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Learning to FLY
Jul. 31st, 2011 08:46 pm(forget the previous post. No reviews of GF food, I open it and eat it before I remember I wanted to do a review.)
I have horrible housekeeping habits. Everything my mother taught me went out the window once I was living on my own. Washing dishes? Once a month. Laundry? When I ran out of underwear. Vacuum? Uh, maybe yearly, if I remembered and could find the floor before I forgot. Once I got married, I had to step up my game. Dishes? Weekly...sometimes. Laundry? Weekly, or week and a half, or two weeks...unless Matt got tired and did it himself. Vacuum? Yeah, that got delegated to Matt.
In the last month or so, though, something happened. Some switch got flipped. I don't know the trigger, but Matt and I started working on the kitchen. We'd had it cleaned before we went back East for Jeff's wedding, but within a week of being home, the counters were filled with pots, pans, mixing bowls, and other items too big for the dishwasher. Then one weekend, we pushed our way through getting all the dishes DONE. Done and put away. The counters were clear. I started doing the big dishes, if not nightly, then every other or every third night. There were no pile-ups.
Then we started working on the living/dining room. One wall was lined with boxes, from when we moved in a year and a half ago. We'd come home, make and eat dinner, then tackle a box or two. Unpack, sort, put away, throw away. Within a week, the boxes were cleared. The kitchen counters were staying clear, and the living/dining room was clear, table and floor.
It was time for the hard part. Keeping things that way. And that's where FlyLady comes in.
I first heard about FlyLady on the Starsider forums. Two of the women there mentioned it, and it intrigued me. They talked about doing FlyLady routines, spending 15 minutes on one part of the house, then moving to another part when the 15 minutes were up, no matter if you were done or not. This intrigued me, as when it comes to cleaning, I can have the attention span of a gnat on speed. I kept forgetting to look it up, though, until today.
I read through parts of it, and decided to sign up for the mailing list. I read the first mail, which had the weekly task list, and thought, "I can do this! This...isn't bad." So, I went back to the site to find the "BabySteps" section. 31 days of simple tasks to get you used to the FlyLady system.
First task: shine your sink. I read the directions, wrote them down, and after doing the handful of dishes on the counter, set to it.
I wish I'd gotten a picture of the sinks after the first step, soaking in hot water with bleach for an hour. There was a white precipitate on the bottom of both sinks. I don't know if that was the bleach reacting with the minerals in the water, or something else, but it was kind of cool. I did get pictures of the final product, though:
Oooh pretty.
Even the drain rings are shining.
The whole countertop. Yes, we like flavored syrups. Problem?
Now, Matt noticed a few streaks in one basin, but I can live with those for now. Besides, my hand and arm were starting to give out, so I was content to get as far as I did. I haven't looked ahead to see what Day 2's task is, but I'm ready for it.
I have horrible housekeeping habits. Everything my mother taught me went out the window once I was living on my own. Washing dishes? Once a month. Laundry? When I ran out of underwear. Vacuum? Uh, maybe yearly, if I remembered and could find the floor before I forgot. Once I got married, I had to step up my game. Dishes? Weekly...sometimes. Laundry? Weekly, or week and a half, or two weeks...unless Matt got tired and did it himself. Vacuum? Yeah, that got delegated to Matt.
In the last month or so, though, something happened. Some switch got flipped. I don't know the trigger, but Matt and I started working on the kitchen. We'd had it cleaned before we went back East for Jeff's wedding, but within a week of being home, the counters were filled with pots, pans, mixing bowls, and other items too big for the dishwasher. Then one weekend, we pushed our way through getting all the dishes DONE. Done and put away. The counters were clear. I started doing the big dishes, if not nightly, then every other or every third night. There were no pile-ups.
Then we started working on the living/dining room. One wall was lined with boxes, from when we moved in a year and a half ago. We'd come home, make and eat dinner, then tackle a box or two. Unpack, sort, put away, throw away. Within a week, the boxes were cleared. The kitchen counters were staying clear, and the living/dining room was clear, table and floor.
It was time for the hard part. Keeping things that way. And that's where FlyLady comes in.
I first heard about FlyLady on the Starsider forums. Two of the women there mentioned it, and it intrigued me. They talked about doing FlyLady routines, spending 15 minutes on one part of the house, then moving to another part when the 15 minutes were up, no matter if you were done or not. This intrigued me, as when it comes to cleaning, I can have the attention span of a gnat on speed. I kept forgetting to look it up, though, until today.
I read through parts of it, and decided to sign up for the mailing list. I read the first mail, which had the weekly task list, and thought, "I can do this! This...isn't bad." So, I went back to the site to find the "BabySteps" section. 31 days of simple tasks to get you used to the FlyLady system.
First task: shine your sink. I read the directions, wrote them down, and after doing the handful of dishes on the counter, set to it.
I wish I'd gotten a picture of the sinks after the first step, soaking in hot water with bleach for an hour. There was a white precipitate on the bottom of both sinks. I don't know if that was the bleach reacting with the minerals in the water, or something else, but it was kind of cool. I did get pictures of the final product, though:
Oooh pretty.
Even the drain rings are shining.
The whole countertop. Yes, we like flavored syrups. Problem?
Now, Matt noticed a few streaks in one basin, but I can live with those for now. Besides, my hand and arm were starting to give out, so I was content to get as far as I did. I haven't looked ahead to see what Day 2's task is, but I'm ready for it.
