Making Time for Everything.

The first month or so of parenthood was pretty easy and relaxed.  We didn’t do too much and Neil was home for the first four weeks (one paternity leave week, one vacation week and two working remotely weeks) so we were able to work as a team.  We were sleeping well, for parents of a newborn that is, and we were able to get out for walks and our individual workouts.  Then we went on vacation, Neil’s work schedule became more demanding and our weekends became filled with various social/family commitments and to do lists a mile long.

Last night Neil and I finally had a chance to talk about how things were going and where we need to make changes.  We both came to the same conclusion that we need to sit down and create a weekly lists of tasks to accomplish both around the house, with our blogs and other work and most importantly do a better job of planning our meals and making time for fitness.

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My goal for this week is to create a tasks binder with a list of household chores that need to get done daily and weekly so that we can check them off as they are accomplished.  The intention behind this is that all tasks for the day must be checked off before we can do anything fun such as play a game, catch up a TV show, watch a movie or read blogs/mindlessly surf the internet.

In addition to the household chores I want to set up a weekly blogging schedule so that we both can stay committed to our family site and me to my personal blog.  I’m also going to throw in there some designated time for Neil to help me improve RWT and my health coaching site as well.

Next thing to make the list is meal planning the one thing I have been horrible at the past two months.  Part of this I want to blame on our CSA however I say the same thing every time we do one that I hate that it arrives in the middle of the week.  It screws up my meal planning which I like to do on Fridays or Saturday mornings and because the CSA comes in the middle of the week it throws off my planning.  I have to say unless we can get a CSA that delivers on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday that we really shouldn’t do one again.  I hate having to wait to see what we actually end up getting and unfortunately the CSA we did this year was new to us and the produce has been really lacking in quality so we often end up with unusable produce.  What can I say as much as I love the concept of the CSA I am better off shopping at farmers markets where I can buy what I need and want for meals for the week.

The last thing that is going to be part of the tasks binder I am making is designated workout times for the two of us.  It has been a bit of a challenge to make time for workouts due to a number of excuses such as Neil’s work schedule, his training schedule and Edith’s lack of napping or now sleeping at night (read more here). Lately Neil has been getting home later and later from work to turn around and have to do more work after he puts Edie to bed while I make dinner. By the time he does get home and Edith has nursed and is ready for bed it is often going on 7pm and after a day of her not sleeping or a night of of her not sleeping I am exhausted myself and it is really challenging to get myself motivated to workout especially when I still have dinner to make.

Mornings are tough because Neil ends up working most nights until 10p-12a I try and let him sleep in a bit while I hang out with Edie and by the time he gets up and showers he has to go to work which doesn’t allow me time to get a workout in, or lately he has been doing is half training runs in the morning which also doesn’t allow for me to have time to workout. Now during the day I was getting in workouts while Edie was sleeping or we would get out for a walk but when it comes to naps she is hit or miss (a lot of misses lately) and when it comes to walks she is currently hating the car seat i.e. stroller and is hit or miss when it comes to being in one of carriers.  Needless to say it has been a challenge and one I’m not happy about.

I love to workout and I miss it so much. Neil is running is half marathon this weekend and will be done training which means (hopefully) that I can get back in to a better routine that doesn’t revolve around Neil’s training schedule. I also plan to start going to postpartum yoga  which is something I can take Edie to and they have a baby bouncer there so if she fusses someone else can bounce her while I do my practice! Also starting at the end of the month I am committing to Best Body Bootcamp, just what I need to get back in the swing of things and work on getting back in shape post-baby.