Zone 1

Well, this post is likely to be embarrasing for me. I believe we are in zone 1, I know it's the front porch, entrance way and dining room. I just can't remember which zone that would be. Anyway, I"ve taken pictures of these areas as they were yesterday morning when I got up. I have since worked on the front porch and The Hubs is majorly impressed. I"ll be posting those pictures next week to hold myself accountable to my few loyal readers.

This of course is the front porch. There's so much furniture on it at this point that it's really cluttered and unusable. One of those bags is dontations and one is for the boys as they get older. The excersaucer stays outside for now. Once Baby Gee gets a bit bigger and more capapble of moving around w/out my having to be overly concerned then it will get put in storage for another baby (hopefully!).

This is our 'entry way'. Really it's just the front door that opens up into the frontroom. From the door you can see this part of the house plus the dining room. It is very cluttered.

In the entry way is my chair. My spot. The one that I don't have to share with the kiddos unless I want to snuggle them to sleep. The one that I like to sit and read magazines or knit sweaters in. What? How can I sit in it? There's no room for my butt? Yeah. I know. It's been that way for about 3 months now. It'll get cleared out one day and piled up the very next. I don't even know why. It's my stuff, It's my fault. I"m the one cluttering up my favorite chair.

Here is the dining room. Starting at the front of the picture on the right is my moving work area. That is all my sweaters, materials and other Sleepy Sheep things. I have to pack it up and put it away every time I get it out. That alone takes an hour to get it out and pack it up when I"m done. Ugh. In the far right corner is the kids art area. It's crowded and over stocked. In the far left is the dining room table that serves as storage, dining when we have company (The Hubs doesn't like to eat at the table. I wish we did more family dining) and my work space. The chair w/ the pink sweatshirt on it is my desk chair. My desk is the only thing I can be semi-proud of right now. It's not so cluttered. Ok, so not entirely cluttered. I have neat stacks of things going on. But it's all good ;) I have room to set my cup of coffee down.

Well, like I said, my front porch is amazing compared to before. Today I will work on my entry way (which considering it's in the front room and that was last week's zone it should be freaking spotless. . .) after getting all my custom orders that have been on hold due to a thread shortage done. Then I'll likely spend the other three days of this week working on the dining room.

For more info on Flying with The Fly Lady be sure to see her website www.flylady.net ;) Happy flying!

Keeping the Daily Routines

Soon we will be entering a new month. In May Flylady's habit of the month is moving. I have to be honest with myself. . . other than running around with Baby Gee and Dizzy I don't have time to move. Unless somebody else takes care of the boys for me, that is, and for free (yeah, right!). So this month I am making my own 'habit of the month' instead of following Flylady's. I will be drinking more water and work on building my daily routines.

Let's start with the water. How many glasses of water would you guess I consume a day? Well, unless you count coffee, hot tea or sweet tea (which are all made with water!!). . . then the answer is 0. Yes, a big, fat, unhealthy 0. Rarely do I drink a glass of water unless I'm dining out or staring at health magazines while waiting in line at the grocery store. So on Saturday I purchased a gallon jug, sliced up an orange and filled it with drinking water. It's pretty good.

Then, because I"m really not getting enough done around the house on a regular basis, I drew up some daily routines. I made one up for Morning, Afternoon and Evening. I did this last week with moderate success. However, when I do all the routines it really makes a difference in the house. Here are the routines:

Morning!!

1. get up, straighten bed Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. start coffee & bottle Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. get dressed to shoes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

4. read Bible Su M Tu W Th F Sa

5. reboot laundry Su M Tu W Th F Sa

6. online time Su M Tu W Th F Sa

7. 15 minutes in the zone Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Afternoon!!

1. Clean up lunch Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. 5m room rescue's: 3 Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. Dizzy cleans up boys' room Su M Tu W Th F Sa

4. Set out snack Su M Tu W Th F Sa

5. reboot laundry Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Bedtime!!

