Back at it

After my testimonial to FlyLady, I kind of fell off the wagon. But only kind of. And I'm getting back on now.

Last night my husband had to work at 6:00. That's right, a Sunday night. I guess that's what happens when you have to shut off the water to a whole hospital. It gets scheduled for a Sunday night. He got paid double-time, but then they had to call it off early, so was done by 11:00, and has today off.

So when he left our place around 4 pm, I started cleaning. I got the computer room to the point where I could open up the treadmill. It took longer than 15 minutes, but I wasn't in any hurry (and I did a load each of dishes and laundry at the same time). I suppose I could even vacuum now, if I wanted to. Ooh, I just remembered that I took a "before" picture of the junk in front of the treadmill. So now I can take an "after" picture! This room is a dumping ground no more!

On Saturday we burned all the boxes in the front porch (ALL the boxes!) that have been there since we moved in a year ago. I also hung up all the coats that had been thrown out there using all the hangars that had been thrown out there. I had time and motivation to do this during the front porch zone week because the dining room and entrance (back porch) have stayed clean. (Like I said, I only kind of fell off the wagon.)

And since my last post (a month ago!) I cleaned and organized my husband's workbench area in the basement as well as his tool shed. I let go of the "stinking thinking" that he should clean "his" areas and just did it. I could now go get any tool of his that he needed without having to dig through a bunch of stuff or look in eight different places. He did help me with sorting through the clothes in his dresser, too, so that's done.

I also did a project that he had talked about doing. While my sister was staying with us, she had a bedroom off the dining room. My husband said that when she moved out, he wanted to turn that bedroom into a hangar for all his radio-controlled airplanes. So I took everything else out of that room that was still in there when sis moved out, and relocated everything to do with his airplanes into the room. The stuff came from the basement, mostly, but also the dining room, kitchen, and back porch. Now it's all consolidated and his planes aren't in danger of being stepped on by people or cats. (Unfortunately, that doesn't prevent him from crashing them when he flies!)

So what do I have left in my house that's visible? My living room needs a once-over. The front porch has a couple of things that still need to be taken care of before trick-or-treaters come by. The computer room has one bag of papers to file. I could probably sort all the sandals out of the shoes by the back door and put them away for the season soon. There's a section of the basement that needs work that holds motorcycles and fireworks right now. The room at the top of the stairs needs the sawdust and goodwill clothes cleaned out. After all that, I should be down to where I can go through boxes, cupboards, and drawers that are out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and throw out the REAL clutter.

Back on the wagon!

My FlyLady Testimonial

I finally had that "major shining moment" to inspire a testimonial. It was the "unexpected guest visit that goes well." So here's what I sent in:

6 Years Ago: I married my wonderful husband, who isn't any more organized than I am. We moved in together, opened our wedding presents, and we've been living in CHAOS ever since. Our excuses included, 1) we both work full time, so neither of us have time to clean, 2) our place is too small for the amount of stuff we have, and 3) why should I do anything if he/she isn't doing anything? Real stinkin' thinkin'.

1 Year Ago: We moved into our first "real house" which has more than enough room for everything we own, as well as having room for guests to come, be entertained, be fed, even stay the night. But it wasn't long after the boxes were unpacked that the CHAOS came back.

1 Month Ago: I found FlyLady. It didn't take much looking around on the site before I realized that this was going to be a good system for me. I was actually looking for info on Pam and Peggy's card system that I had seen my mom use for a while over a decade ago. (I'm a second-generation SHE.) The babysteps were what appealed to me most. It was like giving me permission to ignore scrubbing the kitchen floor when I really needed to find it first. I decided I was only going to focus on 1) Simple routines, 2) Dishes, 3) Laundry, 4) Taking care of whatever bothers ME the most about the zone we're in, 15 minutes per day. I didn't think 15 minutes was long enough to get much done, but I figured that once I added up 15 minutes across several days, I should at least make a visible dent.

It turns out that 15 minutes a day was enough to get each zone basically presentable by the end of my first month flying! In some zones, I spent 15 minutes one day, then skipped a day or two because I had made such a big difference that I had to step back and look for something else that needed to be done. It was so much better "for me" that I had to readjust my thinking to see what "normal" (read: born organized) people would still see as messy. My husband noticed and appreciated my work along the way, too. His comments included, "You're doing a great job," "This room looks great," and "I like coming in to a clean room. It's like coming home." My response to the last one was, "Thanks, that's the whole point of what I'm doing!"

In the middle of this first month, I did have company. My younger sister came and stayed for a week and a half. Normally, I wouldn't do any special cleaning for her visit because she knows how I am, especially since she lived with us for a while not that long ago. But right away she could tell the difference in the zones I'd already been through, and by the end of her visit, my house was actually cleaner than when she arrived! While she was here, I was able to leave my bedroom door open, which I hadn't done for 6 years!

