I have come to the startling and unfortunate realization that quitting my job, and thus having more time and energy, has not translated into the clean and organized house that I had expected. Despite the fact that I do have more time, I’m still just as unlikely to spend it flitting about, cleaning, dusting, and humming Broadway tunes.
Where does all the time go? And where does all the dust come from? And how is it that a house can go from clean to a full-on pigsty in a matter of hours? These are the questions of life.
Which is why, when a friend suggested FlyLady, my curiosity was piqued. FlyLady, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a sort of a nine-step program for the perpetually unorganized, the inevitably cluttered, the hopelessly undomestic.
The FlyLady program promises to transform even the most hopeless homemaker into a new and improved, highly organized and efficient, very much on-top-of-it-all, thin and beautiful YOU. All you have to do is faithfully integrate small changes into your daily routine, thereby creating new habits of success. Sign me up! It almost sounds too good to be true (eh hmm)
Step 1 is to clean your sink… really clean it… and then keep it clean, always and forever. According the the very enthusiastic FlyLady, “We are learning the first step to our FLY Dance! 1….2..3..Before we know it we will be waltzing through our day with a beautiful smile on your face!” Ummm… are you kidding me? Who talks like this?
Yes, it’s true… the FlyLady’s enthusiasm can be a bit much. I even think she might have a few screws loose. But the system makes sense, and there are thousands of fans who swear by it.
So why is it that, here at the end of week 1, my sink is not clean?
Oh, I started out well. I scrubbed and shined like it was going out of style… even getting out the rubber gloves and scrubber brush. There was no lack of motivation on this end. But day 2 went by, and day 3, and the sink started to get dirty. And, well, I really did intend to keep it clean, but other things kept coming up.
And here I am, at the end of week 1, a FlyLady flunky. How depressing.
But they say admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, right?
Maybe I’ll try again another day. For now, I’ll stick to wishing for a magic solution and bemoaning the fact that there is none. There’s a certain level of enjoyment in wallowing in misery, really.
Originally posted on 3/31/07
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xo Jen
December 24, 2007 at 7:05 pm
I, too, flunked out of flylady. I wonder if she has kids???
MommyMommyLand
December 24, 2007 at 10:02 pm
How does keeping your sink clean give the illusion of your carpet looking vacuumed or your beds made?
Angie
(www.AllAdither.com)
December 24, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I’ve tried fly lady a few times. I was successful at it a while ago, but now not so much. Life just happens and sometimes there are more important things to do. Like blogging! :-)
December 25, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Merry Christmas!!
December 25, 2007 at 2:07 pm
I never understood the Fly Lady’s passion for a clean sink. I mean, who cares? Also, she sends so many flipping emails that it takes more time to delete all of that clutter than to just deal with the actual clutter in your living room. Not a Fly Lady fan — can you tell?
Santa didn’t give me a housekeeper for Christmas. Darn.
December 26, 2007 at 4:20 am
I think I made it three days with FlyLady… I think I read ahead and somewhere she wants me dressed head to toe every morning… PLEASE…If I wanted to have to get all dressed up everyday I would have stayed at work.
I too was and am a FlyLady Failure… But I don’t care :)
Merry Christmas!
December 27, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Yeah, I tried that and my sink never got cleaned.
December 29, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I thought the same thing when I decided to stay at home for sure. It only lasted about 2 days! I am actually more disorganized now. So I figured once everyone is in school than I will have the house spotless and homecooked meals every night.Wrong!!! The house is even messier. I use the time they are at school to run errands or to just savor the peace and quiet. So maybe i will give FlyLady a try.
January 10, 2008 at 1:31 am
Flylady didn’t work for me either. The sink thing only works if having a clean sink makes you giddy with joy. That would not be me. And her decluttering method doesn’t work for me either (run around the house and find 27 things to throw away). My problem with clutter is not that I have trash sitting around on the coffee table; it’s that the things I use regularly don’t have a place where they belong, so they live on the coffee table, where they are periodically terrorized by the children. If I threw these things out, I’d have to go buy new ones, because I do use them, when I can find them.
Oddly enough, though, I do prefer to get dressed (head to toe!) every morning. I hate spending the day in my pajamas, and I have to wear shoes in the kitchen (tile floor, foot problems, you get the idea).