care tasks

How to fight the Sunday Scaries

Abby H.

You know the feeling, it’s Sunday afternoon, about lunchtime, when you realize you have to go back to work tomorrow.

But you don’t wanna go to work. You’re not ready to go back to work. There are dishes to do, and laundry, do you even have anything for lunch this week?

Here is how I fight the Sunday Scaries and ensure our school/work week goes off mostly without a hitch.

I reset the house. Put away all the stuff that’s hanging about in the common living areas. The kids pick up their toys, books, and the worn socks that somehow are littering the living room. Collect all the trash from the little trashcans in each of the bedrooms and bathrooms, and take out the kitchen trash and recycling too. I set the robot vacuum to go through all the rooms in the house. (Full Disclosure- I received the robot vacuum about 18 months ago to review and it is the most decadent thing I own. I feel like Jane Jetson every time I use it).

I refill all of our meds for the week. If you follow me on Instagram, you seen the pictures of when I post my refill shenanigans. It takes about 15 minutes, and it’s just a good way for me to make sure that we have enough for the next 10 days or so, and that everyone will start and end their day with the medicines that they need.

I refill the snack/lunch bins in the cupboard. Make sure we have enough drinks, snacks, and lunch goodies for the week. This goes for both the kids and myself. Because I am taking lunch from home. Regardless of what I’m doing during the day, I always have lunch in an insulated container, and a few bottles of water.

I update all of the calendars. I pull the calendars off of the bedroom and kitchen walls and update them with any new appointments or things that need my attention for the following week or so. I try to sync the paper calendars with the calendar on my computer/phone.

Pull together a week’s worth of outfits. This one is really important for my neurodivergent family members, and myself cause I’m pressed for time in the morning. Also if you or your kids have “must-wear “ outfits for the week make sure they are clean and ready to go. I hang up my clothes by outfit in my closet. And the night before I pull an outfit out and then hang underwear and a bra off the hanger and hang it from a command hook on my closet door. And then I go shove a pair of clean socks into my shoes so that I am already to go in the morning. My kids also set out their outfits the night before including socks, shoes, and any accessories.

Clean out backpacks and purses if you haven’t done so on Friday afternoon. This one only applies during the school year for the kids.  Go through folders, and clean out lunch boxes/lunch bags. I also take this time to pre-pack the shelf stable/non-perishable lunch items in the kid’s lunch bags/lunch boxes and leave them on the counter overnight, and then the next morning, I finish packing the perishable/cold items in their lunch boxes with the cold packs.

Meal plan/meal prep for the week. I do dinners and lunches. Sometimes I’ll meal prep breakfast if I know I’m going to be short on time in the morning (that is usually when there are spirit weeks at school and I have to spend extra time in the morning helping the kids with their crazy hair, or whatever the spirit week theme is).

Change the sheets and pillowcases. This is in my opinion, the way to ensure a good sleep on Sunday nights. It is changing the sheets, and I spray the pillows with lavender “sleep spray“.

I write up my weekly care task list.  It is in the notes section of my phone, and it’s a checklist that I can easily check off completed items.

How I’m Saving Time and Money in 2023 and Beyond!

Abby H.

I’m posting a lot less these days because I now have a full-time job outside the house, and y’all- I’m freaking exhausted at the end of the day. weekends are spent doing family stuff (mostly playing with legos and drawing), and doing kid activities like martial arts and girl scouts.

I wanted to share with you some ways you can save money, score freebies, and even earn some money each month without running all over town, spending hours of time doing little penny surveys, or scanning your entire grocery order to earn points for junk (looking at you Neilson panel).

This is how I’ve been doing it for years, and now that I have even less time, I’m leaning on these more.

