FlyLady Flunky

Pretty Purple Purse=Good Day For FlyLady Flunky

2011-07-09T00:54:00.001-04:00

Ok, ok. I didnt really stay on track today with getting things cleaned up around here. I didnt let anything get WORSE, so I'm looking at this from a glass-half-full perspective.

Today I did a favor for my Aunt D, which involved some tooling around in the car. At my final destination I found myself next to Target, and I realized I still had a few dollars left on a gift card that was burning a hole in my wallet...

What I really wanted to buy was a new purse, since the one I have been using for the past 2 years (day in and day out) is neither fashionable nor in the best of shape, but purses have been one of the few things Target disappoints me on. They do have a much better selection online, but I hate choosing stuff like that without being able to get my hands on it.

I also need a new wallet, as the hand-me-down Liz Claiborne one I have also been using day-in-day-out (for 4 years!) was also getting a tad ratty. But alas, nothing was really striking my fancy. I wandered over to the clearance jewelry section (cause that's how I roll) and something pretty and purple caught my eye. There, among the gaudy over sized rings and pendants was a cute little greyish-purple clutch purse, also on clearance for $3.75! I inspected it and deemed it to have enough places for all my cards, checkbook, cash, etc. and carried it protectively under my arm for the rest of my shopping trip. Ain't nobody gonna steal my purple purse!

(above) Wallet before. : /

(above) Wallet after! :)

So yes, its technically a clutch purse and not a wallet like I intend to use it, but what, are the purse police gonna come after me? I don't think so.

I also scored a pair of the jeans I like, also on clearance for $10.00! Do you know how hard it is for me to find even one pair in my size, fit, and bootcut when they are full price? Normally I have to walk out of the store empty handed and wait for them to hopefully get more in next time, and here they were, and 1/2 price. Sold!

All in all I would say I had a good, albeit unproductive day.

Reality Check Progress: Day 2 (And a Bonus Sewing Project!)

2011-07-07T22:55:00.002-04:00

Day 2. Today I took on the bathroom. Oh joy of joys! I will admit now that it's clean I feel so much better. During it's decline I was embarrassed about the mess and would actually apologize if someone other than myself had to use it. It wasn't THAT bad, but I know how it feels to use someone elses' bathroom that isn't "company clean", and it's not fun.

I have been in people's bathrooms that qualify to be on reality shows about housekeeping or hoarding, and that was when they knew they would be having people over. I personally found that very inconsiderate, and here I was inflicting that on other people. Shameful.

On to the pictures!

(above) Sink area before. Yuck.

(above) Sink area after- yea!

(above) Gross splattered mirror.

(above) Crystal clean!

(above) Close up of sink before. Ewwww.

(above) Sink looking all shiny and new!

(above) Storage shelf before. Clutter City.

(above) Storage shelf after. Much better.

(above) Glass shelving before. Please note my "Ghetto iHome" (aka an old computer speaker) that I used to play music loud enough to sing to in the shower.

(above) Glass shelves after. I removed the Ghetto iHome and replaced it with the (used and gifted) real thing in another part of the bathroom.

(above) Overall view before.

(above) Overall view after. Ahhhh.

I have now officially cleaned 1/2 of my suite, and have the sewing room and closet to go. I think I will try to tackle the sewing room next, the closet scares me a little...

On a side note: Last night after I finished cleaning I decided to try and make my own wrap from a tutorial I found on Pinterest. It was originally posted on Behind The Seams under her DIY projects. It involves taking 1 square yard of fabric and cutting 2 holes in it. Simple! I will admit that I wanted to finish the edges and not leave them raw, so I turned the hem and reinforced the arm holes with some stitching. If I were to make another in a different color, I would possibly cut the arm holes a little closer to the folded edge. She recommends 6 inches down and 6 inches in, but for me I'm thinking 5 inches in might give me the little bit of give I seem to need to prevent it pulling across my back like it does now. (The girl who posted the tutorial does seem to be petite, whereas I am not, so her measurements may be perfect for her but not everyone else.) Here's the end result:

The color is actually a really pretty blood red, but the color kept washing out in the photos. Next time I would like to try a marigold yellow if I can find the right type of fabric in that shade!

Reality Check Progress: Day 1

2011-07-06T21:08:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, I actually got up this morning and started cleaning my junk-pit of a suite. I mainly focused on my bedroom and the results feel so nice compared to the way it was. Now I can walk around without tripping over clothes on the floor or getting crumbs on my feet. Everything is washed, hung up, vacuumed, dusted, etc. I even washed and ironed my curtains!

There is some more detailed cleaning that I would like to get to, but if I get that hyper-focused now I will loose time on making progress where it is really needed and burn myself out in the process. So, without further ado, here is what I accomplished today:

(above) The nightstand before, since I didn't get a decent shot of it yesterday.

(above) Nightstand after.

(above) Crumbs and dust bunnies galore.

(above) All clean, and I even tried a new trick I came across on Pinterest. You take one of those office clips and run your cords through them to keep them from falling to the floor. I did it for my iPhone charger.

(above) Dusty mirror before.

(above) Mirror after I attacked it with my feather duster and Windex. This would have been a perfect job for the Rags in a Bag if I had some...

(above) Book/movie shelf before, also doubles as a place to put pop cans I no longer have room for on the nightstand.

(above) Book/movie shelf after.

(above) All the dishes that had to go downstairs to be washed.

(above) A reminder how my bedroom looked last night.

