I have a secret, and her name is FlyLady.



All right, you may be asking. What the hell is FlyLady? Well, she's a person, who has a system for getting your house clean and keeping it that way. The whole thing is based around the principles of 1. having routines; 2. throwing things away; 3. babysteps. She has an emailing list and sends out 15 or so emails a day with reminders and testimonials and such.



Big deal, you say. Well, I like it. Yes I have a small apartment so housekeeping shouldn't exactly be a big worry for me. But even so, I am a terrible housekeeper. I am lazy and I like to put things off and let them pile up, and then when I break down and do it it takes all day. The carpet goes for weeks without being vacuumed even though there are pieces of Asher's scratching post everywhere. The dishes just pile up and pile up. Laundry, that would sit until I ran out of underwear, at which point I'd do one or two loads of the stuff I really wanted and just leave the rest until next time... and of course "the rest" never got washed for months because of that. My table, counters, and desk have been piled high with crap. Pathetic, really. I have a one-bedroom apartment for heaven's sake, I should be able to handle keeping it clean. :P



So one day I find myself at FlyLady's website and she's talking about evening routines and morning routines and weekly routines and zones and hotspots and shiny sinks. And it all makes a lot of sense. Of course it does. All of those "keeping on top of your home" ideas and books and talks and whatnot make a lot of sense. The difference is that with everything else, you hear it or see it or read it and think "I should do that!" and then you turn off the TV or put down the book and completely forget about it. Whereas with FlyLady, if you sign up for her email list, you can't forget... she's in your inbox every morning. I signed up the day I first found her website, even though I wasn't sure I'd be able to do the program. Within a week of reading the emails every day I found myself wanting to at least get started.



Things I've accomplished so far:

1. I've been making my bed almost every morning. Actually I think I've done it every morning except today, but sometimes things come up. :P

2. My dishes are washed just about every day. And the clean ones get put back in the cupboard once they're dry.

3. The table is mostly cleared off. So is the desk. I actually threw away stuff I don't need (and not just papers!).

4. The bag of clothes for donation, which has been sitting in my room for months, finally got donated.

5. Laundry is all clean and put away (had a huge catch-up day a few weeks ago incluuding sheets and all those clothes that never get washed). Better yet, last Thursday I noticed my basket was full, so I did a load that night. This is significant because I wasn't out of underwear or socks and didn't really NEED to do it, but I did it anyway. And then folded it, and put it all away. That same night. That was two weeks worth of clothes, just one load, and it also made me realize I have WAY too many clothes... time to collect another box for donating. :)

6. My kitchen sink is sparkling clean and it actually bothers me if there are water spots on the faucet. I'm finally getting use out of dish towels. :D

7. Asher has fresh water and a clean litter box almost every night.

8. The bathroom... oh let me tell you about the bathroom! My proudest room so far. ;) Not only is it clean and swept (sink, toilet, and tub are really pretty decent) but I realized that half of my cabinet space under the sink was being used up by Asher's litter scoop (because I didn't want that touching anything else, yuck). So I bought a command adhesive hook (command adhesive is the best thing 3M has invented since Post-It notes -- I LOVE that stuff) to hang the scoop next to the litter box, and voila... twice the bathroom storage! I have a little storage box with drawers that I was able to move under there. Now the bathroom sink is cleared of everything except toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap dispenser. No more hair stuff cluttering up the counterspace. No more Asher making off with hairbands and barrettes for me to find later. No more losing my tube of eczema cream (I've already lost 2!). No more hanging onto expired pills or things I'm never going to use. :P Everything is put away and I even have a candle out making it smell nicer. :) Best part is, I was contemplating buying a shelf to hang over the toilet to hold all this stuff, and now I don't have to. ;)



I have a "control journal", which is just a 3-ring binder that is finally getting used again. It has my evening routine, morning routine, weekly outline, and some other stuff listed. Plus I find that if I stick my bills in the pocket, I know exactly where they are AND they don't clutter up the table and desk. Imagine that. :)



It's not perfect yet. Sometimes I find myself getting lazy (or it'll just get late) and I'll skip parts of my evening routine. Same with morning. I still can't force myself out of bed at the time I intend to get up, and I also found that although I am capable of taking a shower in 10 minutes, it takes more than 15 when I first wake up because I just don't have the energy to move faster. I'm thinking I must need to do the other parts of my morning routine before the shower. But I'm working on it.



It's a process, it's adaptable, and it's working. I'm really excited about it because I figure, if I can conquer my one-bedroom apartment, then someday when we have a house I should be able to adapt and keep that in control as well. I'm training myself to be domestic now, so I'll know what I'm doing when I get to the point where I need to be. ;)



Semi-relatedly, last weekend we had planned to have a picnic on Saturday with the gang, and then found out it was going to rain. So, we decided to have it at my place instead. I spent Friday evening baking cookies instead of mad-dash cleaning, and the house was still ready in plenty of time. ;) It was fun having everybody over, we had spaghetti and played Balderdash and watched the little ones run around. Hopefully everyone else enjoyed it too. :)



Anyways... things are going pretty well lately. ;) Tomorrow Joe and I are leaving on our vacation (already!) and I'm very excited about that too! But for right now... I should probably at least be pretending to do work. ;)