FLYing

Last week I posted about a new home cleaning endeavor I was taking on at Flylady.net. I must say a week and a half in, and I'm quite impressed! Every morning when I wake up, I know exactly what I need to do to get my day started. I get up, make coffee, have my quiet time and pray, and work for 2 hours while everyone else is still asleep. Then, when Penelope wakes up, I give her breakfast, empty the dishwasher, make the bed, and start a load of laundry. Then while she's watching Sesame Street, I'm stacking the dishwasher, doing 15 minutes of decluttering, and the mission of the day. I typically have it all done by 10:30. And my house? Well, each week, it looks better and better.

Last week, we were in the master bedroom. I was able to clean the bedroom, go through some books, and get our sheets clean. Now that I see how lovely our room looks clean, and how little time it takes to make the bed, I do it just about every morning! I was able to jump right in and start doing the missions on the launch pad where they were, just like Flylady says. I didn't try to catch up on the week, like my previous instincts were telling me.

This week was my first full week FLYing. We were in the living room and I did each mission every day. I also decluttered for 15 minutes every day and got our media tower, mantle, and Penelope's things cleaned up and put away where they needed to go. I cleaned inside my couch, dusted my trinkets and decorations, dusted the entertainment center, and gave the whole room a really good vacuum. You'd be surprised at how little time all of this takes when you do it a little every day.

 I must say, this Flylady thing is working out really well, and I'm really happy with how my house is looking. Each week, my house is slowly being put back together and the CHAOS is slowly leaving. In fact, my sister came over on Wednesday and commented on how the house looked :-)

Happy FLYing!

Coupon Savings: March 2012

I did REALLY well this month! I even came in under budget! Woot! Here are the numbers:

March 2012:
Total (before savings: $548.68
Spent: $373.37
Savings: $175.31
Percentage: 31.95%


2012 YTD:
Total (before savings): $1,955.64
Spent: $1,356.81
Savings: $598.83
Percentage: 30.62%

I'm having such a hard time believing that its almost April already! This year is just flying by so fast! AND, Penelope will be 2 in just a few months! June is coming WAY too fast!

Flylady Baby Steps: Day 1

I am not a good housekeeper. People think that staying home, I would have all the time in the world to keep my house clean. But the reality of it is, between changing diapers, walking the dog, making meals, playing "cooking", counting to 10, saying the alphabet, and cuddling while Elmo or Curious George dance across the TV screen, and trying to fit in 4 hours of work, there just isn't enough time. (Come on, SAHMs. You KNOW what I'm talking about!)

I'm at the point where I want to give up. I tried to create a schedule of "clean this room this day", but I've never stuck to it. Some rooms just seem SO much to tackle. Add that to the fact that we're trying to clean up the office so we can move Penelope into her big girl room, and the whole house becomes overwhelming...until now.

A few months ago (or maybe closer to a year!) a friend of mine told me about The FlyLady. It's essentially, a step by step road map to cleaning your house and keeping it clean. FlyLady asks if you have CHAOS in your life - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. With a screaming yes, I raise my hand! I looked into what she wanted us to do and decided, at the time, that I wasn't really sure I was ready for all that. Well, now I am.

The principles of the FlyLady are simple. Every day, you have a morning and an evening routine, and then you spend time in a particular room (Zones). You work on one Zone for an entire week before moving onto the next zone and you rotate through those zones so once a month, your entire house gets a tune-up. Seems simple enough. I was still pretty overwhelmed by all that I had to do each day, but then I found a few quotes on the site that helped to put all that into perspective

 - “Your home did not get dirty in one day, and it will not get clean in a day either.”

 - "You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are."

 - "Perfectionism is Shelved in 2012!"

The second one in particular hit me pretty hard. I tend to have the "all or nothing" idea about cleaning. If I'm going to clean a room, I'm doing it all and I have to start from the beginning to make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be. The fact that I could just start today, on some random Wednesday, and not worry about if I did Monday or Tuesday made me feel really good about the whole program. From how I understand the program, I'm supposed to be subscribed to the daily emails (which I am), and once I get through the Baby Steps, then I start working on the different Zones. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong). I had a little extra time today, so I decided to do the Flight Plan for today which was dusting the top and bottom of my door and window jambs in our bedroom. I feel pretty good about it.

Today began my Baby Steps. Day 1: Shine Your Sink. I've got a stainless steel sink and always thought it was pretty shiny, until I followed FlyLady's instructions. Man! I've never seen my sink THAT shiny! Don't take my word for it! See for yourself!!

Before

After

 

See what I mean? It almost looks new (besides all the scratches)! My sink NEVER looked this good no matter how much I cleaned it. I definitely have a sense of pride about this sink now - even though the rest of my kitchen is still in shambles. That's ok. My house didn't become a mess in one day, and it isn't going to get clean in a day either.

I look forward to getting into these habits so I no longer have CHAOS :-)