@Captain FIRE , I'm so sorry. Also, your husband needs to grow the f*$&(* up and help keep the house habitable. We sat down after we had kids and agreed on what frequency of cleaning what was a situation we could both live with. We also agreed when the kids were maybe 5 and 7 that they were going to learn to clean their own houses: it's an important lesson to go out into the world with, they're helping make the mess and need to help clean it up, and (I've told this story elsewhere) I sat on a pee-sprinkled toilet seat one too many times and decided that since I wasn't the one making that mess it shouldn't always be me cleaning it.
As mentioned by former player, taking off shoes at the door helps a lot. I read the Dan Aslett book "making your house clean itself" (or something like that) and used a lot of the ideas in there to guide how we set up the house. For instance, most of our floors are hardwood, and can be cleaned with a 30 inch wide soft bristled push broom. (I don't agree that three meals/day is enough -- growing kids sometimes need snacks, too.) We try to think through how we'll keep things fairly neat: snacks, for instance, should be easy to make and eat and clean up after. For small kids, this may mean there's a shelf in the fridge with mostly-made snacks on it that they can get for themselves. I'm a big fan of enabling kids to do whatever they can reasonably do -- I'm also not a fan of being woken up early, so when the kids were waking us up because they were hungry we went to a thrift shop, bought a couple of metal syrup pitchers, and left them in the fridge overnight 2/3 full of milk with a little container of breakfast cereal on the counter. Presto -- kids can make their own first breakfasts!
Our actual method: on Fridays, I look at the grocery story fliers and plan meals for the next week. At dinner on Friday I float my ideas past whomever is going to be home, and alter plans based on feedback (I also have ideas that can be adapted depending on what veggies look good, etc.). I typically go grocery shopping early Saturday morning, when the store is fairly empty. I also push household laundry through on Saturday, typically: we combine everyone's laundry so we have relatively full cold, medium, and hot loads. I encourage people to wear (clean) outerwear more then once, if possible.
While I'm at the store, one kid does bathrooms (it took maybe 4ish months to establish what constitutes "clean" for a bathroom...) and the other vacuums the carpets, takes out the front mats and shakes them out and vacuums around that area, and puts the mats back. MrInCO sweeps. Every so often, when one of us adults notices there's dust building up on surfaces, we'll walk through with a damp cloth and wipe things off. Whomever notices the cat boxes smelling cleans them (honestly, that's me about 80% of the time). Things like windows and baseboards get cleaned a few times a year, when one of us notices they need it.
This, in combination with keeping the clutter down (and I do spend some mental energy thinking of ways to keep only what we need, and organize it so it's not cluttering up the place and yet is easy to get to) keeps the house in "friendly company" territory. Usually if we have someone over for dinner on Friday we'll make a pass around with a broom and/or vacuum, but the place is clean enough that we can have friends over.
Oh yeah -- we cook a lot, even during normal times. After a meal is consumed, everything is washed and (if a mess was made) wiped down. It stinks to go to start cooking a meal and first have to wash a bunch of dirty stuff in the sink and on the counter. I also wash as I cook, mostly, so it's less of a burden to clean up after. We run the dishwasher about every other day, and have about enough plates and stuff for that.
Kids can help cook (sometimes), set the table, clear the table, and wash up (or at least load the dishwasher) and dry. (Drying can be entertaining if you explain that they're also doing quality control for the washing.) Food is consumed in the kitchen, at the table, or outside. No exceptions!
When the kids were smaller, I helped them clean and organize their rooms every so often (and I do mean "helped" -- I don't get rid of other people's stuff, but sometimes they had to decide on priority of various bits of stuff, with a goal of being able to easily get to all the things they're keeping) , but if they're not eating in their rooms or wearing shoes in there, the actual dirt buildup should be slow.