Automate

  •  Use the calendar in your phone to remind you of appointments, neighborhood free food distributions, sales, and even coupon events: I seriously put the Bath and Body Works coupon dates in my calendar so I remembered to use them.
  • I bought a subscription to  Yasukochi Family Farms CSA boxes. This way my fresh fruit and veggies are delivered to my door each week.
  • Set up auto-shipments for most needed household items. Vitamins/supplements, specialized food, and even pet food. There are all sorts of companies that offer this service including Amazon, Chewy, and Vitacost are just a few.
  • I order from Dream Dinners once or twice a quarter. Now that they have lower minimum orders, I can grab a few favorites and try a new meal with greater ease. I order online, and pickup is so easy- I drive up and they deliver to my car!

Organize

  • I reorganized the kitchen over Winter Break. I have printables available for free. If you are interested, please drop me an email and I can send them to you. They print in color or black and white.
  • I meal plan weekly. I may not have time to post them on the blog each week, but I’ll still have pics up on Instagram each week- it helps keep me accountable. I spend about an hour on Monday evenings meal prepping fruit and veggies that come in our weekly CSA box.
  • For more organization tips that work in our home, check out my post about managing a household with neurodivergencies here.

Disconnect

  • This one is hard, but I am trying to consume only meaningful media. Don’t be afraid to disconnect from Social Media Platforms, people, or advertising that does not serve you or your life. Unfollow people and brands, delete or pause apps as you see fit. Engage with media in a manner that serves you and fulfills you. Do what feeds your soul and makes you a better person.
  • Unsubscribe from emails that don’t serve you. It will make your inbox smaller and you won’t miss information and freebies that you actually want. In my case, it’s freebies from Social Nature, PinchMe, and research study invitations.
  • In the same vein, I am trying to consume less physical media, specifically, mail and advertisements. If I don’t see sales, I won’t be tempted to shop. Junk mail and sale fliers go directly into the recycling can next to our group mailbox.

Saving Money

This is the big one, the reason you wanted to read this post. All of the above will help you save money, but here are a few specific ways that I use to save money on top of all of the above.

  • Use the notes section on my phone to keep a running list of our stockpiles: Toiletries, laundry soap, canned goods, and paper products.
  • Use the notes section of my phone to keep a running grocery list for the week. As we run low on items, I add them to my list. Right now I shop at three stores: Food4less, Grocery Outlet, and Dollar Tree (for specific items that are cheaper there). Unless I have coupons or freebie offers for other stores-usually from Social Nature, I stick to those three. At this point with inflation, we eat meat once or twice a week.
  • Use money saving/rebate apps. My list is here, and it’s pretty up-to-date. Fetch, Ibotta, and Shopkick are my go-to apps, and they yield me the biggest payouts.

 

Sunday Care Tasks: Setting Up Your Week For Success!

Abby H.

One thing I’ve been doing is reframing chores and tasks around the home as Care Tasks. This makes them morally neutral. There is no shame, no guilt. These are tasks we do to take care of our home and our family. Thanks to KC Davis (You may know her as Domestic Blisters on TikTok, her website is Struggle Care).

Sometimes I do these tasks on Saturday, but usually, I do it Sunday morning all the kids are watching cartoons or playing video games. It takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours, but I find that carving out a little bit of time could really help frame the start of the week in a positive light.

  • Go through the kitchen inventory (pantry/fridge/freezer) to meal plan. Chop vegetables, make a salad, make food for adult lunches. Our produce comes on Mondays, but usually by late Saturday or early Sunday I still have stuff that needs to be used up. In that case, I roast a tray of veggies or make up a quick salad, or if I don’t think we’re gonna be able to eat right away, I will prep them for the freezer. I try to meal plan around the food that will expire or go bad first. Meaning that we tend to have green salads first, then followed by other foods.
  • I repack the snack box for the week.  I buy larger snack/lunch food for the kids and fill the snack box. I have a “secret” (at least to the kids) location where I store large boxes of snacks. This is the kids from devouring all of the snacks quickly. 
  • I update the family calendar as needed. We have a wall calendar in the kitchen that I update weekly/as needed when there are things the kids need to know are happening. I also update the calendar in my bathroom on the vanity, and both kids have wall calendars in their bedrooms with events/holidays they need to know about.
  • I make sure all the laundry is put away: I hate doing laundry, it’s my least favorite chore. So usually Saturday night after the kids are in bed or on Sunday I will make sure that all of the laundry that has been washed over the past few days is dried, folded, and put away on Monday morning, I don’t have to hear the screams of, “I don’t have anything to wear! “
  • Take out the trash. Also not a favorite task (it’s heavy and I have tendonitis in my right elbow so carrying is tough), but getting it done helps the week feel a little easier to get started.
  • Clean out/repack the kid’s backpacks. This includes plugging iPads to charge, checking folders for anything that needs signatures, refilling water bottles, and checking lunch bags for any mystery food left from the last week. 
  • Update my care task list for the upcoming week. It is in the notes section of my phone, and it’s a checklist that I can easily check off completed items.