2 Days Ago: This past Saturday, I had a real first. A friend of my husband's stopped by out of the blue. We hadn't seen him since we moved, so after standing around talking cars outside for a while, my husband invited him in to see the new place. And it was ready! He got the grand tour, without the embarassed "ignore the mess" comments in every room. There are a couple of rooms that are still dumping grounds for items that don't have a home yet, but none of the main areas of the house needed any excuses. I was so proud of myself!

So, I still have a few areas that need a lot of work (the rooms that don't fit neatly into the zones, mostly), and every room has out-of-sight clutter of some kind, but I am so happy with the progress I've made, that I'm actually looking forward to seeing what I can accomplish in my next 15 minutes.

Sandwiches ahoy!

After all the hub-bub, I'm making sandwiches for my own husband now. He works construction (plumbing) and for the past year or so he's always had a microwave on the job site, so he'd take frozen dinners or leftovers. Before that I made sandwiches for his lunch. Now he's on a new job site without a microwave, so I'm making sandwiches again. And I'm looking forward to it.

I must admit that when I first started making DH's sandwiches a couple of years ago, I had a similar attitude to the lady who first brought up the subject. But my husband's argument at the time was that if I didn't make his sandwiches, he'd buy his lunch every day rather than take the time to make his own sandwiches. Our budget induced me to give in.

After a while though, I realized that he really did think the sandwiches I made him tasted better than any he could make. (He said it was because I added the secret ingredient... love!) Some of the other guys he worked with were jealous of the sandwiches he pulled out at lunchtime. Plus, it made him think fondly of me in the middle of his day. He used to say that he looked forward to my sandwiches all morning. So I'm looking forward to all that again. It's hard to add the "love" to a frozen dinner.

Even before FlyLady, I had a morning routine. I wake my husband up in the morning, then head to the kitchen and have his sandwiches made and in his lunchbox by the time he gets dressed and brushes his teeth.

Yahoo! Groups : Post Message

I posted this update to my chatty FlyLady yahoo group.

This week marks my first month flying. When I started last month, the zone was the kitchen, so now that we're back in the kitchen, I've been through every zone once. My only focus has been getting some routines going and decluttering the current zone. The results so far? Fantastic!

Zone 2: The Kitchen
My kitchen sink is shiny! My kitchen counter is clear. My dishes get done regularly. My kitchen table is clear. Add these 4 items up, and that means I have room to prepare and cook meals, the dishes I need for cooking and eating are clean, and the table can even be used to eat the meals at. Yummy! There are also no more miscellaneous items in the corners of the room that have been dumped off here.

Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room
My bathroom counter is clear of everything except toothbrushes. My laundry is getting done regularly, so it isn't found on the floor in here. I still haven't gotten into the "swish and swipe" habit, but the toilet bowl has been swished at all, so that's a start. ;) My office room has had ALL of the visible paper clutter removed. I had 2 full paper grocery bags plus the entire floor of the room to go through! 98% of it was burned, and the other 2% is collected together and I'm getting it into my filing cabinet 15 minutes at time every now and then. I still have plenty of other clutter in this room, since the door always stays closed, which makes it a very tempting dumping ground (out of sight, out of mind). But now I can see the stuff under the papers. :) And now that I have a very good idea of which papers I've decided are important to keep and which aren't, there's a lot less mail that even makes it into this room to begin with.

Zone 4: The Master Bedroom
The floor of my bedroom is clear. The laundry is not all over the floor. Suitcases from our last vacation are put away. My dresser only has alarm clocks, two jewelry boxes and a teddy bear, instead of junk, garbage, and piles of clothes. My drawers are full of clean clothes that I actually wear, and the drawers shut! I took before and after pictures of this project because I knew it would show drastic improvement. My husband's dresser still needs this done, but I need his cooperation to tell me what clothes he no longer needs/fits into/loves. I think I mentioned before that I had company arriving during Zone 4 week (my younger brother and sister), so I took a day away from the master bedroom to pick up the guest bedroom, but it took less than 15 minutes to get that picked up. And with the guest bedroom down the hall from the master bedroom, I was happy to be able to leave our bedroom door open without guilt or embarassment for the mess.

Zone 5: The Living Room
This zone got picked up a bit at a time in the previous weeks just from my husband and I picking up after ourselves (plus one 5-minute room rescue before company arrived). So by the time I got to it, I cleared the coffee table and alphabatized the DVD's and called it good.

