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My husband is a coal miner and works 10hr night shift permanately.  We live away from family and I have no friends here yet as when we moved here I was pregnant and very sick and tired.  So basically I never get a break and we never do things on the weekends as my husband and myself are far too tired.  I never felt pressure to clean until I had this baby!  Now I cant stand it if the house is messy, I feel suffocated and caged.  Its getting better and I make myself have days off but find when I do this there is double the work the next day.  It is very hard and I feel very alone most days.  I too realised that somewhere along the line I stopped laughing and I am constantly trying to fit in all the chores and needs of the family. 

This is how I have turned things around.... I had a big talk/cry/dummy spit at my husband and told him he needs to help me on the weekends in the mornings so that I dont spend my whole weekend cleaning aswell and now I make a list when I get up of all the big jobs like cleaning the shower, toilets, washing bed linen mopping floor, clean oven etc.  When he gets up we make our way through the list together and we are usually done in a couple of hours.   Through the week I do the every day tidy up eg make beds, empty dishwasher, a load of washing sweep floor, so I generally only take an hour or so each morning doing things.  I have also written a chore list for my 10yr old so that he can help too and I dont have to argue with him about it, he just looks on his list and goes about his business.

I have recently taken up sewing so I now find I have something other than housework to do to keep my butt off the lounge.  When it all gets too much for me I go to the club for a couple of hours on my own or I lock myself in the bedroom with a book or magazine just for some ME time. 

Just from doing these few simple things I have found the laugh again.  You will too, you just have to down tools sometimes and run away from home.

I'm a stay at home mom too and I'm also a writer. Life can get pretty hectic when you're juggling so many things, and taking a time management course can definitely help. I took one in college and one of the things that has really helped me throughout my life is making lists. You can be completely overwhelmed with what needs to be done, but as soon as you make a list, it puts everything into perspective and you suddenly realize it's not as bad as you thought.

One of my lists is a cleaning schedule. I write down everything that needs to be cleaned (excluding everday stuff like washing dishes and picking up toys). I separate those into things that need to be done weekly, bi-weekly or fortnightly, and monthly. Then I figure out how many things I will need to do per day in order to keep up with that list. Turns out I only need to do two small cleaning jobs per day in order to keep up... which will take me no more than an hour. If you do just a little each day, you don't get stuck with one or two full days a week filled with nothing, but cleaning.

Another thing you can do is while you're cleaning, get your kids to help. They'd probably think it's a lot of fun. My daughter is one and when I'm cleaning the kitchen I'll give her a wet cloth and she'll start wiping things down with me. She's not really doing much in the way of cleaning, but it makes her feel as though we are doing something special together. I plan to get her a play vacuum, broom and other cleaning supplies too. I think getting her into a routine of cleaning while she's young, even though it's only "pretend" for her at the moment, will help her when she's older to contribute to the housecleaning.

You can also make a daily plan. Don't make it too strict time wise. You just want something to help guide your day. This way you will have time set aside for cleaning and time set aside for playing. Try to schedule most of your cleaning around nap times so that when the kids are away your time can be devoted to them.

Something else that is really important too... especially for your kids... is to never treat cleaning as a hated chore. If you see it that way then your kids will too, and you'll never get them to clean when they're older. I think of it as another part of life... everytime I clean something I know I'm doing something special to give my family a clean and healthy environment to live in. It can take a while for this attitude to sink in, but when it does you'll find that you actually enjoy cleaning. It will be relaxing and rewarding... and your kids will learn to adopt the same attitude.

Hope this helps!

To give ourselves some more free time to do the things we want we need to ask others for help...  why don't you get a cleaner to come in once a week/fortnight/even month to give yourself the time to enjoy your children while they are still young and maybe even steal some time out of your husbands busy days....