My house is a wreck.
It looks as if an intruder came in and turned everything over to find something valuable to steal and came out with nothing. Sadly, the reality is that our household is comprised of two busy parents running a business and two kids who find everything that’s not a toy so that they can transform it into one. Not to mention I’ve passed along my craftiness to the kids so there’s pieces of paper, string, beads, and fabric masking themselves as dust bunnies. It’s hard to walk around the house barefoot without stickers or tape getting stuck to your feet or crushing cereal that’s been used as a trail marker from the kitchen to the family/play room.
Now that I’ve painted a picture of how I’m a horrible housekeeper, I have to tell you that I’m not usually this way …yes, really, I’m not (don’t judge). I clean ALL. THE. TIME. My horribly dry hands are proof of it! It’s just that I can’t catch up with how quickly the house gets messy! I’m sure you moms out there can sympathize.
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Many years ago, I was introduced to FlyLady. For those who are unfamiliar, it’s basically and online program that sends you reminders and motivating tidbits on keeping your house clean. I used to do it (at least on two occassions) and I can’t say that I was too successful. I think I got more annoyed and overwhelmed with the 20 emails they sent per day and which led me to cancel the subscription. It really was like a nagging spouse (thankfully, my own spouse does not nag). Most of the emails were junk and I only needed the “flight plan.” But I think it was an excuse for my laziness (or the crazy mess that I didn’t want to deal with).
Now that both of our girls are in school, I felt it was time to reclaim the house. We moved the girls into separate rooms and everything from our former guest (*cough* junk) room has been allocated to various parts of the house. I had to move my sewing cabinet and my 2 other machines out of there, along with all my fabric and craft tools and materials. So now that I had all this STUFF to deal with, I reluctantly subscribed to FlyLady again. This time, I was proactive and made an email filter to remove the “junk mail.” See, I reclaimed my inbox! I’m off to a good start.
This week’s “zone” is the kitchen. Which is perfect since I usually clean from the kitchen out (weird, I know). Everything from the outside always gets dropped on the kitchen counter or the breakfast bar then everything starts to scatter from there. So far I’ve wiped the “step-stool required” surfaces (even my glass vent hood), wiped down the cabinets, and cleaned out my fridge. It already feels better to be in there.
Cleaning the fridge today revealed a lot about our habits. The good news, we’re not wasteful — I didn’t have to throw out a lot of things or “science experiments.” The bad news, I should wipe down the fridge more. Ick.
Are we the only ones who keep batteries in the fridge?
What I realized:
- We have a lot of hot sauce. I can dedicate a whole door shelf to it.
- We like pickled foods and preserves. We have half-jars of the same stuff in parts of the fridge.
- I can’t ever use up a whole can of chipotle peppers.
- We eat a lot of eggs.
- The fridge feels empty without butter (need to get more)
- Hey, there’s a toy in here!
Who put that in there?!
I’d like to thank my mother-in-law, Karen, for sending me the most useful gift. It’s a fridge deodorizer container. She made it by upcycling an old (cleaned) peanut butter jar by drilling holes through the lid. I keep it filled with baking soda in the fridge to help keep odors at bay but it’s also useful as a shaker for cleaning. How many of you can say that with your baking soda box?! What a smart lady, she is.
I need to refill it because it has been useful!
A view of the lid
I’m enjoying FLYing so far. I’m glad there’s something to keep me on track with cleaning the house. Eventually, I can have people over again. But for now, it’s baby steps for me!
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