Zone 1: The Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room
We enter through the back door, so I skipped the front porch this time around. The dining room table is ready to entertain guests any time now. It took 15 minutes for me to clear it off, after nagging my husband to do it for 3 weeks. (It was a lot of his stuff, with a bit of mine.) I forgot to take before and after pictures here. That would have been cool, because it looks so much better now than it did before. Our entrance area just inside the back door has a really old garden sink that was a horrible hot spot until it got to the point that we couldn't put any more stuff on it. In 15 minutes I was ready to shine that sink, too. When my husband saw the cleaned white porcelain, he got some metal polish and shined up the brass drain. For its age (~100 years old) the sink doesn't look half bad. I still have to pick up the area under the sink where shoes, coats, tools from outdoor projects, etc. all get dumped. I did remember to take before and after pictures of the sink, but I'll take one more after the stuff under the sink is gone, too. :edit: Included

This week our guests are leaving, and I'm happy to say that my house actually looks better now than it did when they arrived! That never happens!! My husband has complimented me several times throughout the month. He told me just yesterday how much he appreciates that I'm keeping the house looking so nice. We both work 8 hours/day outside the home, but he has a physical job (plumbing) where I have a desk job (web programming), he has a 2 hour commute where I have a 15 minute one, and he has some bad days at work, where I actually love my job. So he has even less interest in cleaning the house when he gets home than I do, but I think that makes him appreciate the clean house even more than I do. It's so much nicer to just do it than to make excuses about why I shouldn't have to do it, and then both of us feel rotten that nothing gets done.

I've introduced my mom to FlyLady, too. She lives in SC (practically neighbors with FlyLady!), so we haven't been able to see each others' progress, but when I've told her how I'm doing, she says it inspires her. That's really cool. Once I get my before-and-after pictures posted to this group, I'll send her copies, too. That should be inspirational, indeed!

They're all the same.

So in reading comments and questions from other women on HeyTom.net, I've discovered that there is nothing unique about my situation. There are other women who work as many hours outside the house as their husbands. There are other women who pack their husband's lunch in the morning. There are other women who have to wake their grumpy-in-the-morning husbands up every day. But it sounds like they whine about it a little more than me. I know I've felt the same way at some point (or still do on some days) but when I hear it coming from someone else it sounds so ridiculous. That makes me step back and look at myself. If I can come up with the obvious answer for them, why can't I see it for myself?

From September 2: "My Dh and I both work full time. ... I take to heart the condition of our home, and work quite hard at keeping it clean, cooking home meals, getting the schedules made each week to accomade every one. In essence, another full time job. Why is it so hard for men to be appreciative? There are days when I feel I should walk him to everything I have done and say "TA DAH!" Do you think that would help?" I do believe that both of us working full time jobs outside the house means that neither one of us should have to carry the full responsiblity of the housework. At various times over the years I've tried to come up with the equation that would specify how much each person should do. Sometimes I've factored in his earning more money than me, having a long commute, keeping up the cars, etc. and sometimes not. It's always been trying to justify my doing less housework or his doing more housework, but they'd end up proving that I needed to do more work. *See bottom of this post for the mathematics. But apparently, I am perfectly capable of handling it all by myself. And (thanks to FlyLady) rather than not doing anything because "he's not doing anything," letting the house go to heck and feeling bad about it, I'm just doing it all, feeling good about the house, feeling good about myself, and leaving the martyr attitude behind. I would like to get him to do something (anything) in the way of housework, but if he can't be talked into it nicely, and nagging, guilting, or bribing him into it is going to cause marital strife, I'd rather do it all myself, let him sit around and relax, and have a peaceful house for both of us. If he doesn't always say that he appreciates what I do (although he is saying it now), then I'll take his improved attitude as a direct compliment. Tom and company may call him a clod for not helping, but some battles are just not worth fighting.

From August 29: "I do not understand Why he doesn't seem capable of making his own lunch. ... having to take time out to make him sandwhiches throws me off my own schedual ... We don't have any children living here but even a 10 year old can make a sandwhich." I had this attitude at first, but I've been packing my husband's lunch for years now without it. Yes, making a sandwich is easy. He could do it very easily. Therefore, you can do it very easily. And you can put it into your schedule. Then it wouldn't throw you off. Or you could find a time earlier in your day when it fits into your routine better, make the sandwiches, and put them in the fridge until he's ready to go. And like Tom said, "They just don't taste as good as one lovingly made by his wife." When I make my husband's lunch, I add the secret ingredient... love. When you drop the martyr attitude, you realize that it's a small favor that you can do for the man you love, instead of a burden.

From August 31: "I wake my DH every morning, sometimes having to go in 2-3 times. ... It seems that when he comes into the kitchen to get his lunch and coffee (which I make each day) he seems in a hurry (I do understand that) and he seems like he's mad at me. ... I'm one who cries at the drop of a dime. This starts my day off poorly." Yup. I know that one. Boy, do I know that one. I've learned that my husband is a different person when he first wakes up than he is the rest of the day. Actually, he's a person I don't particularly care for, and one who usually isn't too keen on me. We're neither one of us morning people nor early risers other than by necessity. So I try my best not to take anything he says or does personally, do whatever is in my power to make his morning run as smoothly as possible, and get him out the door and on his way to work as fast as I can. Sometimes it goes ok and sometimes it doesn't. On real bad days we both end up yelling, calling each other names, and saying things we don't mean. On good days, we may say almost nothing to each other. But either way, I try to make sure I give him a kiss and tell him I love him as he leaves. I know that my real husband will come home at the end of the day, if he doesn't call me first, and that if my real husband even remembers what that other guy did or said that morning, he will feel bad and apologize. And when I've been just as awful right back to him, I'll apologize, too. It still isn't fun, but as I can't change him, I've learned to live with it. (Unless someone else has suggestions!)

