House wife's duties

My daily duties will change significantly. Mostly, since all the regular "house wife" things just take longer here.

Instead of taking the bus, I will ride with my kids to school on my bike.

Depending on which school the kids attend, I might have to pick them up for lunch, feed them lunch, and then return them to school again an hour later. This amounts to 4 trips per day to the school.

My washer is about 1/2 the size of my old washer. On top of that, it takes about 4 times a long to wash the clothes. Quick calculations show me that instead of doing 7 loads per week, I'll be doing 14 loads per week. At 2 hour time slot per load, that equals 28 hours of laundry per week. And that doesn't include the drying, folding, and sorting of the laundry.

Groceries will be another time consuming thing. Whereas in the US I would shop approximately once every week or two, here I'll likely go to the grocery store daily. The fridge just isn't big enough to hold enough food for a week. We currently don't have a freezer either, so any frozen food is out of the question.

All of these changes bring much wanted increase of activity level. I plan to bike everywhere from the store, to work, to school, and church. Our house has 3 levels so I go up and down who knows how many times a day. Food has less preservatives and is generally healthier.

Another change that I'm really excited about is recycling. The Dutch are religious recyclers. Every neighborhood has bins for paper, plastic, 3 different colors of glass, and fabric. Then you are also expected to separate food from regular trash, leaving the regular trash can fairly empty. It feels great to contribute to a better earth!