My Lovely, Exploding Head

I've been sick the last few days, hence my absence of blog entries. I've still been plugging away following babysteps, but I decided to stop at the last listed day until I'm up to actually taking pics and posting. Monday?

Day 3: Do What We Have Already Done

Today's FlyLady Baby Steps are to 1. Shine your sink and 2. Get dressed to the shoes once again!

It's a good thing my sink now looks like this....

Because the rest of my house.... looks like this!

Stuff is left out from breakfast and dinner the night before...

Bed is unmade with unfolded clothes on the chest at the foot of it...

My ironing board and iron are still left out from the night before (because THAT'S not dangerous to my daughter)...

And most of my morning and evening bathroom products are still left out!

When I got up this morning and looked at all of this, I thought "Wow, my house just won't stay clean! I'm going to have to spend forever cleaning this up!" What CHAOS! I'm was really tempted to whine and pull out my "I'm-such-a-martyr-I-always-have-to-do-everything" card.

Then, I realized that each of these areas could have been easily taken care of if I would have used flylady's "Do it now" principle and just cleaned up as I go. In fact, I'm sure that's what my "born organized" friends and family do. They clean up as they go so they aren't always doing emergency cleaning, which can be overwhelming.

I'm really starting to understand the importance of routines to keeping an orderly home, and, more importantly than that.... an orderly life!

It's not fun to clean up after yourself all the time, but it's even more frustrating to live in a mess and have to do major cleaning all the time!

Tomorrow's baby step is "Write these things down" (aka the beginnning of the Control Journal). Can't wait to get started!

Day 2: Get Dressed to the Shoes

On to day two of the Flylady Baby Steps...

Yesterday, I shined my sink to perfection, and this morning I made sure it was shiny once again!


But first, I got out of bed and got dressed to my shoes! Well... not immediately... I did shower and get beautified first!



You know, I was pretty underwhelmed about the whole sink and getting dressed to shoes thing, but I can already see how it does help. When the sink is really clean, I tend to put dishes away more promptly, and also clean up the area around the sink. When my shoes are on, it does keep me moving and shaking during my day. The only thing I'm wondering is how I'm going to keep my carpet clean when my shoes are on!

I think it's the perfectionist in me telling me that it just isn't "good enough." I'm trying not to listen to that negative voice trying to discourage me throughout this process!

A look ahead: Tomorrow's baby step is doing what has already been done!

Day 1: Shine Your Sink

Day 1 of Flylady's Baby Steps is Simple: Shine your Sink!

Remember this dirty sink from this morning....

First, I filled each side with bleach and water and let it sit for awhile.



Then, I rinsed out the sink, and used a scrub pad to clean all the major surfaces.

Next, I used a toothbrush to get into all those little, nasty crevices. It was suprising how dirty some spots were!

I hit it with a quick scrub down of Windex.

And... abracadabra! A clean sink!

Day 1 was easy enough... I even felt kind of satisfied to see my shiny sink.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's task: Get dressed to your shoes!

From Chaos to Simplicity

This is me. This is my very dirty sink.

And this... sigh... is the rest of my messy house (and my cutie Bug).

My messy bedroom...

More messy living room with our one painted wall (although we've had paint for a year)...

My house isn't always this messy, but it isn't always this clean, either! Actually, it fluctuates wildly between fairly neat and a complete mess.

I've blamed the state of things on my hoarder husband for a very long time, but I have finally come to terms with my own major role in the keeping of my house, especially being a SAHM without a good sense of routines and order.

I'm really, really tired of "emergency" cleaning and grimacing when I think someone is pulling in the driveway unannouced. It's just plain embarassing when someone sees my house like this.

I'm tired of being a fireman! It's like I live in a house with terrible, dangerous electrical wiring that really needs to be replaced. I run around putting fires out every day, and then wonder, "why do I have to keep putting out all these fires."

It's an exhausting way to live. Time to change the wiring.

I've been a haphazard flylady.com follower for a few years. But, haven't really done what she suggests. She advocates babysteps, and slowly building up routines to help you get some control over your home and life. But, in my typical fashion, I sat down and tried to do all the steps at once. The result: a random enforcement of routines... an awareness of what needs to be done without the follow through!

I think I'm finally ready for lasting change. For my husband, for my daughter, but also for myself! So, I will be slowly implementing the flylady baby steps... and I'm hoping to hear from others who are doing the same!