being a housewife

my hubby and i are living with my mother-in-law and her three dogs. having three black dogs means lots of dog hair to clean up. even though two of the dogs are older, they still bark at anything outside, and the younger one likes to get into the trash and eat any food we leave out. so today i came home from the MVD and discovered kali had gotten into the trash. there was food remains all over the kitchen floor.

in the first several weeks living here i discovered that the chores i did most often were laundry and sweeping the floors. the downstairs floor is all tile, and with all the dog hair, it seemed to take forever when i wanted to do a thorough job. so today, coming home to the kitchen floor being a mess, when i'd worked on the floors so intensely just the other day, i started a new system for my household chores:

i set a timer and work fast for ten minutes on a chore around the house. after that, i take a 50 minute break. so it's a total of a one hour when you add it all up. so every hour, you spend only ten minutes. so easy. but the trick is that once you get into your groove during that ten minutes, you HAVE to stop when the timer rings. and when the timer goes off to get back up, you HAVE to get back up and start again (i'm taking a break to write my blog. yes, i know. fail #1: inconsistency). but so far today, i've accomplished tons. the thing i like about it is that i get a quick burst of accomplishment every so often, without burning out by doing too much at once. it keeps me feeling productive and keeps things getting done. plus, that way i can get other things done. like hang out with my hubby, eat, blog, etc etc. there you have it: my new plan for chores and daily life.