1. Help children clean up Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. clean up dinner Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. Plan meals & day

4. reboot and put away Su M Tu W Th F Sa

any laundry

5. set out clothes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

6. dishes/shine sink Su M Tu W Th F Sa

7. declutter 15 minutes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Just so you know, that looks much nicer on my publication document saved on the computer. It's nice and bright colors, because they make me happy. I didn't include any cute cheerful images, because that just felt cluttered to me. I added days of the week so that I would have something to cross off, and keep tabs on my progress. I printed off 5 sheets and hung them on the fridge. I think three days last week I did really well. The other days. . . Well, not so much.

I really put a focus on what would help the most. I wanted to make the biggest difference with the least amount of work. There is room for tweaking. . . there always will be! Right now you see three times I reboot the laundry. That's because I"m so far behind. . . oh, wait! Not so far anymore! Because I had it as part of my daily routines I did more laundry last week and I'm closer to the top of Mount St Laundry! You'll notice there are things on there that shouldn't need to be listed. Well, it gives me success!! I can cross it off! I put a lot of those on in the morning because I want an encouraging start to my day. I"m going to have to weed through my evening routine and make it a little more easy to succeed at. By the time The Hubs shows up, I"m exhausted and just finishing dinner or thinking about bathing children can send me over edge. I'm not really sure what I want to do about that. I do try and get as much as I can of my evening routine done as early as I can.

You'll notice that in the afternoon the 3yr old cleans his room. That's his toys, his mess, his job. Not anyone else's. My job is to make sure he does it. I don't care if it's perfect (remember housework done improperly still blesses your home!) or spotless. This is just day to day no more than 20 minutes at a time. I also help the children clean up at bedtime. Instead of expecting them to do it on their own, because that would mean Dizzy is cleaning up his and Baby Gee's mess, and that's not fair, I help them out. I also include Dizzy in the room rescues and other chores. If I don't teach him to clean up, I will always be cleaning up after him. I don't even clean up after myself enough to worry about other peoples messes!! So parents: Please for your children's sake, make them pick up their own messes and help out a reasonable amount! You can start this as early as they figure out the concept of 'pick it up' and 'put it in'. That's how I taught Dizzy!

Happy Flying!

I would like to thank a special Flybaby for inspiring this post! Check out her post on making your morning routine enjoyable!

It's Tuesday Again!

So it's Tuesday again. Today I"m just going to give you some of my flying progress. The month of April is so crazily busy. . . so I'm still working on just maintaining flight. I haven't had a shiny sink every night before bed, and I've gone to bed with dirty dishes even. However, I"ve been dressed to the shoes before 9am almost every single day since March 1st, and my bed has been made every day in April other than this weekend! I'm thinking that regardless of how busy I am this week I need to get back in the habit of shining my sink every day!!

The zone this week is the main bath and laundry room. Thankfully our laundry room is pretty neat (thanks to The Hubs!) and the bathroom is fairly decent. The only thing I really need to focus on for either of those is wiping down surfaces and scrubbing the toilet/shower/tub. I"m still not going to be working on my missions for the zones just yet. I think in May, once the zones start over with zone one, I"ll do the actual zone work that's listed, such as decluttering bit by bit and detail cleaning. If I do that for a month, some of the zones will be ready for the daily missions by June ;)

Happy Flying!

When Flying Becomes Falling

Ok, so for several weeks I did just fine flying along as happy as can be. Keeping things clean and tidy, doing daily missions and so on. This morning I awoke to a filthy kitchen (thankfully not as bad as before I started flying) and an all around dirty house. I have to be honest with myself. I just got lazy. A lot of people have actual reasons getting in the way of their housework. They're busy, they work full time outside the home, their kids need a lot of attention that week due to illness or personal problems. They have too many negative voices in their heads, a lot of baggage, emotional problems, whatever it is. Me? My biggest trip? I JUST DON'T WANT TO DO IT. That's it. That's all she wrote.

I knew there was a sink of dirty dishes when I grabbed a plate of brownies and went to bed. I knew they were still there when I got back up and grabbed a healthier salad and returned to bed. And yes, when I got up for a 3rd brownie. . . they were still there. And of course they were there again when I woke this morning.

So now, where does that leave me? What am I supposed to do about it? I can't give up. . . there are those nasty voices telling me I failed yet again. . . but I haven't. I just had a fairly busy and emotional week. I didn't feel like doing anything, so I didn't.