So yeah, maybe nobody else has my exact situation, but other people have each of the factors that make it up.

*Housework equations I've tried:
Jh = Hours on the job for husband
Jw = Hours on the job for wife
Hh = Hours of housework for husband
Hw = Hours of housework for wife
$h = Husband's hourly wage
$w = Wife's hourly wage
$m = Hired maid's hourly wage (hypothetically)
Ch = Hours of husband's commute
Cw = Hours of wife's commute

Jh + Hh = Jw + Hw -- (This one balances out, until I add in car and lawn maintenance. Then I'd need to do 1 hour of housework/day to balance this.)
Jh * $h = (Jw * $w) + (Hw * $m) -- (I'd need to do 6 hours of housework/day to balance this)
Jh + Ch = Jw + Cw + Hw -- (I'd need to do 3 hours of housework/day to balance this)

Hard Copy... dun dun dun.

I made a hard-copy control journal, and I think I like it better than my Palm one. I don't check off items as they are done with the dry-erase marker, but I still use sheet protectors because I'm always wiping water droplets off the page. It's nice to just look at the page for "Afternoon Routine," scan down the list and say, "done, done, done, I'll go do that now, and done." Then I come back and flip the page to the Tuesday routine (one item: bring in trash cans from the curb), look at the page for the current zone (currently no specific items) and go pick up for 15 minutes. I have post-it notes marking the pages for the current day and zone, and I move them to the new page when the list is done. K.I.S.S., you know.

I keep my control journal on the kitchen counter where all my dirty dishes used to go. Now my dirty dishes go in the dishwasher, because the clean ones have been unloaded by me instead of me waiting for "someone else" to do it. I had to break out of the mindset that one of my siblings would unload and I would load like it always was when I lived at home. My husband doesn't have the same chore list that my siblings had, and I shouldn't expect him to do those chores. It's funny how having "Unload the dishwasher" written on my list makes it mentally ok for me to do a task that I always saw as "someone else's job." I find that I run the dishwasher when it's much less full than normal, too, because that's all the dishes I have dirty, and it's not every day, either.

So it's going well for me. I can't wait until tomorrow when the zone includes the dining room, because that is the central room in my house, and it's currently the one in most need of cleaning. But the table is mostly full of my husband's stuff, so I'm going to have to make him help for 15 minutes. :-)

And I've cleaned out the filing cabinet and started filling it with the "to be filed" papers that I culled out of all the other paperwork mess. It's fantastic! All I'm keeping filed in there is:
1. Tax information for the last 7 years,
2. Retirement plan statements for the last 7 years,
3. Bank statements for my main bank account for the last 7 years.
I have receipts and car titles and some other important stuff and some other not important stuff in the green plastic file holder, but eventually I'll clean that out, too. The file cabinet is my focus first. The only thing that makes me sad is that I had three years worth of Jan-Dec folders all neatly tabbed and labeled in there, and I have no use for them now. Now I have one folder per year for each of the three categories above. So what can I file away by month... hmm...?

Oh, and on September 5 (5 days from now) the zone should be the kitchen again, so I will have been through my whole house. Cleantacular!

Today's Ask FlyLady

The link won't work anymore, but essentially she said her favorite filing system is her fireplace.

I read this today and thought it was cool because I am now done burning all my extra paperwork. I still haven't gone through my filing cabinet yet, but I'm down to one bag of paperwork that needs to be filed. This was culled out of 2 paper bags full plus a floor full and a desk full. My computer room no longer looks like a mail truck exploded. Now it just has a bunch of other stuff that doesn't have a real home.

Tom from HeyTom.net posted my comment from yesterday. I'm published!

I'm thinking I might make a hard-copy Control Journal even though I like my palm one. There's something comforting about a physical piece of paper sometimes. Plus I see lots of binders in stores these days with school starting soon, so I could get a really pretty one. I know I don't have any extra binders lying around, because I had to take something of mine out of a binder when my husband needed a binder for something 6 years ago.

Yesterday I did a 5-minute room rescue on the living room before my company got here, and that was all it took to make it look great. I feel like I've ignored that room while I've been working on the other zones, but my husband and I both have been picking it up bit-by-bit almost subconsciously. So 5 minutes of concentration on it got the job done. Maybe I'll skip that zone next week and spend the time in Zone 1 instead (Entrance, front porch, dining room). Those are my worst spots right now, and I could use 2 weeks in them! Too many horizontal surfaces buried under piles.

It's kind of neat how the zones I've already cleaned stay that way. When my husband and I used to do a marathon crash-and-burn clean, we'd always say, "Now let's not let it get messy again." But it always goes back to messy pretty quick. Maybe losing messy is like losing weight. If you lose it slowly, it's less likely to come back?

