Gender Inequality

I came across this Indian advertisement for laundry on my Facebook feed and it brought me to tears. It brings home a fact that is so true... Women do a lot more of the housework and childcare than men do. And when a man does do housework, he is greatly appreciated and lauded for that.

My husband and I both work full-time. My husband enjoys cooking more than I do and does majority though not all of the cooking in our house and recently has started doing his own laundry as well. But I still do 95% of the childcare in the house and 95% of the cleaning and my laundry and the kids laundry. I however consider myself better off than a lot of other Indian women - my husband does more work than they do. But it's not equal.

I read this article on the New York Times and according to the article, in India, men spend about 0.9 hours per day on cooking, cleaning and childcare whereas women spend about 5.9 hours per day on the same. Talk about being unbalanced.

June Goals Update

June was a fun month for me with travel to Disney and preparing for my parent's visit. They arrived in the 3rd week of July and life has been really busy since. I didn't get a lot done but was still a good month with spending lots of time with family. My husband switched jobs and that's been a change in our routine that we're still adjusting to. I also caught Conjuctivitis and had to wear glasses for a week which gave me massive headaches.

1. Lose 12 lbs: *sigh* I'm still at 136. However, as per my 30-day walking challenge, I'm trying to hit 10k steps. 
2. Learn swimming: Honestly, I'm not sure if I can do this. I'm too nervous about getting my vertigo back again. But l want to do this - so I'm going to try. 
3. Read 12 books this year: Was so busy with Disney trip and preparing for and visiting with family that I didn't read much. I read Family Fun May 2015 magazine and a lot of online reading but that was it. I need to do better this month. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Lots of time on gardening and not much other than that. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: DisneyWorld was quite an experience for her and with my parents visiting, she's been a little overwhelmed. So we decided not to do too much this month. 

I'm starting a new section below for my parenting goals. I'm hoping the accountability will inspire me to do more.

Parenting Goals:

1. Potty Training: Been going well. I'm seeing some progress - most days, she goes in the potty in the morning and night when I ask her to. At daycare, she's been peeing more in the potty. While she's still not fully ready yet, she's beginning to get there. 
2. Teach her to recognize ABCs: More progress on this too - I would say she recognizes about half of the alphabet and numbers from 1-10. I've given her foam letters to play with in the bathtub and have been teaching them to her in the bath. 
3. Drinking milk from a cup: Not much progress on this. 

How has your progress been on your goals?

Daily Routine

A few weeks ago, I bought the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle and as part of the bundle, the getting started section contained the 4 Simple Steps to Stress-Free Homemaking mini-course as an introduction to the bundle. This course is 

There are 4 short videos each of which talks about how to solve common problems in homemaking and how  to integrate those solutions into your daily routine. I came up with a simple daily routine to start implementing these steps. 

The 4 steps are fairly simple but really important:

1. Fold and put away one load of laundry before starting another
2. Start dishwasher in the night and unload dishwasher first thing in the morning so you can start loading dishes throughout the day
3. Once a week, have a meeting with yourself. Check on what are plans for week and see how many meals need to be made. Decide on what those meals are going to be and make a grocery list.
4. Nighttime routine:
• 5 mins to do quick cleanup
• 5 mins to check calendar for next day
• 5 mins to prepare for next day - clothes, lunch, anything that needs to go out the door

With these steps in mind and with some other ideas, I've planned my daily routine:

Morning

1. Wake up and shower
2. Make up your bed
3. Unload dishwasher
4. Write down To-Do list (5-7) for day
5. Pack lunch for AGirl and me
6. Switch laundry from washer to dryer

Evening

1. Load the dishwasher and start it. Wash any vessels remaining by hand.
2. Fold and put away the load of laundry you washed and dried in the morning.
3. 5 minute cleanup of kitchen, dining room table and family room
4. 2 minute preview - look at calendar for next day
5. 5 minute Prep - clothes, lunch for next day, what needs to be taken out the door
6. Put AGirl to sleep
7. Take 5-15 minutes to do something you love.
8. Put a load of laundry for next day with timer set for morning 4 AM

Once a week, write down meal plan for AGirl for the next one week.

I'm not working on the meal planning for the my husband and me yet but I'm going to start with meal planning for my daughter.

I will give an update on how this routine works in a few days.