Tuesdays are for Flying.

I'm going to start flying again. In a jet plane? I wish. A kite? I'll take the boys soon, but not every Tuesday, silly. I'll be flying with FlyLady. I think I've tried to do this every year since Dizzy was born. Now that he's just turned 3 it's time to start again, right? Well, hopefully this time I will continue to fly, daily, not just on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are for 'blogging on flying' I guess ;)

Fly Lady is based on getting rid of the CHAOS in your house. CHAOS is short for Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. And I've got it bad. It's even gotten so bad that I just have people over anyway, apologizing for the messy house and hoping that they think it was just a bad week. Better yet, maybe they don't even see the mess right? Wrong. They see it. My friends and family are wonderful and gracious at pretending to not see the filth clinging to the ceiling fans, the dust on the blinds and worse. I can't do it anymore. My job as a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom), well technically a Work At Home Mom (WAHM), is to raise our children, serve healthy and affordable meals, and honor my husband. For my husband, honoring him means keeping a nice house. He thrives in a clean and simple environment. He's practically suffocating in this house it's so bad. Raising my children means teaching them to be responsible people, you know, ones that help out each other and take responsibility for themselves (and their messes!).

I hate my house. Not the walls and ceiling. Not the colors or location. Not the floors or the drafty windows. It's the STUFF inside the house. You know the 9" pile sitting on top of my printer/scanner. All the JUNK that's piled on the dining room table that we can't eat at, even if we wanted to. All the TRASH I insist on holding on to.

I WANT TO LOVE MY HOUSE INSIDE AND OUT. So I"m going to. By flying. Every Tuesday I will update you on my flight plan and progress.

Today is the first day of March. Each month Fly Lady promotes a new habit for us flybabies to pick up. This one is a toughie. For me anyway. It's getting dressed to the shoes. That means bathing/dressing/hair/makeup/and, yes, you saw the typing correctly. . . .SHOES. I love shoes, I really do. They are the best fashion accessory next to a rockin' pair of earrings. I just hate wearing them. Even the brand new $40 boots I bought the other day. (Which is really more than double the amount I have spent on one pair of shoes in 3 years.) Not only does Fly Lady want shoes on, but she even goes so far as to ask for LACE UP SHOES. What?! Laces? You mean not slip ons, slippers, flip flops and so forth?! No. Of course not. Those are easily taken off and tossed aside. Crap. Yeah, I said it. Crap. I"ll say it again. Crap.

Alrighty then. I think I"m done griping. Crap!!!! I HATE WEARING SHOES INSIDE! I HATE WEARING SHOES OUTSIDE! POEPLE!!! I HATE WEARING SHOES! Ok. It's gone. I let it all out and it's gone. Lets move on now.

Now, why does she require this of her flybabies? If you stay in your pj's what do you feel like doing? Bumming around and drinking coffee of course. Playing online and being crabby with the kiddo's. Ignoring the CHAOS in your house. When you are clean and dressed how do you feel about yourself? Clean and good of course! When you fix your hair (even just a simple ponytail or a good brushing) don't you feel a little prettier than just running your hands through it and hoping you got all the lint fuzzy's out? When you put on your makeup (if you wear it at all) don't you feel at least a little more put together and competent? Well, we could stop there, couldn't we? Why bother with the socks and shoes? Proper lace up shoes are supportive, comfortable and will keep you going longer than being barefoot. Or so I hear.

So, this shoe hater is going to start wearing shoes. I may not get up and dressed before the kids get out of bed. I may not be in shoes until 10am or even lunch. However, I WILL get dressed every day, to the SHOES before serving lunch. Even if it kills me. Later this month, maybe I'll work on having my shoes on before serving breakfast. And, I"m going to start shining my sink. Every day. That would be Baby Step 1. I plan on just sticking with these two things until I have them down pat before going on to baby step 2. I moved to fast and too hard before crashing with my earlier attempts at crashing. Not again.

I will Fly, will you join me?

Edited to add:

I had been ready for the day, minus shoes when I typed this. I hadn't planned on caring so much about shoes in fact until I was reading some testimonials on Fly Lady. Then I decided that not only did I need to do this, but I needed to tell the world I was doing it. So I got on and started blogging it. The idea was to motivate me to put on my shoes, right? Well I took so long and lost track of time that I soon realized (literally seconds after posting the blog the first time) that I was late leaving to pick kids up from school. I still had time, but not much. So out the door I went, with my own two kids (I sit for 5 children after school and on non-school days) with my shoes on. Only I hadn't been wearing them when I realized I was late. So neither foot was entirely in a shoe, and the shoes were actually on the wrong feet. One of the tongues was bunched up on top of my foot, the other twisted up somehow. One insert was missing, and the other was folded and wrinkled up under one foot. It made me feel like a crazy disheveled person. And physically uncomfortable.