Anyway, can you tell I like the system? I plan on sending in a testimonial some time, but it would be cool to be able to include a major shining moment of some sort. Like the unexpected guest visit that goes well, or an impromptu party with the neighbors. Or maybe just that I've been through all the zones and I'm back to the kitchen and I'm not starting over, but continuing where I left off. That would be shining moment enough for me. We'll see.

Not just a draft for HeyTom.net

I saw a question on HeyTom.net that I had to respond to. I don't know if I'll be posted on the site or not, but here's the question and my response:

Hey, Tom...

I am wondering how to take may husband's comments of "I'm so proud of you!" When I hear that particular comment, I think of trying to please a hard to please father. How can I get my DH to say something more gently like "That's great!" or "You are amazing!" instead of me feeling like I've had to get his approval instead of doing things for myself?

Can you interpret his comment to help me understand this is a positive remark, and not a "now try harder."

Signed, Miss-Understood

From Tom:

One of the things that get the ladies in trouble while communicating with men is that you often look for the hidden meanings in what we say. We aren't that deep. He says he is proud of you because he is. Why would you think differently? He didn't say I am so proud of you but......

To me it sounds like the issue here is really yours. It is almost self abuse. I think you should accept the compliment as it was said.

Tom

From me:

This is in response to the woman who saw "I'm so proud of you" as a negative comment.

A husband being proud of you is 100% a positive thing! I love this particular comment from my husband. When my husband says he's proud of me, it means he sees what I'm doing or working on, and he likes it. Whether it's a task I've accomplished or a goal I'm working towards, he thinks it's worthwhile and valuable. He sees how far I've come and that it wasn't easy to do. It means that I'm doing something that he'd brag to his friends about. (And he does, too. I've been told by one of his friends that whenever "the guys" are standing around talking about "the girls," my husband always shares good things about me instead of complaints.) The comment means "That's great!" and "You are amazing!" and "I'm impressed!" all rolled up in one.

But I'm not FLYing to impress my husband. I'm not seeking or needing his approval. I'm not doing it because of anything he said or asked or implied. I'm FLYing to feel good about myself. I'm proud of myself for what I've accomplished already in the just the 2 1/2 weeks since I started with FlyLady. If he never made a comment about the change in the household, I would still keep FLYing because I'm doing this for me. But if my husband sees it too, he has every reason to be just as proud of me as I am of myself.

This is a very positive comment, and a great compliment. Please allow yourself to take it as such. I hope you can be proud of yourself, too! And be glad you have a husband who notices what's going on, sees it as good, and lets you know how he feels about it. I know I am glad mine is that way. It sounds like there are other women on this site who aren't so fortunate.

Erin P.
FLYing for herself in MN

Gone, all gone!!

The only papers in a paper bag in my computer room are ones that will go into the file cabinet. Hooray!!! I said I was only going to work on it for 5 minutes, but when the timer went off I reset it, twice, then just kept going until the last bag was empty. I found another car title in there. Funny how many of those we have. Now I have to clear out the file cabinet to make room for my organized paperwork.

Since I had done 15 minutes in the master bedroom in the morning yesterday, I did my other 15 minutes in the guest bedroom. I went in, picked up stuff, threw away, put away, made the bed, and then realized I hadn't heard the timer beep. I thought I must have forgotten to start the timer, but when I checked, I still had 4 minutes left! So I straightened up a couple more things, put away some stuff from the hallway, and walked downstairs and outside to where my husband was still burning my last bag of papers. I said, "I'm constantly amazed at how much I can accomplish in 15 minutes." He said, "me too. You've been doing a really good job." I said thank you and told him that I'd finished what I wanted to get done and the timer was just now beeping my 15 minute alarm, because I had carried it with me so that it would beep while I was talking to him.

So I have a bedroom my guests can stay in down the hall from my bedroom and not worry about keeping our bedroom door closed to prevent them from seeing in. Sweet.

I talked to hubby about his 15 minutes. He said that he thought I was joking about that. I said he didn't have to do it, no big deal. He said that, no, he would still do it. He volunteered to attack the dining room, since most of the mess in there is from him. There's also a pile of paperbacks that I carried in there for some reason, and who knows what else. But he's going to work 10-hour days today and maybe tomorrow, so I'm not going to expect any cleaning from him until he's good and ready.

I might have an extra evening before our company arrives, depending on what time they leave home. It's my younger brother and sister who are coming and they have about an 18 hour drive. Our mom is going to try to convince them to leave tomorrow morning instead of this evening for traffic timing reasons.

In talking with my mom about my siblings' visit a few days ago, I mentioned FlyLady. She hadn't heard of the site, but she knew about being a SHE from back in the day. When I talked with her today I found that now she's trying FLYing, too. She's still working on routines, she said, and decluttering. She's also working on her control journal, or debating buying the pre-made one. I lucked out in getting mine onto my Palm in record time. I forgot mom killed her Palm. I hope she stays at it and it works as well for her as it has been working for me. Wouldn't that be something; mother and daughter FLYing together, a thousand miles apart!

Ooh, ooh!

