The second part of the simple living manifesto is to evaluate commitments: what are they and how do they tie in with my top five priorities?

My commitments are:

  1. Keeping house. I do almost all of the cleaning, laundry, dishes, etc. because M works very long hours. Downsizing has made this much, much easier than it used to be. I no longer feel like I’m struggling to keep up; catch-up is usually just a load of laundry or dishes away.  I’m not entirely sure how much time I spend picking up towels or vacuuming, but I’m guessing if you put all my tasks together (and I keep a pretty clean house), it’s maybe 45 minutes to an hour a day. (If you’re interested in national averages, check out this Bureau of Labor Statistics chart.)
  2. The finances. We trade this back and forth every few years, and I’m just taking it over again. I don’t like doing it, but I do like not worrying about where we are financially, which is what I’ll do when M is handling it.
  3. Shuttling Pea to school.  I do this three times a week.  I’ll admit it’s a pain, especially since I tend to take the streetcar at least half the time, which means I have a two hour round trip.  (Why? The streetcar is good transition time in the mornings, and I walk a mile on the way back, then read the rest of the way home.)
  4. Cooking. One of my sources of guilt. I don’t do this as often as I ought, even though it’s cheaper and healthier and so forth. Why?  I don’t like cooking day-to-day meals. I’m actually good at cooking; I can do some pretty extraordinary things when I put my mind to it (except a good whole wheat pastry crust – whatever).  But it is about as fun for me as, say, scrubbing the shower.  Also, I don’t like how much time it takes out of every day.  If we could get all our nutrients from one energy bar and a bowl of Cheerios a day, I’d be all for it.
  5. Enriching our lives.  This is social planning, insisting we get out of the house to the zoo, museum, parks, reading books, playing games — the fun stuff, the learning stuff.
  6. Writing. I do this every free moment I get. I’m writing a novel and working on a proposal for our one-room-living experiment.
  7. Blogging. I do this when I have energy but not enough mental fortitude/creativity to do “real” writing.
  8. Responding to blog comments. I don’t always manage to, but I try. I enjoy this interaction a lot (it is the best part of blogging).  I learn so much from my commenters, who can often see solutions where I don’t.
  9. MILP. This is new, once a month, and falls under social connections. I love the MILP ladies; they are my community and demographic, the one I don’t have locally.  The idea of hanging out with a bunch of local lawyer moms in person? Um, no.  Online? Sign me up!  I’ve gotten to know these women over years (via my previous blog) and I love that the community continues to grow.
  10. Side projects. I have three active side projects which have been getting short shrift. These are all important to me, and I need to make more time for them!  Looking at you, Geek Matchmaking, Secret Project 1, and Secret Project 2.

What’s not on this list? My health. Again! I’m sensing a trend.