I could blame it on the class I gave a presentation in on Saturday. I could blame it on all the work I got done sewing up soakers for the sale on this coming Saturday. Or I could face facts. I didn't get too busy. I just allowed myself to get too tired. I need to come up with an action plan for those weeks (lets face it. . . I"ll have one of those weeks every single month for a while now ~blushing~) when I just want to eat brownies and pout all day.

Well, here's my plan. And here's how I built it, so you can do this too when you come across a pitfall.

First, lets list the problem(s):

1. I start off pretty good during the day, but peter out at night. I'm more likely to give up after 4pm than any other time of day
2. Once the kids go to bed I'm just done. I"m wasted. . . emotionally and physically. I want to go to bed, watch tv, stuff my face and maybe, just maybe knit/read a book.
3. I tend to run off to sulk when I"m upset, feeling confronted, or overwhelmed.
4. I feel like The Hubs isn't helping, even though he is (proof is the beautifully cleaned boys room! and more that he did this weekend!)
5. I don't feel like the zones are working out for me very well right now.(yeah I"m getting a lot done, but It's not helping me build any habits, and I"m really just cleaning 'around' the mess, as in picking up junk to dust under it.)
6. last but not least. . . I am actually really busy (and yeah, a little stressed) over my 'opening debut' at Circle ME during their REdiaper sale this Saturday.

Now it's time to list the solutions to these problems:

1. The quick and easy solution would be to take some 'me time' right at 3:30 to wind myself up for the rest of the day. However, that's when the 5 schoolagers I sit for get out of school. No real 'me time' there. Maybe instead I could focus on having the house done and ready when we get home from school. I could also have snack set up and waiting, so all they have to do is sit, eat and run off to play. While they're enjoying snack I can make myself a cup of coffee and a healthy snack. Then I can relax while they play. I should also have dinner started/ready to go before picking them up from school. It's too much to try and work dinner into the mix while they're all in my house, and I can't leave them outside while I work inside. So having everything done and ready should make it a little easier and less stressful to get started right after they leave.
2. I can try and have my dishes and housework done before the kids go to bed. Maybe The Hubs can help with this. This way I CAN be done when the kids go to bed.
   
3. Working on my routines or other house work when I'm feeling negative may be difficult at first, but maybe I can build it into a new therapeutic habit.
4. Maybe talking to The Hubs can help us to communicate the best way to help each other out. If we knw exactly what's needed then filling those needs can be achieved easier.
5. I should write my own missions for the different zones for awhile. This would be simple basic things. Like tidying the room on Monday, then Tues-Fri detailing different areas 15 minutes at a time. When I find that it's not taking long to clean and detail I can add Kelly's missions in as needed and doable. I hope this should support my new habits rather than distract from them.
6. This will be over for awhile after Saturday. I"ll give myself the rest of that weekend off and plan myself a birthday party for the following Saturday night with the girls.

Ok, you can see how I did it, and what areas I'm struggling with. I hope that this has maybe helped you too. I am not moving on any further until I get out of my 'slump'.

Keep Flying!!

Baby Step Day 5. Telling Those Voices to Shut Up!

"You're not good enough" "You can't do it right, so why bother" "You can't do anything right" "You grew up in a dirty house, what makes you think you deserve a clean one" "Don't invite them over, they'll hate you for how dirty that house is!" "They'll be afraid to eat anything you bring to potlucks if they saw your kitchen!" "FAILURE" "The Hubs will hate you for the condition of this house!" "You make him (The Hubs) sick" "If you can't get it together, clean up the dang house once in awhile, he'll leave you" "If the right people saw your house on it's worst days they'd take the kids away from you" "You're not good enough and you never will be"

Ok, there's Step 5 Part 1 I wrote them down. Not all of them. I could go on for days, however, I"ll stop there. I also cleaned those voices up quite a bit for sensitive ears. . . they get pretty vulgar.

Here is my positive. To save time, bcs a mommy of two needs to, I copied and pasted from www.biblegateway.com My thoughts are added in pink ;)

Step 5 Part 2, Shut them up:

Psalm 139 (New American Standard Bible)

Psalm 139

God's Omnipresence and Omniscience.