I almost forgot, I sorted through and burned up one of the bags of papers that I moved with me from the old home to this one (and added to once we got here). I found some car titles, benefits program descriptions, and something or other from the accident I was in. (Guess I didn't burn it all already.) I also took a deep breath and burned a bunch of duplicate checks.

And by clearing out that space in the closet, I made room to put a SteriLite rolling drawer thingie to sort all the wires (RCA plugs, speaker wire, coaxial cable, phone cords, ethernet and other computer cables, miscellaneous wall adapters) that were in a jumbled mess in another box. One bag to go and then I can start in on the file cabinet and green plastic file holder. I'll probably burn most of what's in there, but then I can empty my one bag of truly fileable papers into where they "belong." Ah, organization!

As for this week's zone, I spent yesterday's 15 minutes (or more, I didn't set my timer) in the computer room, so I did 15 minutes in the bedroom this morning before work. If I feel like it, I'll do 15 more after work. (Not trying to catch up, just figured it wouldn't hurt to do 15 more minutes.) Already, I'll feel comfortable leaving the door wide open when we have guests down the hall on Thursday of this week.

The main thing for me to attack next in this room is my dresser. My closet is kind of useless for now, so my dresser has to pick up the slack. It has (in/on/near it) all my old clothes from years of jeans-and-T-shirting, plus all my work/nice clothes from 38 pounds heavier, plus all my work/nice clothes for my current weight, plus all the clothes for the three above categories for colder weather. They don't all fit in there. It will make one heck of a Goodwill donation. I just need to remember to not pull out more than I can put back in time.

If I get that done before the end of the week I'll continue in the guest bedroom. Er, I suppose I should at least do a 5-minute room rescue (or three!) in there before company comes, eh? I really need to strip the bed so I can launder the bedding in there, too. Hey, two birds, here comes one stone. And I suppose I ought to try cleaning my sister's comforter that wouldn't fit in our washer.

Good thing I started this two weeks ago.

Which reminds me, my husband agreed to do 15 minutes himself if I made him his favorite labor-intensive meal. The deal was my idea, but I'd still like to see him hold up his end of the bargain, since even the leftovers from that meal are gone now. He can pick the area to work in, too. I don't care. 15 minutes anywhere will help. We'll see how that one plays out. And if he drops the ball, that's ok, because I'm doing fine on my own.

Wait, something's missing here, what is it...? Oh, it's STRESS!

Yeah, that's right, I'm missing (Well, I wouldn't say I'm missing it, Bob) stress. Weird, huh? I don't have any more money or any fewer bills, but I feel better about our finances. I don't have that much less stuff (yet) or any more room to put it, but I feel better about the clutter. I am cooking dinner every night, and I know I feel better about that. And the zones I've picked up so far haven't reverted to their former state of disrepair. (The computer room doesn't count. Yes, the papers are burned and gone forever, but unloading junk from our old house kind of filled it up again. So it's a new state of disrepair.)

I think that I can reward myself after each room in a zone is done. Once a room is decluttered, I can then see what's left and choose one organizational item to purchase that will help organize the stuff I want to keep. Ok, so I've only done it for the computer room, and that's not decluttered yet, but it's a good idea, right? The bathroom could use some sort of magazine rack. I don't know yet what our bedroom will need. The kitchen didn't seem to need anything.

I used to think that I would get organized if only I bought the right thing to hold all the stuff. Thus, the unused filing cabinet, the falling-apart shoe rack, the bigger house. Or maybe if I just had the right system. That caused the search for SHE notecards like mommy used to have. I didn't get as far as buying 3x5 cards or looking at the SHE book. I was going to find a handyshopper list or other palm program where someone had already done it for me and use their full-blown list.

Yeah, baby steps. You can't organize clutter.

Draft for a HeyTom.net comment

I'm putting this here for now, but I'd eventually like to clean it up and send it to HeyTom.net.

Two weeks ago, this would have been a whining, complaining question. Today, after just two weeks of fluttering baby-steps, it's merely a comment.

My husband and I both get up at the same time in the morning. We both work 8-hour days outside the home. We both go to bed at the same time.

This has been my perspective for the 6 years of our marriage: that we both have the same number of "free" hours in the day. This perspective fueled my martyr attitude about housework, and how in these enlightened, gender-equality times, I shouldn't be expected to do any more housework than him. He's not pulling his weight around the house just because he's a man. So far, so good.

For his perspective, he adds in these additional facts for consideration: He has an almost two-hour commute (each way) to his job. I drive 15 minutes to mine. He works in the construction industry (plumbing) and so has a physically demanding job that wouldn't have been his first choice. I sit behind a computer at a job that I happen to love (web programming). When he leaves for work in the morning, I often go back to sleep, since I don't have to be to work for another three hours. So he sees that I have extra hours in my day that I'm sleeping away, and that he has fewer hours since he's commuting. He's physically tired at the end of the day, tired of driving, and not in an especially good mood. And he brings home more money than I do.

From his perspective, he's entitled to some rest and relaxation at the end of the day, while I have it easy all day long. Two weeks ago, I would have asked how I could convince him that he's wrong and sexist and that he should put in just as much time with housework as I do.

