Following Up on Last Week's Post "Tweaking My Morning Housework Routine"

I've been thinking about some of your comments from last week when I wrote about how I'm still tweaking my housework routines. Two related thoughts that stuck with me concern letting some tasks slide when life gets busy and prioritizing the work that is truly most important to me, personally and in my role in my family. 

Priorities

While I personally want to remain healthy, it's also critical that I stay healthy (physically, mentally, and spiritually) for the benefit of my family members. For that reason, I dedicate a sizable chunk of my time each day taking care of the different aspects of myself. However, I can't spend all my time just on me. I do have a role to play in my household. My priorities in my role in the household echo some of my priorities for myself. It's my responsibility to ensure there is healthy food available, the house is generally clean, and that I do what I do with a budget kept in mind. I see myself as the support system for my fellow household members. So, those are my basic priorities. 

Letting some tasks slide

I can't always do everything I want to support my family, as life sometimes gets in the way of my best planning. When that happens, I've found that I need to have an idea of what can slide and what really needs to be done. One suggestion in the comments was to let some chores (such as making the bed) slide if I have to choose between doing those or taking my daily walk. For years, I've been doing a version of this, just not thinking it all through. 

When something comes up and I have to skip some tasks, I have a few items that I just cross off my list for the day. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but skipping a shower is usually the first thing I cross off. I can take a sponge bath in less time than it takes to get the water in the shower hot enough to get in. I also skip chores that don't accumulate doubly if I miss a few days or even a week, such as vacuuming or dusting. Laundry does accumulate, so I try not to skip that. So do dishes. Disorganization can really accumulate. So a daily tidying up is at the top of my list to do each day.

This past week, I was thinking about other jobs that I could let slide, if needed vs. those that I really do need to stay on top of. Here are my two lists so far:

Jobs to put off a few days or even a week without consequence, or as I like to call it "thoughtful procrastinating"

• dusting
• vacuuming
• folding some types of laundry (socks and other undergarments)
• grocery shopping (I can usually stretch what I have on hand by several weeks if need be)
• ironing -- I've put off ironing for so long now, I don't even keep the big ironing board downstairs near the laundry room. I use a small table top ironing board when I'm desperate. I mostly wear clothes that don't need ironing, or I use my dryer as an iron. In contrast, my mother used to iron every week.
• mopping the floors -- unless they're obviously sticky, a swept or even vacuumed hard floor makes the room feel cleaner.
• fancy meal prep -- when filling stomachs has been the goal, bowls of oatmeal with dried fruit and milk has been enough for an evening meal.
• cleaning the shower walls -- if I'm strapped for time, I will scrub the floor of the shower, but postpone washing the shower walls for a few days to a week. It's the floor of the shower and the drain that can look unsightly in our house.
• cleaning the oven interior. Unless we're hosting a gathering, my family won't mind if there are a couple of small spills inside the oven.
• organizing the pantry or other closets. While I would like to have them look orderly, I can get by with a slightly disheveled look to the pantry and closets.

