Let's Not Cry Over Spilled Milk

Okay, so you've probably been wondering if I decided to abandon my quest to complete Fly Lady's 31 day beginner baby step challenge. While it's been a full week since my last report and you might have felt like I abandoned you, I have not given up. Day 13 hit and my momentum came to a halt. Perhaps we can chalk it up to the unlucky number 13 or the fact that it was Friday the 13th, but in reality, I was just feeling overwhelmed and Kelly's Missions were the catalyst that propelled me from the wagon. On day 13 we were asked to read and try one of Kelly's Missions. In essence, they're tasks that you'd otherwise save for a bigger "spring cleaning", but it's her approach to tackling these things in small doses throughout the year, so you never have to do "spring cleaning". Great in concept, right? She creates zones and spends one week in a particular zone. Last week (when my assignment was to complete one of her missions) was the kitchen.

I looked over the various missions for that week and decided I didn't really 'have the time' to remove everything from my counters and clean every square inch, nor did I feel like emptying out the fridge and scrubbing it down, so I opted for sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor. I made a mental decision to do it and then...got "lazy". Well, I like to say "tired", but I made a conscious decision to bag it. Well, you know how it snowballs. You miss one task and then you feel like it's holding you back, so I get off track with the days that follow Kelly's Mission. Now, if you're following along on the FlyLady.net site, then you'd probably notice that some of the tasks this week were simple, like reading an essay, testimonial or Fly Lady's eleven commandments. Something you could knock out in two minutes. I managed to get those done, but day 13 still lingered over me...until day 17, when the decision to complete it was made for me.

I made the brilliant choice to follow the suggestion of a parenting magazine to give my nearly 4 year old a glass of milk at dinner time. This was an effort to make him feel like a big boy and to suggest to him that "I trust you to be careful." Needless to say, I spent the next hour on my knees cleaning up shards of glass and wiping down milk laden furniture and walls. I have a breakfast nook that's a separate room, but closely attached to my kitchen that this happened in. Since I had to pull out the vacuum and mop to clean up my son's mess, I continued on into the kitchen and finally accomplished one of Kelly's Missions. Check.

Ironically, that days task was to pick a bedtime and stick to it. I could have gone to bed at a reasonable hour but I had two more lessons to complete for the next night's bible study (my fault, again, for falling behind). I'm just not the kind of person to show up without having done what's expected of me in exchange for some shut eye, it was nearly 11:30 when I went to bed. While it's written on my 'bed time routine', I have yet to complete that task. Another reason for my lack of postings this week. I could just hear Fly Lady whispering..."Go to bed! Your body needs rest!" I just need a few more hours in the day and we'll be all set. I'm starting to think that while Fly Lady has some awesome ideas and tips on maintaining your home, I doubt she did it with two young children. Or am I just making excuses?...I'll revisit that question at the end of the month.

I have been able to complete most of the morning and bedtime routines, but not always immediately every morning. Sometimes it's nearly lunch by the time I get to my 15 minutes of decluttering or my 5 minute room rescue. But I'm okay with that since I'm still making the effort and getting it done. I successfully added making my bed upon waking up to my morning routine as requested on day 15. When I am running late and think I don't have time, I say to myself that it literally takes less than a minutee  to do, and then do it. So far so good on that one.

So, to end on a good note, while Kelly's Missions derailed me for a few days, I'm happy to be back on track. Only ten more days to go. Tomorrow we tackle laundry. Oh heaven help me. If you've been attempting this baby step challenge at home and you're at any point in the journey, let us know about your progress and/or setbacks. For me, while it may not be a perfect journey, I'll be that much more on my way to becoming a well planned woman because of it.

Days Eleven & Twelve: Easy Breezy

The last two days of tasks on the beginner baby step challenge were quick and easy: add an inspirational page to your control journal and delete all emails from Fly Lady.

We were asked to spend 15 minutes and write down quotes or phrases that inspire us and add that page to our control journal. She gave us some of her favorites and I added one of my own. No, I didn't have a few memorized. I did a search online for quotes and grabbed those that spoke to me.

