Day 1: BabySteps

Well, I actually did it- I shined my sink.  For those of you not in the know, shining your sink is the first of FlyLady's Beginner Baby Steps to getting out of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).   I know, when trying to tackle a messy home, shining your sink is probably the last on most people's priority list.  Doing the dishes? Sure.  Eliminating mountains of laundry?  Of course!  Shining the sink so you can see your face in it?  Not so much.

Apparently, shining the sink was the first thing FlyLady did when she began her own climb from CHAOS, so she has enforced implemented this as the first step in her system.  Her explanation is that by shining our sinks, we will feel a sense of accomplishment and have a smile on our face.  It's her way of giving us a gift/hug/pat on the back, and letting us know she is very proud of us.

There you have it. For the third time in my life, I set forth to do as FlyLady commanded by shining my sink. Here is what the sink looked like before I began:

Not a pretty picture, is it? Next I looked up FlyLady's own Shiny Sink 101 instructions.  The first step was to take all the dishes out of the sink.  Not a problem:

Next you are supposed to fill up the sink with scalding hot water and bleach and let it soak for an hour. Now we have a problem. We don't have any bleach in the house. I searched through the cleaning cabinet, and pulled out some options:

I figured I could make up for the lack of real bleach by using the Clorox Clean-Up that contains bleach.  I used this first, mainly as a disinfectant.  (I assume that is the whole point of the original bleach-bath in the original instructions.)  Step 2- Done.

I rinsed the sink as instructed in Step 3, then moved on to scrubbing the sink with a cleanser.  For this I chose the Lysol 4in1 Bathroom Cleaner.  I rinsed again, then followed up with my beloved Mr.Clean Magic Eraser for good measure.  I even got out a knife and scraped away the grime caught around the sink edge.

Last but not least, I finished the job off by wiping the whole sink down with Windex.  The hard part done, I leaned forward, peered into my sink to revel in seeing my reflection in it's shiny surface and saw... a sink.

What a let down! Sure, the sink is clean, but shiny? No.  Did I do something wrong?  Did I just not try hard enough?  Is the bleach-bath really that important? I don't think so.  In my two previous FlyLady attempts I followed the instructions to the letter, and honestly, the results were about the same.  I don't think it's for lack of trying either.  I just don't honestly believe it is possible to make an old sink look brand-new again, no matter how much elbow-grease you use.   (FlyLady has an answer to this too- you can try using car wax, lemon oil, or olive oil to spruce it up.  Of which I also have none in the house.)  I could also use an SOS pad to buff the finish since it's a stainless steel sink, but (once again) I don't have one, and I have done this before and (once again) the result really didn't differ. 

Sigh.  I guess I won't be beaming from ear to ear when I look at my reflection in my sink in the morning. Though, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that my sink is clean enough to perform surgery in.  I'm giving myself an A for effort, but only a C+ for the final result.