(above) The end result!

Reality Check Photo Op

2011-07-06T01:02:00.001-04:00

So once again I have been a bad blogger AND a bad FlyBaby. It's a good thing I named this blog "FlyLady Flunky" and not "Tales of the Bestest FlyLady Follower EVER" or I think the other FlyBabies would show up at my house brandishing pitchforks and torches. (Or perhaps timers and Rags in a Bag?)

To sum things up since I last posted, I left my job. That's the big highlight in my life. And yes I quit and wasn't fired, but it wasn't a planned quitting. It was a "I can no longer allow them to treat me this way and still claim to have any shreds of self respect left." type of situation. That's all I really want to say about that.

So here I am, unemployed, bored, with no new job prospects on the horizon. That gets really depressing really fast. You would think that with all this time on my hands I would have the cleanest house ever, but depression doesn't work like that. Instead things seem so much harder than they really are and you move in slow motion. Procrastination is now my middle name. I really need to get back into the swing of things, starting with my living quarters.

I logged onto Facebook tonight and saw that FlyLady had put out a challenge for everyone to post pictures of their messy houses online as motivation to get things cleaned up. I've decided to take that challenge but post them here on Ye 'Ol Blog to help motivate me to write again. Two birds with one stone if you will...

Here are the before pictures of my current state of living, no excuses made. (Except the aforementioned depressing unemployment situation.)

(above) Bedroom. Clean laundry dumped onto the floor. Bed unmade. Collection of 20 (yes 20!) pop cans hiding behind my laptop screen on the nightstand. Oh. The. Shame.

(above) Closet. Mostly the Ex's stuff he still needs to come and get, but I used to have it all neatly stacked and awaiting his arrival. Now it's been rummaged through and prohibiting easy access to anything else in there.

(above) Bathroom. More pop cans. Dirty clothes on the floor. Everything needs a good scrubbing. (I did clean the bathtub tonight- go me!)

(above) Sewing room. MORE pop cans, unfinished projects, dirty socks and dust bunnies.

There you have it. My pathetic mess of a life manifesting itself as a pathetic mess of a house. Hopefully the public humiliation will help motivate me to get back into gear, out of this slump and have, as my Dad once said "an abnormally clean room" once again. Words of encouragement and swift kicks in the rear will be appreciated.

Getting Things Done (Or Not)

2011-03-06T15:31:00.000-05:00

I got a promotion! (Sort of.) The real story is that on paper, I am still a historic interpreter for the living history museum where I work. (Actually, all our titles recently changed to "Museum Educators", but that's just semantics.) The "promotion" I am speaking of is really just making the additional duties of acting as the museum costumer slightly more official. To be clear- the museum doesn't actually have a "Costumer" with a capital-C. They haven't for years. They have regular employees such as myself who have some skill and knowledge in this department doing their darnedest to keep everyone looking decent and as period-correct as possible. For the past year, they didn't even have anyone doing that. The costume department became a free-for-all with no one accounting for who was wearing what or maintaining the costumes we have, let alone producing anything new. I took some of these duties upon myself trying to keep things from going totally chaotic, such as sewing on buttons for those who lost them, or altering a petticoat so no one tripped on the hem. I was doing these things on a completely unofficial basis as favors to the wearers of costumes in need of mending, mainly on my own time with my own supplies.

This year things have started off with the pleasant surprise of management making my completely unofficial title of costumer slightly more official. Like I said, they don't have an open position for a capital-C Costumer, and haven't for a decade. What I am now is the costumer, lower-case-c. (I hope this makes sense.) Basically I fulfill the duties that a Costumer would, which is mainly running the costume department, but since the official position doesn't exist, I can't even hope to be the official Costumer. I didn't get a raise, I don't get cool business cards with my name on them, but it does give me more hours which I desperately need, so for now, I'm happy.

I spent weeks just trying to get the costume rooms cleaned up and organized enough to function within, and now we are well into the beginning of our programming season. For part of the day I play a roll in our Underground Railroad program like everyone else, but after they leave in the afternoon you can find me sitting in the basement costume office trying to keep my head from spinning with everything that needs to be done around there. Some things are very long term or low-priority tasks, such as neatly winding up the bags of ribbon that were donated to us so they don't get all knotted up, but other things are last-minute yet high-priority such as replacing 4 buttons on a pair of man's trousers that all popped off on the same say so he has the ability to wear them the next morning. I'm pretty sure the employee wearing those trousers thanks me that I at least recognize the difference in priority levels. ;)

The only problem I am having with this priority-level thing is that it often leaves me with tasks sitting on my to-do list that I really really want the satisfaction of crossing off, but when other things pop up (or pop off, as in the case of the buttons) they get moved to the back burner. A good example of this would be (ironically) the case of another set of buttons.

This coming weekend we will be starting another program for which a few staff members need additional costumes outside of what they usually wear. One of these items is a wool over-shirt from the Ohio Pioneer era of 1810-1815ish. The employee who is to wear this shirt apparently has much smaller wrists than the last guy who wore it, so the cuff openings just slip right down over his hands. Not a problem- all I need to do is add another button to each cuff about 2 inches over so he can tighten them to his size. This should take me 15 minutes, tops. However, even though I put this task on my to-do list a week ago, I still haven't been able to get around to doing it. Other things have taken priority over the shirt buttons because their due-dates have fallen in a more-immediate time frame, such as RIGHT NOW, or the following morning. Tasks like these crop up every day and I must fit them in with the other items that are more on-going projects.