If I don’t get everything done at one time, I break down them into what needs to be done. Kids need clothes for school, charged iPads, and food/snacks. Everything else can wait until I have more energy or some help.

There is no shame in asking for or hiring help (if that is available to you). If you find yourself in need of some care or gentle coaching on how to organize and clean while you are feeling stressed, I recommend KC Davis’ Book, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing.

Let’s Start Fresh in 2022!

Abby H.

Starting fresh means different things to different friends. For some, it’s New Years Resolutions to Eat Better, Lose Weight, Get Organized, Spend more time on Self-Care. Whatever Starting Fresh means to you, I’m here to help.

For me, Starting Fresh means grabbing new calendars for the kitchen, kid’s rooms, and my room (I have a bulletin board next to my vanity with a wall calendar so I can review each day while I brush my teeth in the morning). I update the calendars each month with appointments, days off school, birthdays, etc. I usually get free calendars in the mail towards the end of the year and use those. For the kitchen, I get a Holiday a Day calendar and use that- It’s a great way to include silly “national” days into the meal plan or weekend plans. Like National Pizza Day (it’s in February) or National Bake Cookies Day (that was yesterday- we’re celebrating today).

Other Ways I Start Fresh Each Year (and keep it going through the year):

  • Inventory my Fridge, Freezer, and Pantry (and donate/share any unwanted still-in-date food). You can buy my inventory sheets here on Etsy.
  • Deep Clean/ Organize one area of the house each week. Start small. I start with the front coat closet.
  • Clean my car out. If you are a parent, you know. I take a laundry basket and a trash bag down to the car, and once the trash is out, and the stuff that needs to go into the house is in the basket (and back upstairs), I take my car to the carwash and pay $20 to have someone else wash and vacuum the car (and clean the windows inside and out).
  • Get rid of stuff that no longer serves you. I like to start in my closet. It’s a great chance to weed out clothes that no longer fit or serve me, and I can donate or share them.  I tend to do one area a month. I work on it for 10-20 minutes a few times a week, so it is not a mental burden.
  • In the same vein, do a toiletry/beauty/makeup purge. Travel-sized/sample-sized toiletries can be donated to homeless or domestic abuse shelters or local rehab/inpatient centers. Makeup and personal care items do expire (check out this article from Insider for more deets). If it smells weird or has a strange texture- toss it!
  • Space out Appointments or other “Adulting” tasks. As someone who had two mental/behavioral health appointments, an IEP Meeting, and a doctor’s appointment last week, I can assure you I was mentally and physically exhausted. As it was the end of the year, provider time was limited, so I didn’t have much of a choice, but going forward, I’m limiting myself to 1-2 “Adulting”/appointments per week. Otherwise, it is overwhelming and everything else, like tasks of daily living, gets pushed aside (shower, what’s that?).
  • Spend time Doing Stuff I Like. Yeah, seems weird? Spend a little time doing something that makes you happy. Play a game on your phone for 10 minutes, read, do a craft, work on a project, play Legos with your kids, go for a walk.

A content creator I really like, Rayna Cohen put it simply, ” Allow yourself to enjoy the new energy of the new year.”

My kid’s school sent out a Kindness Calendar for January. I plan on incorporating some of these RAOK throughout January and beyond.

Talk Back: I’d love to hear about how you are Starting Fresh for 2022!