For the choir director. A Psalm of David.

¹O LORD, You have searched me and known me. (I don't even know me that well)
²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar. (no matter how far I crawl away from you)
³You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
⁴Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O LORD, You know it all. (you hear these nasty voices before I do, and you know they come from deep inside me, they are not from You)
⁵You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me. (you will never let me go)
⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it. (who COULD grasp that thought!?)
⁷Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence? (You are everywhere)
⁸If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. (I believe Sheol is hell, could be wrong, the NIV says 'the darkest depths if my memory is right; So God, the God of light and purity can find me in the deepest and darkest depths there are)
⁹If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
¹⁰Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me. (looking back I can see that you've never let go of me, even in my darkest times, you have led me)
¹¹If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,"
¹²Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day
Darkness and light are alike to You.
(OK, here comes the hard part. Read the WORD of GOD carefully here)
¹³For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb. (Can a perfect God make a worthless failure? If He didn't make me a failure then what am I? )
¹⁴I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; (by a God that does not create failures, a perfect God who does not fail, who can not make a mistake)
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well. (I am His work, His creation. That means I am wonderful. Calling myself a failure is a sin. That's like calling HIS creation a failure, and a perfect God can not fail)
¹⁵My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
¹⁶Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (before the world began God knew who I would be right now, in 2011, He knew what I would do wrong and what I would do right, He knew where I would allow myself to fail. He also knew how long I would live, because HE ordained it.)
¹⁷How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! (isnt' this what I should be focusing on? His precious thoughts about me?)
¹⁸If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand
When I awake, I am still with You.
¹⁹O that You would slay the wicked, O God;
Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.
²⁰For they speak against You wickedly,
And Your enemies take Your name in vain.
²¹Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
²²I hate them with the utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies.
²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
²⁴And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.

The end of this passage demonstrates David's love for God. We can not love God and the sin in the world ~*Super important here*~ This doesn't mean we are to HATE sinners, just the sin! If you hate any person, you DO NOT LOVE GOD.

So what does this all mean? It's a sin to hate myself. Probably the one I struggle with most. I"m not perfect and I never will be. However, I was created in HIS image (check out Genesis!) by HIM. He could easily have chosen to not create me. He could have looked into my future and said "She wont amount to much, just be a little homemaker (and not a good one at that) and have a few kids (that she doesn't parent very well)" and decided the world would be better off with out me. But He didn't. (His thoughts of me are precious!!!) Why? Because he has plans for my life. Because I am not a failure, because I am not worthless. Because He WANTED TO.

So what do I need to do with all this information? I just need to pick up where I am and start over with this housecleaning thing. I need to keep truckin' with FlyLady. I need to keep shining my sink, getting dressed to the shoes, reading FlyLady posts, doing zone work and THINKING POSITIVE. I don't' have to go so far as to become conceited for start to think my stuff don't stink. . . I just need to remember that I am not a worthless lump of flesh. My husband loves me, my kids love me (even when Dizzy says "no, I love pancakes!") and need me. I will get up and make this house a home. It may never get to be 'sparkling clean' but it will look nice. It will not be an embarrassment when the Hoover Salesman busts his way through my door and shows me the uses for a vacuum in a carpet-less house (you should have seen the horror on my face when he showed me what filth lay on my ceiling fan. . . .I had no idea you were supposed to clean that!). My house will be a safe place for my boys to bring their friends over. I will have cookies to serve and crafts to make (or whatever it is that big boys like to do!) My house will be a home.

I am good enough to clean house, raise children and be loved by The Hubs. If I do it wrong the first time I am good enough to try it again, and keep trying until I get it right. No one will be angry at my failure. The house I grew up in is a motivation to keep my own clean, I can break the dirty house cycle. A true friend will love me no matter what my house looks like. People rave about my cakes and love my food. I AM NOT A FAILURE. The Hubs has reassured me there is nothing that would make him leave me, or hate me. He's proven this time and time again. My house is not a danger to my kids, my self hatred is. I am good enough because God made me good enough. HE does not make failures. He does not make mistakes. People allow themselves to be failures. I will not fail. I WILL FLY FREE.