I realize this is life, and how I should be handling things. The problem is, the shirt-button due-date is this coming Thursday, here it is Sunday, and this 15-minute-tops project still isn't completed. I know with the way things have been going I will probably get the chance to put them on sometime like late-Wednesday afternoon, and to me, this feels like procrastination. It's not, I know that, but I am the kind of girl that likes to get things done, cross it off the list, and forget about it. Not, let them sit festering on the list for over a week where it taunts me with it's approaching due-date. I'm sure this is just another way my perfectionism is manifesting itself and I will just have to adjust and grow accustomed to this way of prioritizing projects, but can't someone make the little nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me I have somehow failed go away? Please?

A Helping Hand

2011-02-02T20:39:00.000-05:00

I'm a crummy daughter. Or at least that's how I feel sometimes. I currently live with my parents (again!) and have been applying my FlyLady Routines only to the area I inhabit most, my "suite". (2 bedrooms, bath, and a large closet.) The only time I venture down through the main living area of the house is to get to the garage or kitchen, and even then I don't really linger. I'm just passing through. I did the math, and I'm pretty sure I only spend collectively maybe 1 hour per week downstairs.

Because of this I don't really feel the obligation to be overly concerned with making sure the rest of the house is tidied into a neat little package like my "suite" is every night before I go to bed. I didn't mess it up, let the people who do take care of it... I know this is a very negative way to think, but overall it's true. I put a lot of effort into keeping my space and life in general as organized as possible, and that takes up plenty of time. Why should I be picking up after my adult parents, adult sisters, my sisters' significant others, and their dogs? Though, as much as I try to rationalize it, that little nagging voice of guilt keeps eating away at me. I should help more...

I'm not saying I never help out downstairs, but it's definitely not as often as my conscience is telling me I should be. Another problem I have is that I hate doing things just because they are expected of me. For instance- if my mother asked me to vacuum the living room (which I hardly even set foot in!), it bugs me that I am now obligated to do it. But- if I were to walk through the living room and take it upon myself to do a nice thing and vacuum it for her, well, then I walk away from the chore feeling good about myself. I'm not sure I want to know what that says about my personality, but it is what it is.

Another example would be a friend of mine from years back. When I would go visit (they lived out of state) it was common that they would have to work while I was there. The first time this happened, I decided to be nice and clean up their house while they were working. What a nice surprise to come home to, right? Well, after a couple more visits, there came a time when I didn't get around to cleaning their house while they were gone. And you know what? They had the nerve to be irritated that I hadn't cleaned their house! It had gone from a nice gesture I was making to help out, to it being expected of me. That really rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, to help alleviate my conscience, I've decided that I am going to add helping out in the main part of the house to my daily routines:

For now I've stuck it in my Afternoon/After Work Routine, and we'll see how that goes. True to my FlyLady teachings, I've assigned myself to "House Help" for 15 minutes a day. There is no way I am going to incorporate the entire house into my own personal routines and take on the responsibility of keeping it ship-shape the way I do my own space, because I think it would kill me. And, try as I may, I can't seem to get the rest of the family onto a FlyLady-esque system. So for now, it's just 15 minutes a day on whatever I see needs to be done. Yesterday I vacuumed the living room, kitchen, and our "piano room" (kinda like an office/den) and wiped down the kitchen counters. Today I cleaned the toilet in the half bathroom. Tomorrow- who knows? I feel better about myself and the house is looking better too. And by making it self-imposed, I don't have that annoying (albeit misplaced as it may be) resentment I feel from being told to do something.

On a side note- I was talking to my Dad yesterday and said something about my room being the cleanest in the house. (OK, I was bragging a little...) His reply was something to the effect of "Yeah, your room is insanely clean...". Why, thanks for noticing, Dad. :)

It's Hard To Smile, But FlyLady Made Me

2011-01-23T18:17:00.000-05:00

Two days ago I received devastating, life-altering news. I don't want to talk about it here, please don't ask what it was. I'll just say that it's the kind of news that instantly gave me a sense of superficiality about everything I do, from brushing my hair to watching a DVD.

Already I find myself having mood swings ranging from feeling almost normal with my sadness sitting just below the surface, to full-out bawling a few minutes later. But honestly, after news like this, there is no more normal.

I almost feel like I am doing something wrong as I go about my daily business, completing the tasks in my routines, and sometimes feel like I have weights attached to my clothes as I do so, making a simple chore feel that much more difficult to complete. I know I have to fight this feeling, because life goes on, but shaking the feeling that everything is so pointless now it hard. Again, I have to fight it.

Earlier today I was searching YouTube for a video of FlyLady when she was on the show "I'm Pregnant and a Hoarder" to show a friend, and while I was there I got sidetracked and started watching some of the other videos on her channel. I came across one where she is cleaning out rotten potatoes from her potato bin, and the sight of her squealing with disgust and practically gagging actually got a giggle out of me:

Thanks FlyLady for making me smile today, even if I didn't feel like it.

Suck It (Up)!

2011-01-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

The day after I wrote my last post, I actually did get off my hiney and go to my local brick-and-mortar Target to see what they had in way of hand held vacuums. Compared to the amount of regular upright vacs, the selection was rather small. If memory serves, there were about 5 to choose from, ranging from $20.00 to over $200.00 in price.