Fly Lady's Faves:

• You can do anything in 15 minutes
• Housework incorrectly done still blesses your family
• You can't organize clutter, you can only get rid of it

I added:

• The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own home. (Harold B. Lee)
• If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your house that you know not to be useful or beautiful. (William Morris)

I really liked the first one because it reminds me of those days that I become disenchanted with being a stay-at-home mom. Those days that my daughter is extra needy and I just need a moment to myself. Or those days that I can't play one more game of Transformers. This work, while unglamorous, is the most important work I will ever do. Teaching them manners and values. Making a home for my family that is a welcome retreat from the world around us is just as important. And that, my friends, is one of the main goals of Becoming a Well Planned Woman.

Day 12's task was to simply delete all emails received from Fly Lady (you would need to have signed up for them on her site to get them.) They will all come around again. Delete. Done. I wish I could do that with all the other emails in my inbox. I think I'll add that to one of my 15 minute decluttering tasks. Declutter my inbox. I'm embarrassed to even say how many I have living in there.

Streamline Your Closet

It's almost Thanksgiving and that means that we're not to far away from putting our Fall wardobe away and pulling out the chunky sweaters for winter. It's the perfect time to start streamlining our closet so when that time comes to put Fall clothes away, you're only putting items away that you'll want to wear next Fall.  
As a general rule of thumb, we wear a very small percentage of the clothes we have in our closets. Some people put the figure as low as 20%. Take 15 minutes to go through your closet and ask yourself, "When did I last wear this?" If you haven't worn them in the last 12 months, then it's likely not something you'll wear in the next 12. (Caveat: if you've been prego and didn't fit into most of your wardrobe for a while, you get a 'by'.)

If you're not ready for this exercise, take all your hangers and turn them around so the open end is facing you (yes, awkward to remove). Once you wear it, put it back the regular way. This way you know if you've worn it and within 6-12 months, if you haven't turned that hanger back around, chances are you can bless someone else with that piece of clothing who'd get more use out of it than you.

Days Nine & Ten - It's about time!

Over the last couple of days on our beginner baby step challenge we've learned how to 'declutter a few minutes at a time' and that we 'declutter anything in 15 minutes.'

Fly Lady's approach to decluttering is that we can tackle it a little bit, consistently over the course of time in small increments. On day nine, we added a 5 minute room rescue to our morning routine. We are to spend just five minutes clearing a path in our worst room. The room you'd never want anyone to see. For me, that's my basement. Albeit a finished basement, it's the landing spot for all things in purgatory, or with no home at all. On an average day I'd have gifts for family members not yet sent, arts and craft supplies I didn't have time to put away, papers I need to "file" or just things that I know I want to keep but I'm just not sure where to put them. And since clutter attracts clutter, it becomes an inferno and somehow multiplies day by day. Occasionally it will get to me enough where I'll spend a good portion of a day trying to make it pretty once again. But in reality, I rarely have that time without a one year old on my hip or getting summoned for a snack. Yesterday, I took Fly Lady's advice and spent just five minutes clearing the path. I used my handy dandy kitchen timer, hit start and began my 5 minute room rescue. I made some serious headway in my basement and almost didn't want to stop after the timer went off (actually I didn't stop right away). Within a few weeks my basement will no longer be my 'dirty little secret', but a place I will be proud to show off.

Today, we took it a step further and learned about the power of 15. Taking just 15 minutes each day, you can declutter anything. On my list: My pantry. My kids' toyroom. My coat closet. My basement (see paragraph above). She walks us through tips on how to properly declutter. She goes into greater detail but here they are in a nutshell:

1. Decide when and how often to declutter. Do a small amount over time so you don't burn out.
2. Have boxes and garbage bags handy, labeled with "Give Away", "Throw Away", and "Put Away".
3. Set your timer for your predetermined amount of time.
   
4. Start at the entrance to the room (or go from top to bottom if decluttering a small space).
5. Ask yourself if it's useful or beautiful. If not, toss it or donate it.
6. Toss the garbage immediately. Put the donations in your car immediately. When the Put Away box gets filled, put the items back in their home.