Last week we were in Zone 3 the bathroom and extra room. The extra room was Office. My bathroom is sparkling and the kids I sit for were very impressed with my 'office', aka the desk in the dining room ;)

This week we are in Zone 4 (see above link) which is the Master Bedroom, Thank you Dear Lord God! This will probably be the hugest blessing to The Hubs, and in turn to myself ;) My habit this week is Day 6: clearing hot spots. So here goes. My hot spot that I"m going to deal with is the one that's created a forest fire along the wall in my bedroom. It's gotten so there is only the smallest of paths through our room. Especially now that we have a new queen bed. I am also going to try and get up early everyday to crack open my bible and go for a walk before everyone else gets up. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays one of my 3 bff's gives me a wake up call to get up and go. . . so those days should be no brainers, it's Tuesday and Thursday I'm worried about. The weekends will be my days off ;)

If you ever want to email me on FlyLady related stuff my address is:
"iwillflyfree @ gmail dot com"

As always I'll report back on Tuesday ;)

Maintaining Flight

So this week I am simply maintaining the goals I"ve achieved so far. This was INCREDIBLY hard the last two days. Without enough warning (I did have some, just not a set time) the Hubs decided to refinish the floor in the kitchen (AGAIN!!!) and moved the stove and refrigerator. It needed to be done. However that meant the 6 yrs worth of crap sitting on top of the fridge was then placed on my counters. Filthy dusty and all. Crap. It meant I couldn't boil water to put in my french press. . . no coffee. Double Crap. You add that into my waking up Saturday going full force with my day with HORRIBLE TIME MANAGEMENT and you get a disaster.

I knew when I woke up that the Hubs would be starting on the floor as soon as he got home from bible study. I knew Dizzy really wanted cupcakes. Well, I had to clean the kitchen (it wasn't bad, actually, just putting CLEAN dishes away and clearing the counters) before doing anything else. I also knew I needed to get diaper laundry started.

I got dressed to the shoes (and yeah, I really did feel like doing more!) even though it was a Saturday. I fixed my hair. I emptied the dishwasher and put away the dishes I hand washed the night before. I cleared the counters and wiped them down, guzzling coffee as I went (At this point I didn't actually make the connection that I wouldn't have my stove for at least 24 hours). Then I started the cupcakes, cleaning as I went. I really should not multitask in the kitchen, I added 1/2 stick too much butter =( There was 5 minutes left on the timer (actually turned to be more like 10) when the Hubs came home. That's when I realized I had 1/2 an hour to get Dizzy to 'sign' a card, get both kids dressed, wrap a present, take a shower and get dressed (again) before running out the door to a bday party. With the Hubs' help I got it all, except my so wanted shower. I was gone all day, and came home to finally make the connection that we were loosing an hour of sleep!

We also came home with a new bed, since The Hubs' parents were getting rid of theirs in exchange for a tempurpedic (the kind that moves up and down). So I needed to make room in our room for it to be put together. We wont discuss the horrors found under our bed or the disaster that room is still in. When was I going to get to work on my kitchen that I put so much effort into last week? After church, running into town for pizza, cleaning our room (w/ help!) and getting the bed put together I 'cleared' the counters in the kitchen and went to go lay down on our new bed. I didn't get a nap. I got up and made frosting for the dried out cupcakes to share at our evening bible study. Then in a desperate attempt to find peace, went to a neighbors before the evening services. Her house is just clean enough to relax in, but never so clean I feel guilty about my own =)

However, Monday with some quite distracted kitchen work I did 15:5 minute intervals. 15 minutes cleaning, 5 attending to kids, getting a drink etc, repeat. I even cleaned the stove top. The burners are still soaking in hot HOT water and dish detergent, awaiting one of those steel scouring thingies. . . and somebody else to scrub them (yeah, in my dreams). I even managed to do the daily mission, decluttering in the bathroom for 15 minutes (minus 3 min since Gee couldn't face life another second w/out his nap). I still have to finish the other half of that daily mission and work on a hot spot on my desk (that would be my home office) for 5 minutes, but it's still only 1:00pm on Monday. And I don't have any kids coming over today. . . GO ME!