Wanting to stay in the under $50.00/the-less-the-better category, my choices were then narrowed down to 4. (The over-the-top $200.00 one was made by Dyson. A little overkill if you ask me.) I literally spent no less than 1 1/2 hours standing there, hmmm-ing and haw-ing over my options, looking up the model names with my iPhone trying to find reviews. I tend to be a bit ridiculous when it comes to researching a product before I buy.

In the end, after much anguish and soul-searching, (please know that I am being facetious, I'm not that insane!) I choose the cheapest option available, the Dirt Devil 7.2 Volt Easy Lite Hand Vac. It's cordless, lightweight, has an attached (aka non-losable) crevice tool, and- that's about it. Truthfully, that's all I want.

During my review-reading I started to get a little bogged down with all the options out there, wondering if I was missing out should I not purchase a vac with features that sounded cool but had never even thought of needing before. Some had motorized brushes optimal for pet hair removal, some were corded for MORE POWER (cue Tim Allen manly grunt here), some had hoses, some had cyclonic suction, some had X-amount of volts vs. Y-amount of volts, and on and on and on.

Finally I had to step back and remind myself what it was I wanted this hand vac for. The list included:

1. Picking up kitty litter tracked outside the box, as this has to be done on a daily basis.

2. Picking up cat hair/my hair from the white bathroom floor, as this also has to be done on a daily basis. The three of us all have dark hair and tend to shed.

3. Picking up any other little bits of dirt or fuzz that annoy me in between regular vacuuming.

That's it. That's all I needed a hand vac to do. None of the stuff I wanted to suck up is overly heavy requiring MORE POWER (grunt grunt grunt), nothing required any of the other fancy features available on other models. In reality, I need something very basic, so basic is what I choose.

There wasn't very much out there in way of reviews on the Easy Lite, though I did come across one blogger who mentioned it's excellent bug-sucking abilities which made me laugh. I also realized something about reviews- in a way they are all skewed. If someone bought this hand vac wanting something that would be great at picking up pet hair from the couch or carpet, they would be sorely disappointed and give it 1 star. But since I want it for getting the hair off the laminate bathroom floor, I would give it 4 stars, since it's great for that. It all depends on what the purchaser's original expectations for the product were, not necessarily what the product itself was meant to do.

Anyway, I have been enjoying my Easy Lite thus far. It does not have a mounting base for charging, but does come with a charging cord. I have not used it continuously enough to drain the battery so I cannot comment on how long it lasts, but I can say I have gotten at up to least 10 minutes of use at a time. The attached crevice tool is handy, and emptying the dirt cup isn't a huge chore. The suction is great for what I am cleaning, in fact, more suction would actually hinder cleaning the litter box area. It sits on a re-purposed purple yoga mat in the corner of a closet, and when trying to clean up the tracked litter with a hose attachment from a regular vacuum the mat gets pulled up and stuck to the hose because the suction is too strong. With the Easy Lite, the litter gets sucked up, the mat does not.

For $20.00 I am more than happy with my purchase. If I were to voice any concerns it would be about the battery life. I have had chargeable products stop taking a charge within months before, and I sincerely hope the Easy Lite does not let me down by dying soon. I've already gotten a little attached.

Frugality Bit Me In The Butt

2011-01-13T23:14:00.000-05:00

I have one of those debit cards that earns points with my everyday purchases, which can then be cashed in for an array of products available through an online catalog. I started accumulating points a few years ago when I changed banks, but had never bothered to cash them in. They just kept adding up, forgotten, until last week when it occurred to me to check the balance.

To my pleasant surprise I actually had enough to get a product or gift cards that would retail for around $100.00 in the "real" world. I decided to go ahead and pick something out, as there wasn't really anything in the catalog I wanted to "save up" for. After awhile I settled on a small wet/dry hand vac by Hoover. It had good reviews online and was cordless, which to me is kind of the point when looking at a hand vac. I really wanted something just to pick up the kitty litter that gets tracked by the box, and the odd bit off fluff or crumbs that would drive me crazy in between regular vacuuming. It retails for about $25.00.

I was just about to place my order when a thought occurred to me- I also had the option to cash in my points for gift cards to restaurants or stores, such as Target. I wondered how the points-to-prize conversion would work out if I were to first purchase Target gift cards with my points, then turn around and buy the vac from them vs. getting the vac outright. I did all the math, and it turned out my points were stretched further if I turned them into Target gift cards rather than getting the vac directly from the bank. Sold. I did the transaction, ordering 4- $25.00 Target gift cards, almost emptying out my points bank since there is nothing else in the catalog I want and I don't think I'll have any problem spending the rest at Target.

A week went by, and then finally the gift cards showed up in the mail this afternoon. Score! Look how pretty they are:

I hopped right online to Target.com to place my order, but to my horror, it now says the item is out of stock! There is no mention of whether or not they intend on getting more. Now I am thoroughly bummed, not to mention a little ticked. If I had just ordered the vac outright from the bank I would have it in hand, sucking up kitty litter and dust bunnies right now. Instead, I tried to be frugal and "stretch" my points, leaving me with 4 pieces of plastic that have the ability to buy me a vac, but there doesn't seem to be any others carried by Target that I want. Sooo frustrating! Here are what seem to be my options:

The Dirt Devil 15.6V Gator Series Hand Vac

This one has really good reviews on Target.com, but when checking Amazon.com they, um, suck. It also costs $41.99, a little more than I really want to spend on a hand vac, but am willing to since it's technically "free" money I'm spending.