If you clicked on the link above, you'll see I left out a cheesy song about "let me go, please release me" (as if sung from the clutter's point of view) but if you feel so inclined...

So in 15 minutes today, I tackled my back entry. I've really been wanting to declutter my pantry, but felt like once I got started I wouldn't want to stop (and well, a girl can only accomplish so much during the little one's nap). Doesn't that defy Fly Lady's rule, though? That anything can be decluttered in 15 minutes? I'll have to bite my tongue and tackle the pantry another day and see if it really can be done.

Today, I didn't follow the rules exactly. I didn't have the three boxes/bags, but rather just one for donations and did the other two mentally. I figured I'd use most of my 15 minutes finding the boxes and knowing my type A personality, I'd end up wasting time making some pretty signs for them on my computer. Since my purse was in the back entry and it really needed to be decluttered, I spent over half the time going through my purse pulling out old receipts and filing them and making a pile of lipstick, jewelry and other personal items that needed to make their way back up to my bedroom. In 15 minutes I had a clean back entry AND a clean purse. Nice. I'll take it.

As for the other things I'm supposed to be keeping up with on this journey, I'm doing most of them, although to be honest, can't seem to tackle all of them exactly the way I want to everyday. I've been getting dressed, but not to the shoes. Here's the thing...I need a cute, comfy pair of lace up shoes. Wait. Was I just making an excuse to go shopping? I did, however, find a pair of lace up shoes in my attic that look like the old bowling shoes we used to wear in 1996. I wore them one day. Yeah. With a clean house and sane mind, comes looking like a dork. I'll need to work on that one. If anyone finds any cute lace up shoes for everyday wear - please post about it!!

I am proud to say my sink shines most of the day now. Yay! (Yes, that was the ex-cheerleader coming out in me.)

By the way...is anyone out there? Please post a comment here on the blog so I can have some company on this journey. I'm starting to miss you all.

Days Seven & Eight - One Not So Great

If you're following along with our Fly Lady Beginner Baby Step challenge day by day, you might have noticed I didn't write a posting last night. Day 7 on our 31 day challenge was to pick out your clothes for the next day. Easy enough, right? Welll, around 9:20pm last night, I went upstairs to tackle my challenge when I saw that my bedroom light was already out and my hubby was fast asleep (he's a hunter and it's hunting season, which means he was up at 4:30am). Needless to say, I didn't feel right about turning on the light and rummaging through my closet to find an outfit for today. So I 'mentally' picked out what I was going to wear, hoping Fly Lady would forgive me. I have, however, already picked out my clothes for tomorrow and they're hanging on my closet door. Although it's hard to explain, I have to say there's a nice feeling about having already made that decision. One less for tomorrow. I'm starting to feel like a well planned woman.

Today's task was to start the beginnings of our control journal. Simply to get a 3 ring binder and put some paper in it. On one sheet we had to write "Morning Routine" at the top, on the other "Before Bed Routine" and fill in the simple routines we've learned so far in her program. She insists to write in pencil (which I hate) and to not let our perfectionism get in the way (I have a real problem with this). I attempted this challenge several years ago and didn't follow her advice. Of course I drafted a long list of things I thought would make my life easier by implementing them into my morning and bedtime routines. I neatly typed them up, printed them out and placed them in clear plastic sleeves before putting them in my binder. The result? Burnout. I became overwhelmed with all these new routines and gave up. Her process is designed to implement routines slowly so you're more likely to keep with them.

This time, I followed her recommendations. I took loose leaf paper and used pencil.  Here's what she has us doing and here's where I stand so far...