Now that I'm starting to see how I can manage the housework all by myself, I can step back and see things through his eyes. I'm realizing that:
1. I do have it a little easier than him.
2. It doesn't hurt me to do the housework.
3. He's already noticing and appreciating what I've accomplished so far (after just 2 weeks).
4. Doing this for our home really is blessing both of us.
5. He does many "traditionally male" tasks without being asked and without complaint or cries of sexism. (Mowing the lawn, car maintenance, hauling bags of salt to the water softener, etc.)
6. When I've cleaned an area, he respects it, is more likely to pick up after himself, and (thankfully) does what he can to not cause me more work.

I could whine and complain and nag until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn't change him or his mood (except to make it worse). It certainly wouldn't make him want to go grab the vacuum. I can, however, change myself and my attitude, and create a happier, more peaceful home for us to share. This has a good chance to improve his mood when he comes through the door into house he's comfortable in. And a husband in a good mood is always a good thing!

You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?

"You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?"

I love seeing this at the bottom of all the emails. I do my routine list like that, too. If a repeating daily task doesn't get checked off today, I just do it tomorrow. I don't add today's stuff onto tomorrow. If I miss my 15 minutes of cleaning today, I don't do 30 minutes tomorrow. I'd be fed up with this in no time if I worked that way.

If I don't change laundry in the morning and it's already afternoon, I just cross it off for the morning. It'll be back in the morning for tomorrow. Besides, I'm so far ahead of where I usually am with laundry that it's ok.

I don't try to do it all at once. After I got done with the kitchen zone, I thought of a couple more places I need to focus on. So I put them on the list for next month when I return to the kitchen zone, and I'll start my 15 minutes routine with those places. I'll do the same for the computer room/bathroom at the end of this week.

I'm not doing everything FlyLady suggests... yet.

1. I don't have all my Hotspots tamed, so I only apply the Hotspot fire prevention to my kitchen table so far. I have a list of what these Hotspots are so I can address them after I've been through that zone once to douse the fire already there. My kitchen Hotspot was where my 15 minutes/day naturally started in that zone, and I expect the trend will continue.

2. I don't do 27-fling boogies because I can't run through the house yet. This seems like it will apply more to things that are clutter, rather than just trash and misplaced items. I'll get there in a month or two.

3. I don't do Kelly's missions because they address issues or areas that are a bit beyond my current state of disarray. If I can't get to my cupboard yet, I can't very well clean it out.

4. I don't do the 5-minute room rescue because 15 minutes a day is enough for now. If I do my routines plus 15 minutes, I feel like I've accomplished a lot. That extra 5 minutes won't seem so bad once my routines are habit. Or maybe I'll start applying it to my computer room as soon as we move out of that zone, since it is by far my worst room. (Or at least it was before I started Flying!)

I've noticed, too, that even without having to be reminded, I'm not whining! Nevermind all the mini-feminist, "it's not fair," "woe is me," "I work 8 hours a day, too," "why doesn't he have to help," stinking thinking I was used to. If I can get all this done 15 minutes at a time without DH's help, then I really don't need him participating to accomplish my goals.

It's very empowering, actually. Just like he didn't have to do anything differently in order for me to lose 38.6 pounds on Weight Watchers and feel better about my appearance, he doesn't have to do anything differently for me to lose 25 years worth of acting like a "slob" and feel better about my home's appearance. I'm motivated by internal, selfish reasons just as much as external ones when it comes down to it. I'm changing me to make me feel good.

Oh yeah, I guess I'm Finally Loving Myself.

Surprise, a floor!

I spent 15 more minutes in the computer room last night, burned another bag of trash, and found the paper that I was looking for back on the day I started FLYlady! I had already come to the same conclusions about what to keep and what to toss as what that paper said, so I felt good about that.

This morning, when I went in the computer room to get my iPod off the charger, I was surprised to see the floor of the room, all the way from the door to the computer in the opposite corner. Wow!

In the process of purging and sorting the last couple of days, I found a car title, a motorcycle title from Iowa that we apparently never transferred, and my estimated property tax statement for this year. Treasure-tastic!

I still have to buck up and burn my books of duplicate checks, but I really want to make sure I don't burn one that's too recent. I think I already burned my accident claim stuff from when I got rear-ended. Oops. And I'm not keeping a year's worth of paycheck stubs. That would involve looking at dates. Takes too long.

I'll plan on filing all the auto stuff in my auto folder (currently somewhere near my green file bin). My bank account statements can go in the filing cabinet, maybe in folders by year? So there'd be 12 or 24 envelopes in each folder (depending on if I find/kept Joel's statements). Anything else in that filing cabinet just needs to go.

I think the bottom drawer is all my creative writing and school stuff. If I try going through that I'll get horribly sidetracked, so I think it will all stay put for now. The top drawer should be able to be significantly purged, though, if it wasn't already. I can probably almost get to it now.