The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Corded Hand Vac

This one has excellent reviews on both Target and Amazon, but the features have me a little wary. It is corded, which is something I'm trying to get away from. I really want this vac to be a really quick "grab and go" appliance, and a cord defeats that purpose. It also was designed more for picking up pet hair off of couches and the like, not the reason I'd mainly be using it. It has a shorter "snout", which makes it harder to get under furniture where fluff balls love to hide. The replacement filters have to be purchased from Bissell directly, as they don't seem to be carried in stores. The price is good at $28.79, but still leaves me wanting the original Hoover vac I'd set out for.

Those are the leading contenders, but nothing is making me itch to make the purchase now. I think I'm going to go to my local brick and mortar Target to see what the options are, but I know they don't carry the Hoover I want in-store. I'm not really sure what I should do if I have no luck there, do I sit and wait hoping Target.com gets more in stock, or does Target operate more on the "once it's gone, it's gone" system? If I choose to just move ahead and pick one of the other two, which one? Am I giving this too much thought? My head hurts. Advice please!

Announcing My New Blog

2011-01-12T12:02:00.000-05:00

Forgive my tardiness in posting, but I have been trying to get another blog up and running. This one is a duel-effort between me and my friend/co-worker.

This blog is where I can write about the history related topics that I love but really don't have much of a place here. I know I have at least a few readers here on FlyLady Flunky that have expressed interest in such things when I have mentioned them, so I thought I would include the link should any of you wish to go check it out.

We are calling the new blog: Period Inappropriate. Enjoy!

Driving Myself Crazy

2011-01-06T20:59:00.001-05:00

I feel all over the place, I don't know where to start, therefore nothing is being done. I don't like this feeling. I have so many little things and a few big things that I want/have to do, but I can't seem to focus and actually complete any of those items. You could say I feel overwhelmed.

A big part of my problem is my perfectionism. A perfect example of my perfectionism is that of my new sewing room- formally living room. I previously wrote about how my ex took the living room furniture leaving me with a room full of randomness. I hate randomness. It's hard to re-do a room if it has no designated function. Luckily my friend TJ suggested that I turn it into a sewing room. I really liked the idea and immediately started bringing my sewing supplies up the two floors from where it was previously housed in the chilly basement.

My Dad helped me carry up an eight-foot-long folding table which will serve as my sewing work space. My ironing board, boxes of fabric, organizational drawer cabinet, and of course sewing machine all also occupy this room. All this in addition to the stuff that was already in there, like my desk, coffee table, TV stand, and my ex's remaining saltwater reef tanks. I had my work cut out for me.

Before I began, the room looked something like this:

The desk was the only "completed" part of the room. Everything else was sort of pushed to the edges. I started arranging and rearranging sometime around 7:00 last night. I took this picture about 10:00:

At this point, I was still surprisingly upbeat. It was fun trying to figure out where everything would go, and when I was done I was going to have my cute little sewing room right there next to my bedroom. No more cold lonely basement for me! Then, around 11:00, things took a wrong turn...

I'm going to try and walk you through my thought process during all this, but I'm warning you now- we're about to get inside my head and it ain't pretty. Here goes:

OK. Desk is already set up and looking cute on the north wall and I want it to stay there, fish tanks are taking up half the west wall, so that leaves the east wall to put the sewing table. No problem. But wait, that is a shared wall with my sister's room, I hope she won't be annoyed by the sound of the machine through the wall. Better go check. (Did a test run of machine noise.) Nope, she said she can't hear it, we're good to go. Now I need to set up the ironing board. I want the ironing board to come off the table like an "L" on my right hand side like I had it in the basement. I'm left handed and it's the most comfortable place for me to have it, all I need to do is swivel my chair to the side and it's in the perfect spot. But, if I do that in this room, it blocks the door. I could just put it up when I need it and take it down when I don't, but I use it so much during a project to iron seam allowances that doing that would be a huge pain in the butt. No, better just to leave it up. If I put it on the other side it blocks the desk. Obviously the table needs to be on a different wall. The north wall, where the desk is now, That way it will be the focal point in the room. But I like the desk there. No, it's the only other good spot for it, I can deal with moving the desk. OK, table is on the north wall. It looks kind of nice there. Now back to to the ironing board. It can now go on my right side where I want it. But if I put it on that side, that means the desk has to go on the opposite side and there really isn't room over there. Maybe I could move it to the other side of the room and just get used to it being on my left? Sure. Let's do that. Hmmm. If I have it on that side the tray part where the iron sits is to my left, and that means the pointed end of the board is the end closest to the table, and that looks weird. Plus, it's harder to iron my work dresses that way. If I turn the table around, now the iron spot is on my right side, and I'd have to keep reaching across for it. No way. The ironing board has to be on the right. Now to deal with the desk. I like things centered, even, balanced, etc. I want the desk in the center of that wall. No problem. Wait-problem. There is an air vent that protrudes from the baseboard a couple inches keeping me from putting the desk where I want it. I can either center the desk and just have it pulled out away from the wall a few inches, or just have it off centered by about six inches and push it up against the wall. Nope, neither are to my liking. It will drive me nuts to do either. The desk has to go on the other side of the room. Which means the ironing board has to move again, back to the other side. We've been though this. Ugh!...

Anyone still there? I totally wouldn't blame you if you all just un-subscribed from my feed right now after having read that. I'm not kidding when I say this is only a small portion of my thought process last night. There were several other issues that came up, but if I went into further detail I'm afraid I'd make your eyes bleed. I also moved that desk back and forth across the room no less than five times. I finally gave up around 2:00 AM. I'm still not happy with it. I even got my sister involved as a fresh set of eyes, and she has concluded that I am a psychopath...

