Christa, Day 29: Without Routine, I Drown

I want to be spontaneous. I really do. I found an old letter from my husband on while working ahead on Day 28 that implied that one of the things that he loved about me was my spontaneity. My what? I'm laughing, I really am. Yes, I have to be spontaneous to some extent to deal with the unpredictability of toddlers, but generally I'm okay with doing the same thing day in and day out, at least for a few months at a time before needing to switch things up. When I lived in Costa Rica, for instance, my day was filled with routine. Gorgeous, amazing, relaxing routine, but routine nonetheless!

So today's voluntary simplicity item is right up my alley. Or ought to be, anyway.

Establish routines. The key to keeping your life simple is to create simple routines. A great article on that here.

I think I'm floundering at the moment. Trying to establish a new routine after some major changes. What should weekends look like when I don't have to work on the weekends anymore? Since I can come home for lunch, how should my lunch hour look? How can I - we, really - make laundry tolerable? How can I deal with my husband's unpredictable evening arrival time?

The morning routine is easy. Things just go more smoothly when it's only me and my daughter. The order of events: I shower and dress, put waffle in toaster, wake her up, she starts eating, I dry hair and do makeup, I come and sit with her until she finishes, then I get her dressed. Any free time before we need to hustle into the car is spent in play.

My work routine is not exactly a routine - this holds true for my nearly full-time work and my contract work. Contract work comes in when it comes in, and I fit it in wherever it fits best. Lunchtime. Evenings. A tiny bit on the weekends, but nothing like it was before. And in the office, things come in and go out, but I'm a captive audience and it's nothing overwhelming. At least there I can honestly say there is nothing gunning for my attention outside of the things I let distract me, like Facebook and design blogs.

And the nighttime routine is well mapped as well. I program the coffee maker while my husband scoops the cat turds. That's after he's played around on his iPod while I exercise. All of which happens after my daughter's bedtime routine - though my husband's unpredictable work schedule can throw the whole thing out of whack.

Which is why I'm writing this at close to 10 p.m.

What's much less well defined is everything else. Dinner, for example, is my least favorite time of day because I have to feed healthy food to my offspring when I would be content with a heaping bowl of fiberiffic cereal and a little salad on the side. I guess having a toddler affects the evening routine, or lack thereof, in other ways, too. Some days she'd prefer to eat dinner at 4:30 p.m. making doing any afternoon activities impossible, while on other days she can deal with waiting until we can all eat together. Afternoons and evenings are up in the air most days, and sometimes the unpredictability actually makes me nervous.

So more routines? I think I'd be okay with that. One third of my household, however, would not. What to do... what to do?