Morning Routine

- Get up and get dressed to lace up shoes; fixing your hair and face - having big challenges getting dressed before having to go downstairs. I end up feeding my daughter her bottle and heading back up to shower/get dressed etc. I am however, getting dressed and ready for my day much earlier than I did before this program. But will have an ultimate goal by end of the month to be dressed to the shoes before my kids get up. Anyone else struggling with this one?
- Looking at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom- the one above my sink is definitely working. A visual reminder to keep my sink shining (ie. empty of dishes and other crap). The one in my bedroom reminding me to get dressed to the shoes isn't helping much. I don't know if that's because it's not in a noticeable enough place or if it's because I do what I have to do (like feed by daughter), regardless of the reminder. I think it's the later.
- Reading 2 minutes of reminders - I have been logging on to my email and reading Fly Lady's flight plan (I get the daily digests as getting the emails individually would be annoying to me). I don't read all the testimonials, mostly just the flight plan and anything else that grabs my interest. It's helped in that it inspired me to do a complete meal plan for the upcoming week because it reminded me that the habit of the month is menu planning.
- Recognizing the negative voices and changing them; YOU ARE FLYing NOW! - I didn't really write this in my routine...it's just in hers. ;-). I haven't needed to pull out by dusty pom poms yet.
- Put out your Hot Spots for 2 minutes - this goes by quickly and works!

Before Bed Routine

- Keep your sink shining - doing well on this. yay!
- Lay out your clothes for tomorrow - check!
- Put out your Hot Spots - I'm finding that I leave this until right before I head up to bed and have no mental energy for it and sort of half-ass it. I think I need to move it a bit earlier in the night.

Thanks for sharing in this journey with me. If nothing else, it's motivating me to keep at it. If Fly Lady and her program have changed the lives of thousands, I'm hopeful she can change mine too. If you're missing my regular posts on tips I've found that save time, money and sanity, don't worry! I'll be aiming to post one per week while I'm tackling the baby step program. Gosh, that sounds like I'm in rehab. Good thing we're all friends. 

Day Six: Hot Spots!

 Today we learned about hot spots on day six of Fly Lady's Baby Step Program.  A hot spot, is an area, if left unattended, will eventually take over, making the house look awful. When you walk into a room, the hot spot is the first thing you see.  We all have them.  It's where you drop things when you come in the house. It's where you temporarily put things that have no home. In my house it's the back counter in our breakfast nook and the back entry area. The back counter is the drop spot for mail, my son's art projects from school, cell phones, sunglasses, hand lotion...you get the idea. It frequently becomes overflowing with papers (mostly junk mail), catalogs and magazines (that I can't bring my self to toss yet) and other "useful" things we need regularly. The back entry is the drop spot for shopping bags, coats, backpacks, dry cleaning...whatever is in our hands that needs to get unloaded. Sometimes things sit there for days on end. Fly Lady is right: clutter attracts clutter. If the hot spot is cluttered with items, then it's not a big deal to drop one more thing there - you barely notice it. But if it's neat and organized you're less likely to "mess it up".

So today's task was to practice putting out our hot spots for two minutes. I set the timer and went to work on my back counter (and boy today was a good day to work on hot spots!!). Although I didn't finish, I made some major progress in two minutes. And although it went super fast, it became clear that we can make a difference in just two minutes.

My sink is shining. See you tomorrow!

Day Five Love Fest

Today's task on Fly Lady's Baby Step program was to write down what you hear in your head...that nagging voice that speaks negative thoughts in your head, and turn them around and say something nice to negate those nasty words. I feel like I'm in a psychotherapy session - learning to love myself. Perhaps this is really intended for those stuck deep in the depths of chaos and/or depression. But I bit my tongue and jotted down those negative thoughts that pop into my head. And then I attempted to turn them around. Honestly, I felt like I was just making excuses for myself. But I think the main objective was to not allow these negative thoughts to keep you from moving forward and accomplishing what you set out and need to do. By acknowledging them, we can move beyond them and keep them from creeping into our minds moving forward. Awe. Now a big group hug!

It also has us "reading reminders for two minutes" again. In yesterday's post, I admitted I didn't know what this referred to, but I contacted FlyLady and got a response within a couple hours. Now that's organized! (Considering their following and the volume of emails they must get). Here was the response...


Dear Janelle,

Thank you for your email. We suggest that you read our daily Flight Plan. It has everything you need for that day...However, just read..do not do..we only want you to start to become familiar with the email(s). Then delete the rest of the email..Yes, delete..delete... :-)

If you have not subscribed to our Big Tent email(s)..the daily Flight Plan is located on the home page under the section..Today, We are in Zone... :-)
Hope this helps!!!

Flylady Laura