I've always been able to take take whatever furnishings and decor I have to work with and somehow bring the room together in a way where it seems as though it was meant to be that way. Everything belongs. I can't stand it when a space appears as though the things within it are only where they are because it's the only place they would fit. In this case, it's the truth. And it's driving me nuts. Here's what it looks like now- I know to you this will look just fine, but to me, it's still all wrong:

I know it's crazy to have spent that much time agonizing over something so trivial. I really can't help it. If I'm going to be spending a lot of time in there I want it to feel right, and it doesn't. Plus, this was only one example of how my perfectionism takes over. I do this kind of thing all the time with the most mundane of tasks and over-analyze them to the point I have a "freak-out". Somebody take pity and shoot me, please?

It's The Little Things...

2011-01-04T00:18:00.002-05:00

I really, really wish I could find the connector cord for my digital camera. I'm sick of posting with grainy iPhone pictures. Hold that thought...

OK, I found a connector cord that will work, but now my camera batteries are dead. Just a sec...

Great. No more AA batteries in the house. Ugh...

Sweet! My sister Kristen is actually letting me borrow her new digital camera. Thanks Kristen! Now on with the show!

Warning, this is a picture heavy post! I've spent the last couple days trying to rearrange what was the living room half of my "suite". Now that my ex has taken the furniture it doesn't really have a function assigned to it. I've put in an antique dressing table from the 1930's to serve as a desk, but other than that the space is sort of random at the moment. I don't want to use the bench seat that goes with the table because there is no back to rest against, so for right now there is a folding chair. Classy!

All this decorating has made made me realize that it is the little details that really bring a room together. My style seems to be this weird mixture of antique and modern, yet it somehow seems to work in a way that makes my bedroom all cozy. I'm trying to do the same thing for the other half of my "suite". You can already begin to see it in the picture above- notice the antique desk along with the modern prints on the rug and curtains? Heck, you might be thinking I have no taste at all and it looks like crap, lol, but I like it. I've taken some close ups of some of the other details that add to the room:

This is not an antique (in fact it says Made in China on the knobs), but being the history dork that I am I like it none the less. My mom was about to donate it to Purple Heart, but I snagged it out of the box. I just wish I had some oil so I could light it up!

I have no idea who this is. He is part of my "Cute Dead-Guys" collection. Yes, you read correctly. I have a growing collection of antique photographs of men who I personally find attractive and are most likely deceased. This one dates from WWII. It is the only one in which there is even a possibility of the subject still being alive. I choose this photo for my desk because of the brass frame, hoping it would tie-in to the oil lamp.

I don't know who this is either. He actually was the first of my CDG photographs. I was just walking through an antique store years ago and saw him, and something drew me in. It is actually part of a set, there is a second photo of his wife. I couldn't split the pair up so I bought them both, and she hangs above him on my bedroom wall. Judging by their clothing (her dress and hair mainly), I think they date from the 1840's. Definitely dead. I think he kinda looks like Heath Ledger.

And this is the most recent addition to the collection. No info on this one either, other than he probably lived in the mid-19th Century. I actually used this one to be my first "husband" at work. (For those of you not in the know, I work at a living history museum where I portray a woman living during the Civil War.) My character was a widow who's first husband was a dairy farmer and then died at the battle of Gettysburg, and I used this photo to portray him to the public. He now sits on top of my TV.

I was given this butter sign as a gift from a co-worker at the museum. It was for sale in the gift shop and I had had my eye on it for a year before she gave it to me. I love it! It's cute, and has meaning to me since I played a dairy farmer's wife and can actually make butter from scratch. It hangs above a bookshelf in my bedroom.

This too was a gift from a friend at work. It's a Cat's Meow replica of my favorite house to work in at the museum. It was "my" house last year, and hopefully will be again. It adorns my windowsill.

Next to the window I have an actual prop letter from the movie "A Walk In The Clouds". I bought it in Disney World when I was 21 and stuck it in a frame as "art". If you've seen the movie, you'll know there was a trunk full of letters written by Paul Sutton (Keanu Reeves) to his wife Betty (Debra Messing). She never bothered to read them. There actually is a letter on the inside too, it's not just the envelope for show. Say what you like about the movie, but I like it and I think it's cool to have such an integral prop.

Below the window I re-purposed the bench seat from the antique dressing table-now desk. My cat is always trying to lay in the window sill to look outside, but it's too narrow. I figured this could act as a little kitty-seat for him, but since I put it there a couple days ago, he hasn't used it once. Ungrateful cat.

This photograph of Marilyn Monroe actually came from a calender. I just cut it out and put it in a "floating" frame due to it's odd dimensions. Isn't she lovely?

Above my bed are two framed prints by the pin-up artist Alberto Vargas. This one is my favorite. If you can't tell, she is holding a letter in her hand. I've always wanted to know what it said to create the expression she has, and I can't quite figure out what exactly that expression is. Happy? Sad? For me it's like trying to figure out the Mona Lisa!

This stained glass lamp was given to me by a former employer. She didn't want it anymore, and I needed a bedside lamp so it was a win-win situation. Next to it is a small jewelry/music box I put my rings in when I go to bed. This prevents the cats from turning them into toys as I sleep. It plays "All I Ask Of You" from Phantom of the Opera.

