It’s been a while since I shared the run down of my day with you, so this afternoon I figured ‘Why not?’ Some things to remember when you’re looking at our schedule:
It is NOT written in stone. I would say ninety percent of the time, it looks nothing like this! So why put it up? Because a girl’s gotta have a dream, LOL. No, really - it serves as a loose framework over which the actual stitches of our daily life get knit. Or a sewing pattern if you like. Some of you gals are wonderfully adept at whipping up skirts and whatnot without patterns. I am not one of those gals. I need guidelines, even if I do choose to mix things up a bit as I go along.
We don’t homeschool. Don’t even begin to try to superimpose your homeschooling family life into the below schedule. Won’t work, LOL. I don’t know how those women do it - but I’m in awe. This works for our family in this particular season in our life.
The kids don’t participate in extra-curricula (after school) activities. This is mostly due to time management practicalities rather than any particular conviction against them. With our eldest attending a special ed classroom in a mainstream school several suburbs over - different to the school our younger two attend, which is just down the road - we are limited in what we can say ‘yes’ to. J travels by government-funded taxi to and from school each day and as such, can’t take up the opportunity to do after-school sports. He needs to catch his taxi at the same time each day, or miss a ride home. With TH on a rotating work roster and us being a one-car family, picking him up is very difficult. Most of the families in J’s classroom are in the same boat - they live a few suburbs over (different direction, usually) and Mums and Dads are already time-poor taking other siblings to and from school at those times of the day, so carpooling isn’t really an option either. Similarly, I have to be at home on time every school day to meet J’s taxi, which limits the extent to which Boof and Moo can take up extra-curriculas. Lest you all think I’m a horrible parent, we do encourage them to participate in seasonal sports, such as Auskick (a junior skills-learning approach to Australian Rules football, run between May and July/Aug each year) - our local group meets at the school at the end of the street (no car, no worries - we can walk) and is held on a weekend (no needing to be here or there to meet J’s taxi after school).
So - on to the plan. Remember, FLEXIBILITY is the key word for me.
6:00 - Alarm (at the moment my alarm is set for 6:45 and I’m rising at 7:00. I’m finding that a pretty rushed start to the day, so these new times reflect a change I hope to have made habit in a month or two)
6:15 - Breakfast (leisurely for a change! J rises around 6am most days but the other two sleep a little later…this gives me a chance to eat breakfast slowly (instead of standing up at the counter wolfing down a few mouthfuls of toast because we’re late). No email checking at this time though - I’m far too likely to be tempted by Google Reader and end up late anyway, LOL. Getting up earlier would also allow me to kiss TH goodbye when he’s on dayshift and leaves the house at 6:30.)
7:00 - Morning Routine (more on that soon - the others wake and are breakfast-ed, J is picked up around 8:00)
8:40 - School run (Mon/Wed in Moo’s classroom)
9:30 - Exercise (if I don’t take it now, before I get embroiled in ‘house’ stuff, it never gets done or I get too tired to bother)
10:30 - Housework (this is where I refer to my Basic Weekly Plan (more later) and just get to it. The earlier in the day I do my main housework block, the more energetic I am).
12:30 - Lunch
1:00 - Home Project (I’ve found I’ve got to have a section of time somewhere in my schedule for this. These are those ‘extra’ homekeeping jobs that don’t really qualify as cleaning (and can totally be ignored in seasons of high-stress or low-time) but still need doing. Putting photos into albums, cleaning out the filing cabinet, that sort of thing. Sometimes if I’m light on ‘extra’ jobs to do, I’ll get the laundry sorted ready for the next day or I’ll bake something. I’ve found that actually stopping ‘regular’ housework for lunch and then not picking up again during this hour works better for me. Less burn out, plus if I didn’t allow a daily (or almost daily) section of time to tackle the additional project stuff I’d go months and months without ticking any of it off my list).
2:00 - Personal Time (by this time of the day I’ve already been up (in theory!) for 8 hours and I’ve been working hard for most of it. I read, relax a little, potter about the house, sometimes blog. It’s free time, though sometimes I’m finishing off a bit of baking or continue on with the Home Project).
3:00 - School run (J arrives home around 3:35)
3:40 - Afternoon Routine (more later)
5:00 - Dinner prep, set the table
6:30 - Eat dinner
7:00 - Evening Routine (more later - the kids go to bed at 8:30)
8:30 - Mum’s Down Time (okay, so I like my TV. I don’t watch near as much as I used to but I have some favourite shows. If there’s nothing on (we don’t get pay TV (cable) then I might blog or (try to!) do a little craft).
10:30 - Prep for bed (shower, pjs, brush teeth)
11:00 - Bedtime (I can tell you right now, the last time I saw an 11pm bedtime was prior to 2008. Maybe even 2007. I get horribly sucked in by the allure of the internet, which isn’t great, but the above is the ideal. Seven hours of sleep seems too little to some. It seems extravagant to me, at least when held up against current standards!)
I don’t even bother to plan the weekends like this - that’s part of the weekend’s appeal! We do have a loose plan, more of a to-do list rather than a schedule though. It helps. But the Basic Daily Plan is vital to the way I keep my home. I might be terribly BAD at some aspects of that, LOL, but I’d be a far, far worse prospect without at least some direction :P
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