfast can still be cereal, can't it?

Getting the kids to and from school takes about a half hour a day, five days a week. Maybe I can find someone who is driving by to pick them up for a few dollars a week. Though my budget is seriously lacking, I have to remember that I would be spending that amount in gas, anyway, and having someone scoop up the kids daily would help them put gas in their car, and would be a real time saver for me. PS, taking a bus is not an option since my kids attend school in a different town.

So that's the "bare bones" of my schedule. The things that have to be done. Oh, washing and putting away dishes - 20 minutes a day. Adding them all up in a week's time will total about 75 hours, including sleep. This is only an estimate. The actual times may be more or less, and I'll find that out as I go along. 75 hours isn't bad, considering the fact that there are 168 hours in a week. I will even tack on an extra ten hours a week as a buffer for things like making the bed, helping my little one pick up her toys, serving and eating the gourmet meals I've so painstakingly prepared (!) and unexpected extra work that will crop up. So now I have set aside 85 hours every week to take care of the things that I must do. After that, I'm left with about 83 hours a week for things like playing with my kids, going to work, attending church and personal worship, writing letters, posting on the blog and spending time with friends. 83 hours a week! Even when I get a forty hour a week job, and (if I) commute an hour a day, I will still have 38 (awake) hours left over each week, without having to spend that time on grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry (unless I want to). I could even go a step further and subtract another eight hours from my 38 to go toward my "emergency time fund". It's a fact of life - unexpected things happen. I'm still looking at thirty hours a week in which to do, well, anything. I will try this experiment for two weeks to see if all of this is realistic. I love the word "experiment"! It leaves room for trial and error.

Now that I have etched out the time I need to accomplish the "must haves" in my life, I'm not so overwhelmed (and it feels good to have this tedious preparation part over with).

Until Tomorrow~~~Elizabeth