Cleaning/Decluttering

For the ____th time (lost count) I am trying to follow a home maintenance/cleaning method that comes from a website you might (or might not, especially after you've looked it at) want to check out in detail. It's called Fly Lady and is a system of keeping your house clean. Like Weight Watchers I've signed up for it more times than I can count and have given up. I'm trying again. If you check it out, don't be overwhelmed by the information on the website. Just taking a few minutes each day will familiarize you with it.

The first thing to do is ignore most of it and follow the baby steps. Don't expect perfection or you won't do it. I skip some of the things, like leaving little sticky notes around the house for my husband, my kids, and myself, reminding us to do certain things. To me sticky notes add to the clutter of the place.

So just about three or four days ago, I started trying to get myself into a routine again. It's better to do this in the summer than when I am starting back to school. The first routines consist of things that normal people (who are not like me) do, such as keep the dishes out of their sink, make their beds, get dressed and put on shoes. Simple enough. Well, not really (not when you might roll out of your bed before your husband..why bother making a bed when you get home from work...note: maybe I should actually ask him to do it.) The first thing you do, and I think it is to impact you psychologically, is to clean your sink. Specific directions are given for this which amount to filling your sink up with hot water, adding bleach, letting it sit there, getting a sharp object to clean out the crud along the edges, etc., etc. Well, as hard as it is for me to admit it, there was an impact. Every day when I walk back and forth by that sink, it actually makes me feel good that at least that one thing is done.

They also recommend not sitting around in your PJ's until noon (drat, I was afraid of that). Well, that works too. It really does make you feel better to get up, get showered, put on your clothes, put on your face and so forth. But they are NOT going to take away from me a few minutes to sit and enjoy my cup of coffee, sit on the deck and maybe read the paper or a chapter or two. Oh, and you can't put on just any shoes; you have to put on shoes that tie so you won't be prone to kicking them off and sitting around. Not me, no sir. I've been through two foot surgeries in the past four or five years just to be ABLE to wear sandals and show off my painted toes, so the heck with that.

If you sign up for this you will receive numerous emails consisting of zone cleaning projects (which are pretty fast and can make a difference over a long period of time), and testimonials from other people (which I'm not interested in). The whole thing seems a bit OCD to me. The point of keeping an organized clean home is doing it without having to obsess over it and so you feel like you have lots of time for more interesting things (like writing in your Blog).

I can't figure out how these women, if they are keeping their homes clutter free and clean, possibly have time to run this massive website. The only thing I can figure, is that they actually have hired someone else to clean their homes and don't follow their own system at all. Check it out and let me know what you think. Above all, don't expect perfection. After all, perfection is no fun and boring.