Last but not least, my silver plated piggy bank I've had since I was a baby. He needs a good polishing, but for now I'm calling the tarnish "character".

This is not an exhaustive list of everything in my "suite", just some of the highlights. These are the things that help me feel like this is my home.

New Year, New Digs

2011-01-02T01:05:00.000-05:00

On New Year's Eve-eve there were some changes made around here. During our relationship my ex and I purchased bedroom and living room furniture together. These items included a bed set, couch, recliner, coffee table and a wool area rug. My ex came to pick up the pieces of furniture he won in our "divorce". I was not happy about having to divide up these belongings, having the strongest emotions over who got the bed.

Even though it wasn't really my taste when we first bought it, I grew to really like the bed we picked out together and had a very hard time letting it go. Yes, there was sentimental attachment involved, but also I just really like this bed! I was not happy with the idea of him walking out the door with something that was just as much mine as it was his. But, after several arguments and tears, a compromise was made.

Because I had another bed available to me (the Shaker-style four poster I picked out when I was about 14) and he didn't, it really was only fair that he get the bed. But, to lower the suckage-level for me, I told him I got the mattress. He could have the one that was supposed to go on my bed, a barely-used hand me down from my sister. He agreed. At least this way it still feels like the bed I'm used to, even though I haven't slept on this one for a decade.

He also got the recliner that was purchased to be "his" in the first place, and my pretty blue couch with an optional chaise lounge. Again, not happy. But, he did take over the final payments for the living room stuff after we broke up, so it was only fair. He did leave me the area rug and coffee table. I call them my "consolation prizes".

I spent most of December 30th and 31st rearranging my bedroom to get the new set-up to work and feel homey. This was not fun. The biggest problem I ran into was that the bed I now have has four tall posts, and one perfectly blocked my view of the TV. FYI- I have to watch TV as I fall asleep. HAVE TO. Don't give me that crap about it ruins your sleep blah blah blah. I'm set in my ways. After several attempts to move things around, it finally came to the point where the only solution was for me to change which side of the bed I slept on.

I don't know if any of you have had to make this same change at some point, but for those of you who haven't, I think it sucks! Everything feels all wrong! When I walk in the room I automatically start heading for the other side and have to correct myself. I never realized what an ingrained thing this was for me until it changed. It's only a distance of 3 feet, but it feels like another world. It's hard for me to sleep now too, and even my cats seemed confused by the new arrangement. I need to retrain myself to navigate my own room.

Anyway, I got things moved around in the bedroom mostly to my liking. I really wanted to recreate the cozy feeling I had made with the previous arrangement as soon as possible so I was wasn't living in a state of chaos. Things are looking pretty cute in here if I do say so myself. Don't get me wrong, since it's only been a couple days I would gladly put things back the way they were in a heartbeat given the chance. It still doesn't feel like "home" yet.

Here are some pictures, all taken on the iPhone since I can't find the cord to my camera that allows me to upload pics to the computer:

Bed before.

Bed after.

The trouble-making TV.

Replacement nightstand.

Bedtime. TTYL!

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me!

2010-12-29T15:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know. I haven't blogged since September. That's pretty bad. Guess what? I fell off the FlyLady system too. Shocker. As per usual, I burned out on FlyLady and blogging. This time they just happened at the same time. Probably because I blog about FlyLady. Go figure! I'm hoping that with this post I can Babystep my way back into doing my routines and posting on a more regular basis. I'm actually surprised I even have followers left- I expected you all to get bored and abandon me. How surprised was I when I logged on to see that I actually have more followers than I did the last time I posted?! It's most likely thanks to Rosie from HomeRoutines for putting me on her web site's blog roll. Thanks Rosie!

I actually tried to get back into the swing of things a couple weeks ago by finally modifying my routines and Zone work to better reflect my current living situation. Then, two days later, my iPhone broke. Broke with no hope of repair. I had to buy a new one. Suckage! When I got home I went to sync the new phone to my laptop to get all my apps, music, etc. uploaded. And, what do you know- my laptop decided to wheeze it's last breath at that very moment. This death would involve buying a new mother board to resurrect it, and that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. So, I had to manually upload all my apps, ask everyone for phone numbers, blah blah blah. I'm using my mother's laptop for the time being, but this little setback-turned-project got me discouraged and annoyed so FLYing got put on hold again.

Now I'm back, phone has stuff on it (I still miss my music, hopefully a friend can remove my old hard drive and retrieve my files) and I have access to a working laptop. I have recreated my routines and am working my way back into doing them. My "suite" (the term I am now using to describe the 2 bedrooms and bathroom I occupy in my parents' house) actually looks pretty good. I'm sitting here dressed to shoes, but no makeup yet. That will come in a couple hours when I go out for the evening. Overall, not bad for a FlyLady Flunky.

Shedding Some Light On My Perfectionism

2010-09-23T21:07:00.000-04:00

Working in a living history museum where modern conveniences like light switches and flashlights are non existent, we must go the period appropriate throw-back route and use things like oil lamps and candles. For portability we put candles in lanterns kinda like the one in the picture, only not with big honkin' pillar candles as shown. We use and abuse these candle lanterns, especially during the Christmas season program called Lantern Tours. They end up absolutely covered in wax and soot, the glass sides are broken, etc. It's quite the hot mess.

Anyway, a charity group is renting our establishment this weekend for an event and they requested to use some of our lanterns, i.e. someone needs to clean them beforehand. That someone would be me...

