Monday Q&A | My Schedule, My Blog Plan, and Sanitizing Used Shoes (or not!)

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

When I did my Q&A about Aldi, one of you had submitted a question about Aldi’s double-seater shopping carts (wondering if all Aldi stores were going to switch to these). I actually had no idea that any Aldi stores had these Costco-type shopping carts, but I emailed my contact at Aldi, and she said that they do indeed, and that the decision about whether or not to switch to these carts is a store-by-store decision. So, you all will just have to wait and see if these new-fangled carts come your way!

Being the nosy person I am, I am very interested to hear more about your current schedule. What does your daily schedule look like now? I’d love to see an updated “day in the life” sort of post.

Also, I’m very interested about your decision to have your personal schedule closely follow your husband’s rather than you’re children’s- meaning the times you wake up and go to bed- as that is not something I hear of often. Has that changed now that he has such an opposite schedule? How has that affected the quality time you spend with your husband?

My brother-in-law works nights and my sister-in-law works days and I’d love to be able to share some advice with them. This schedule is new for them and with a new baby in the mix, I know it must be difficult to maintain a close relationship. Thank you!

I promise I’ll do an updated schedule post once we get this figured out a little better! We’re still working out the kinks. 🙂

As for your other questions, my husband’s schedule is the only one that’s set in stone. Since we homeschool and I’m self-employed, the kids and I have the flexibility to adapt to Mr. FG’s varying job schedules, it makes sense for us to be the ones to bend!

I personally find that staying on the same sleep schedule as Mr. FG is good for our marriage…when we operate on different schedules, we don’t get much of any alone time together and we just feel less connected. His schedule has been ALL over the map since we’ve been married, and for the most part, I’ve always managed to make my sleep schedule match the one dictated by his job (for the last two years, that’s meant sleeping from 8:30pm-4:40am and now it means sleeping more like 11:00-7:00 or 11:30-7:30.)

I don’t think every couple necessarily needs to do this, but for us, keeping our sleep schedules coordinated seems to be the right choice.

Your brother-in-law and sister-in-law are definitely facing a bigger challenge than we are, though, since they both have inflexible schedules. I don’t know quite how I’d handle that situation!

I have just come across your blog, and I am loving it! I have a blog of my own, (www.athomefordinner.wordpress.com) and I love working on it, but I find that I fall behind on it. You mentioned in a recent post that you have a blogging calendar. It left me wondering about what this is and how you put it together.

Sarah

Hopefully you won’t be disappointed when I share that it’s nothing remotely fancy!

I simply print out a free 5-day week calendar (I recommended that calendar-printing site when I wrote about some of my favorite free internet sites) and I fill in post ideas for all of the days.

I don’t think I’ve ever perfectly stuck to a whole month’s worth of blog post plans, but brainstorming and writing ideas down for a month helps me to be more organized and helps me to do prep work for posts (for instance, taking photos of something I made or something I bought).

Also, if I have a blog post idea written down, that puts that topic into my brain, and I can think about it while I do other things. This pre-pondering helps me to be more efficient when I actually sit down and write the post…while I was folding laundry or doing dishes, I already kind of sorted out what I wanted to say!

(Rachel Meeks talks about this in her book, Simple Blogging, which I highly recommend if you want to simplify your blogging life!)

I just read a older post about a pair of cute shoes you found at Goodwill.
I do a lot of shopping at 2nd hand stores. I look for both clothing and household items. One of the qualities I look for is washability. I get a queasy feeling putting my feet into shoes that other people have worn. I do look at the shoe rack for water shoes and slippers because I can throw them in the wash, other shoes I just pass by.
What, if anything, do you do to kill germs on second hand shoes?

Linda

The pair of shoes you’re referencing appeared to be in brand-new condition, so I didn’t worry about sanitizing them. They didn’t seem any more dirty than shoes at a regular retail store (which have often been tried on by multiple people). But then again, I’m not the most germophobic person on the planet, so you might want to consider that when taking my advice!

Because I like to get the most bang for my buck, I generally won’t buy shoes second-hand unless they’re in brand new or nearly brand new condition. So, the shoes I buy are not normally very dirty.

I’d say that if unwashable second-hand shoes squick you out, it might be better to just buy brand-new shoes. Some people say that buying brand-new shoes is better for your feet anyway, and you shouldn’t feel like you absolutely, positively must buy everything used. 🙂 Do what works for you!

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Do any of you bloggers use a blog plan? And if you’re a second-hand shoe shopper, do you have any helpful advice for Linda?

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Today’s 365 post: She’s a blur.

Joshua’s 365 post: A tree! What a surprise!