Who's Minding the... House?

It has been and continues to be a humbling experience to possess all the joys (who am I fooling?) of pregnancy while chasing down a toddler. My family and my home have all suffered. But it's also been a time of blessing to watch those around me chip in to help, especially my husband. I owe the current state of our home (yes, it's fairly clean!) to him... and also the current state of my emotional life (that's in good shape, too).

Now that I'm slowly regaining my pre-morning sickness ground, I've had to start doing things a wee bit different than normal. Here's how I'm minding my house at the moment:

-- My previous cleaning schedule has been shelved in lieu of an end-of-the-day tidying. There is dust in my house. Lots of it... but I'm only able to tackle a room when my energy meter decides to climb.

Did I ever mention that we purchased a Roomba?! I had hoped to write a full review of the newest member of our house -- affectionately termed Mosie (a combination of the Jetsen's Rosie and Wall-e's Mo) -- but something got in the way, I guess. So here's my review: Buy one. Now.

-- I'm managing my time using my personalized daily docket (at right). "MIT" stands for "most important things". Many thanks to SimpleMom for the inspiration.

-- And as you can see, I'm now menu planning. I've never been big into menu planning. Besides the pre-thought hassle (in my previously uninformed opinion), my tastes always changed from day to day, so I wouldn't follow it anyway. But now that food and I are not the best of friends, I've found a weekly planning session to be a winner of an idea. I only have to really think about food once a week, and my family has a rounded meal each evening. They are happy. Very happy.

Even better, I've started having Matt grill out a larger than normal amount of meat on Sundays, so then I can use it in quick dishes during the week. Doubling dinner portions also leaves us handy options for lunches.

Last week's menu:

Sunday - Matt grilled chicken; leftover green bean casserole
Monday - Blackbean vegetable soup; cornbread; peach crisp
Tuesday - Parmesan Tilapia; green beans; cantelope
Wednesday - Chicken tacos; corn-on-the-cob
Thursday - Dinner out
Friday - Beef stir-fry w/ carrots & zucchini

And that's the latest on who's minding our house... if you wanted to know. :-)