And I have no clue what's in that green bin now. Auto stuff, yes. Retirement maybe? Tax documents? Instruction manuals up the wazoo. But what else? It's pretty full. More treasure?

In other news, I'll have to empty the hampers to run my next load of laundry, after I do the whites. Er, I'll have to empty the hampers, then do the whites, then maybe I'll have another load after that. I've begun sorting my work clothes separately from other clothes. That's because I will actually get around to washing them with this system.

And my kitchen sink is still shiny. :-)

Holy Huge Dent, Batman!

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes attacking my computer room. (I didn't get a chance to start on Monday. It's a long story.) I ended up with one paper bag full of paperwork to burn and one with some papers to file away later. Burning the papers without looking back was very liberating. I figure, even if I burned something that maybe I need in the future, I wouldn't have been able to find it in that mess anyhow!

There are still plenty of papers strewn about, but now I can see the carpet again!

I'll be bribing my husband into helping me for 15 minutes one day this week by fixing stuffed shells for dinner. He can probably knock out the bathroom single-handedly, and I'll keep at it in the computer room. And then after we move out of this zone, I'll try to start working in 5-minute room rescues to keep lightening the load in there. I'll know I'm in the home stretch when I'm sorting through the 2 paper bags of papers I moved into the house with us in October!

That will just be the clearing out part. Then I'll have to decide how I want to sort, organize, and store the "important" papers. I have a filing cabinet and another hanging-file basket that are meant for this sort of stuff. I think they're just full of papers that probably need to go in my "burn" bag right now. Or maybe they're empty and I don't know because I can't get to them. We'll see. Maybe that will be next month -- 15 minutes at a time!

FlyLady.net is rocking my world!

I started FLYing a little over a week ago. I'm still taking tiny baby steps, BUT I've already seen giant step results!

I happened to sign up when the zone was the kitchen. This is the zone in my house that had the best opportunity to make a major impact with minimal effort. It is the first room anyone sees coming through the back door, and we never use our front door.

Shining that sink was key! Then the dishes just disappeared from the counter. The kitchen table became a horizontal surface instead of a heap of STUFF 15 minutes at a time. Then the stuff on the floor found its way to the rooms it belonged in. I felt a great sense of accomplishment, but that was just the beginning.

First my next-door neighbor (male) came over. My neighbors are the only people who ever see the CHAOS in my house. He said the kitchen looked really good. I happily thanked him for the compliment. It was possibly the first compliment on my house I've ever received that wasn't immediately preceded by an exhausting marathon cleaning session. Plus, he's a guy, and not known to be particularly observant.

The next day, his girlfriend (BO) came over and said the kitchen looked great. I thanked her, knowing she wouldn't say such a thing if she didn't mean it. She manages to be BO, polite, and tactful, all at the same time, instead of critical of those of us who are learning.

Then the following day, my DH and I came home from somewhere and he said, "I really like the way the kitchen looks. It feels like home." I thanked him most sincerely and said, "That's the point of what I'm doing." This was the best compliment I could have received, ever!

His mom is BO, but he didn't inherit that particular quality from her. My mom is a Payroll SHE who owns Pam and Peggy's original book and has a dusty set of 3x5 cards in a box somewhere, unused for well over a decade. I am a Payroll SHE in the new century, and I have FlyLady to help me!

On one of my first couple of days FLYing, I asked DH specifically if he'd be willing to help me for 15 minutes one day and he gave me a look like I'd asked him to donate a kidney. I said, "Ok, nevermind, you don't have to," and meant it. By the end of my first week, though, he is starting to pick up after himself and help me out almost without realizing it. He's seen results and he likes what he sees so far. The clean sink is spreading!

And now this week, the zone includes the bathroom and one other room, specifically the home office. The office is by far my worst room ever! I have so much paper clutter that it literaly looks like a mail truck exploded in there. I can't wait to see the results I get! Even if it's not ship-shape like the kitchen, the dent I make will be impressive.

FlyLady.net: Your personal online coach to help you gain control of your house and home

FlyLady.net: Your personal online coach to help you gain control of your house and home

Yesterday was my first official full day as a FlyBaby. My sink is shiny, I have shoes on, and I know where my laundry is!

I like the idea of setting timers so I don't get overwhelmed. I know the routine thing will work, because that's how DH and I get pets fed and lunches made. I just have to add to my morning and before bed routines, such as they are, and keep at it!

I would be classified as a Payroll SHE.

I actually came across the FlyLady website while I was getting sidetracked from decluttering my computer room, which was a sidetrack from reconciling my bank statements (I couldn't find the one I needed), which was a sidetrack from paying bills (I can't pay bills if I don't know my balance), which was a sidetrack from clearing the mail off the kitchen table!! *blush*

I was actually looking for a website (which I didn't end up finding) that told how to know which mail items, old bills, tax info, etc. to keep and for how long. That was my excuse for not actually sorting out any of the mail in that room for years -- I didn't know what was important to keep, so I kept it all. It looks like a mail truck exploded in there!

But I know I can do this. Baby steps.