Hi, my name is Amber and I suffer from Chronic Messy House Syndrome. Kidding aside, I know this is something many of us suffer with. It crosses all socioeconomic, education, and child status levels. I have been a messy person almost my entire life. I think there was only one time that I can remember having an immaculate house, and that was when my oldest son was a baby and toddler. I gave up on immaculate after boy child number two. Even as a child I was messy. It was so bad, that every year when I went to overnight camp, my grandmother would come in and purge. I kept nearly every toy I had growing up. This probably comes from when I was little and my mother wasn't able to spend money on things like toys. At one point I was one of those kids that got nothing for Christmas ( one of the children from the other family we lived with gave me a Hot Wheels to make me feel better). When my grandparents got custody of me I was lucky enough to be spoiled rotten, but I still hung on to "things" for dear life. I am a lot better about getting rid of things than I used to be, because I realize the stuff isn't important. I try at least twice a year to donate our still in good shape clothes and toys (It's actually mandatory at Christmas to give away 25% of toys to charity). This cuts down on clutter and makes my children realize, that even though we struggle , there are families that have even less. Since I have been able to keep everything to a dull roar, I have decided I want my house to actually be tidy. Step in Fly Lady. ( She has a book just go to my Books I Love in the right column and click on "Sink Reflections")
I have been a fan of Fly Lady for the past 11 years. I have used her baby steps to at least minimize the clutter damage. I fall of the wagon more often than not. I am pretty good keeping up the routine when I am at home with my kids in the summer, but the second I am in school or work.......well, you know the story. I jumped back on the wagon about a month and a half ago halfheartedly , but I am determined to step it up. I have already established and adjusted my routine and this week I am adding two more habits. They are puting away dishes and shining the sink. Today, I actually followed the rules of shining completely... minus soaking the sink in bleach for an hour ( my sink won't hold water for an hour). I probably won't soak my sink in bleach very often, because I feel like we use to much antibacterial products in our homes (we are all in good health in our home). I of course always disinfect after meat, illness, and things like that. If you have someone in the house who is immunocompromised you would of course want to disinfect things on a constant basis.
Keeping a routine and a clean house is also good for the soul. I have to admit I am a bit "complicated" leaning on the overused Facebook term "it's complicated", but that's the best way to describe me. I have had a lot of ups and down's in this life and routine is what always helps me bounce back. Getting up, getting dressed, and actually doing something, ANYTHING can help a girl start off her day in the right direction. At one point I literally had to write out a schedule. Fly Lady doesn't use lists but with my ADD and my "dynamic personality" I find that having a list broken down in small increments (and crossing each of when done) helps me see that I have accomplished something. Sometimes I will even take before and after pictures, so I can physically see what I have done.
So check out Fly Lady and see what you think. Does it work for you? Just set your timers to 15 minutes and go!
In other news the tomatoes are great, the cucumbers are flowering, the salad greens are growing, and well.... the peas look ill. I spend a lot of time picking aphids off one plant, but it is paying off!
No comments:
Post a Comment