Phew!

Okay, so it's day 1 of "official" summer break (my reasoning being that I would have had this weekend off anyway) and I TOTALLY see why my house looks the way it does during the school year. I worked out a plan of action before school was out with the help of FlyLady.net and some other resources, and have tried to implement those habits already.
Here are the main ones I have focused on:
1. Putting dirty dishes directly in the dishwasher that can be washed in there.
2. Hand-washing remaining dishes every night (and putting them away) and running the dishwasher every night.
3. Emptying the dishwasher every morning.
4. When I wash and dry a load of laundry, put it up in the same day.
(Notice the acronym "phew!" That was totally not on purpose, except that I went back and added "hand" to number two when I noticed how close it was to being awesomely cheesy.)
I don't know how "normal" people react to these goals of mine. I imagine some of you Cleanies are thinking, "Yeah, duh, you slob. You don't do that all the time?" However, this has been very difficult for me! These are not yet habits and take a lot of self-discipline to keep going. I have to confess even last night (day 3 of this plan) there was a pan in the sink I didn't wash. It wasn't even that dirty, I just decided one pan wasn't worth washing before I went to bed.
It is nice though, because by doing these things regularly, I have been able to do other things around the house too. We are working on cleaning the garage out. We have made a small dent so far, but I KNOW I'm not the only one with garage woes. Before, whenever I had the energy left to do housework, it had to be put into catching up on the mountains of dishes and laundry.
One tip I read about keeping a neater house said to do a load of laundry every 5 days. Excuse me? Maybe if I lived by myself. Maybe when I get caught up I don't have to do a load every day to keep it within reason, but it's day 4, and I have at least 3 more loads I could do today, so by the time I get those done, doing one a day, I'm guessing another one will be waiting on me. (And I'm adding a little boy to this mix!)
I am extremely satisfied with how I'm doing so far, but seriously, it's a full time job on it's own when you throw in preparing 3 meals a day, caring for a vibrant 3 year old, doing regular errandy-type things, and trying to have fun somewhere in there.
I have never said that SAHM's have it easy, I'm not trying to say a point has been proven. My point is that other than the 3 meals a day thing (I do good to fix my own first two and supper when school is in) I'm still supposed to be doing all this other stuff while working 8+ hours a day. When school starts back I'm going to read this again and remind myself that I do a pretty darn good job considering what is expected of me! Kudos to wives and moms everywhere!