Jobs I can't really put off without feeling the consequences

• laundry -- I think we all know the "look" -- those clothes that we wear only when we are all out of everything else. And once those clothes are dirty, we're sunk until we do another load of laundry.
• tidying up -- this is one task I try to do each morning. And now that my kids are grown, there isn't that much to do. It's often just a couple of items that need putting away each day. A tidy house can appear to be "clean" even when I haven't had a chance to properly clean.
• cleaning the bathroom mirror -- cleaning the mirror makes such a huge difference in how clean the bathroom feels to me.
• washing dishes/loading the dishwasher. There's no point in not keeping up with dishes. The job has to be done and only grows with each additional meal or snack.
• taking out the garbage -- there's nothing so unappetizing in a kitchen as a garbage bin that is overflowing onto the floor. And if there's stinky garbage, the odor makes it twice as offensive. Ditto with the kitchen compost container. When it's full, it's got to go out.
• despite going a couple of weeks (or more) with skipping the cleaning of shower walls, I feel it's worth the effort to clean the bathtub every single week. Why? I love baths, and a clean bathtub just feels better.
• wiping out bathroom sinks takes just a few seconds and makes a huge difference in how clean the bathroom seems. No one likes to look at toothpaste spit in the sink, even when it's their own. But, I do encourage all of us to rinse the sink out after brushing teeth. It looks better and makes wiping the sink out easier.
• wiping down the front of the fridge and the handle. If the front of the fridge looks clean, maybe no one will notice the interior shelves need wiping down is my thinking.
• wiping the kitchen counters. This is not just a visual thing, but could be a health thing as well. So, we always wipe down the counters after meals.
• opening mail -- the obvious, a bill could be overlooked by not staying on top of opening mail. But also, mail accumulates. I don't save time by opening 1 week's worth of mail as opposed to opening each day as it comes. Still, I've been known to fall behind on this task. Here's my advice to others with this issue -- at the very least, know what day of the month your bills usually arrive, and make sure you check on those days. 
• bill paying -- I pay bills as soon as I open them or receive them in my inbox. There's no point in delaying, especially as you can often schedule a payment sometime in the future. And with late payment fees, there's every reason to pay on time or early.
• hanging up clothing or putting into the laundry hamper. Picking up two pairs of dirty socks does take twice as much work as picking up one pair. Not hanging clothing promptly that could be worn again doesn't save any work. It only makes the item look rumpled when I finally do get to hanging it and putting it away.

Jobs I'm not sure in which category they belong 

• cleaning out the fridge -- to a certain extant, it's important to keep up on throwing away leftovers. However, with the doors closed, it is definitely an out of sight, out of mind thing for me.
• cleaning the inside of the microwave -- ditto what I said about the fridge.
• I guess the same goes for cleaning out/wiping down shelves of kitchen cupboards, too.
• meal planning -- I get it, planning meals in advance makes the actual dinner prep a no-brainer. However, I've also done okay "on the fly" at times. So, if I don't have time to sit down and write out a meal plan for the week, I can at least be thinking each day what I can make, well in advance of the afternoon dinner prep time.

So how about you? Which household tasks would you put on the "thoughtful procrastination" list and which jobs do you think should go on the must-be-done list?

Busy Day Dinners That Don't Break the Bank: Hot Dog Wraps (in bread slices)

My focused work on Monday afternoon was preparing our tax returns. There didn't seem to be a logical breaking point until after 5 PM, and I still had to make dinner for the family. The afternoon had really gotten away from me. I briefly considered getting take-out. Then I decided I could probably make something with what we had on hand that would satisfy all, not require a lot of my energy or time, and not break the bank.

For a main dish I chose hot dogs in toasted bread wraps. I had hot dogs and a loaf of soft wheat bread in the freezer. The bread needs to be both soft in the interior as well as have a soft crust (for flexibility when forming into wraps).

For each hot dog wrap, I used 1 hot dog and 1 slice of bread. I put the bread into a plastic bag and microwaved it briefly to soften up the slices. 

I then buttered one side of each slice of bread. I also buttered the inside of a square pyrex baking dish. 

I placed a hot dog on the diagonal of a slice of bread on the unbuttered side. Buttering the bread helps the exterior of the wrap crisp up. The bread-wrapped hot dogs were placed side by side in the buttered baking dish. I baked the batch at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes. 

At this point, the outsides of each wrap were crispy, toasted, and buttery. As you can see, they hold their folded shape after baking.

One of the side dishes I chose for this dinner was equally easy, honey-mustard carrots. Simply a can of carrots heated through in a saucepan with a squirt of mustard, a spoonful of honey, a blob of butter, a dash of salt, and a tablespoon or two of water. This is a favorite side dish of mine because it's so easy, yet very tasty.

An easy-to-make dinner that was also easy on the budget. What more could I ask on my busy day?!

What are your go-to, easy-to-make dinners that don't break the bank for busy days that get away from you?