Day 1 of cleaning lanterns I did have help, a co-worker took the job of cleaning the metal frames themselves by scraping the melted wax off the bottom with a putty knife then giving them a bath in industrial strength degreaser to remove the soot residue. We might have gotten a little high off the fumes. I set to task getting the wax off the glass panes themselves. To do this I modified a little trick I learned years ago to get wax out of clothing: Pick off any big hunks of wax, then place a paper bag over what remains and iron the spot. The wax will instantly melt and absorb into the bag. Ta da! For the lantern glass I didn't have paper bags so I just found an old thin cloth rag and laid that over the panes, ironed, and ta da again, clean glass!

Day 2 of lantern cleaning was me alone scrubbing more frames. More getting high. At the end of this day, there were 21 totally clean lanterns ready for the event. My boss said that should be enough, and I breathed a sigh of relief thinking I was done.

Yesterday was Day 3. My boss texted me around noon and said that the co-worker in charge the rental had just informed her that the renters wanted a total of 50 lanterns for their event. 50. 5-0. As in, more than double what I had already finished. Oh boy. I drove on down there and got back to work, but this time I knew I wouldn't be able to be as thorough as we had been before. Working alone I had time to de-wax, but not to de-soot. By the end of the day I had chipped the wax off the 29 additional lantern frames, but still had to go in today to de-wax the glass.

Day 4- (Today) I de-waxed the glass and was able to leave with 50 completed lanterns ready for use this weekend. The only thorn in my side was that the final 29 never got de-sooted (is that a word?) In my mind I had a mini-fail because I couldn't get them as clean as they could be (and the first batch was) due to the time constraints I was under.

Later this afternoon my boss texted me again, and part of our convo went like this (she is white and I am green):

Apparently even my boss knows I'm a FlyLady Flunky/perfectionist at heart...

Gillette, The Best A Girl Can Get...

2010-09-19T23:50:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, I just wanted to do a quick post and pass on a money saving tip I found awhile back whilst perusing the ~~black hole of time~~ internet. I don't even remember how it was I landed upon this video, but I watched it anyway and was intrigued. It's all about how to make disposable razor blades stay sharp for a looooong time by using only your arm! Before you watch I will warn you- the man in the video is shirtless, but you do not see anything below his shoulder line. I only bring this up because apparently some people were bothered by this according to the comments left on the video. You have been warned. Also, the sound is kinda quiet on this one, or at least it was for me, so you might want to turn up the volume a notch or two.

Seems too good to be true, doesn't it? That's what I thought, but after having tried it for the past year, I have to admit that it seems to do a pretty good job! I didn't make my razors last as long as he has, but they were pretty far gone before I started this technique and weren't as good as those made-for-guys Gillette Fusions that he was using to begin with. (God I love those things, even if they do cost an arm and a leg and don't come in pretty girl colors. They work awesome!) I just bought my first new pack of razors in a year, and I'm going to see how long I can make them last this time.

Some people seem to do this same technique, but instead of using your arm they run it up a pair of blue jeans. Haven't tried that one myself, but it seems worth a shot. And here's a random thought- I am so tired of men whining about having to shave. I'm sorry, but the last time I checked, it was socially acceptable for a man to grow a beard in this country, but for a woman to not shave her legs/underarms/etc.- not so kosher. Plus, when it comes to actual square-inchage of surface area needing to be shaved, I think we ladies have a tougher job. So- zip it boys! End rant.

Stopping To Smell The Febreze

2010-09-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

I have a confession- I am addicted to Febreze. It all started ino-scent-ly enough. (Get it?) About a year ago I ~~stole~~ borrowed a can of furniture polish from my mother to restore the shine on my bed set. As I sprayed and wiped away smudges I began to notice how utterly fabulous the stuff smelled. I took a look at the can to find that it was Swiffer Dust and Shine with Febreze's Lavender Vanilla and Comfort scent. Hmmmm, not bad.

Fast forward to my time living with the guy formally known as Roomie. The first time I wanted to mop the floor in that apartment I discovered that he didn't actually own a mop, but instead used one of those Swiffer Sweepers with the wet cloths. I pulled it out, stuck on a cloth, and there was that smell again! Heavenly. Again, the cleaning agent in the wet cloth was scented with Febreze Lavender Vanilla and Comfort. Because of that smell, I actually started looking forward to mopping the floor. Unfortunately, the wet cloths didn't do the best job at getting up the ground in dirt one finds on the kitchen floor of a single guy. I went out and bought a real mop, and while I was at it, went on an obsessive hunt for other products containing that scent.

In my search I found Mr. Clean Multi-Surfaces Liquid cleaner with my new-favorite aroma, which is what I now use with a real mop when cleaning the floors. I also picked up some actual Febreze Fabric Refresher spray (the extra large bottle of course), and was happy to see it came with a small "Febreze To Go" bottle that I keep in my car.

It was filled with the standard old-school smelling Febreze, and you can bet I used that up as quickly as possible so I could refill it with- you guessed it- Lavender Vanilla and Comfort. Oh, I can't forget to mention Febreze Air Effects, a sprayable air freshener. This I have in several scents for whatever tickles my fancy at the time:

I love how Febreze freshens up my "home" (be it a shared apartment with a friend or my sister's old room in my parents' house, sigh), but the only problem I have with it is that is doesn't last nearly long enough!

When I walk into my "home", I want to be greeted with that delicious smell. Well, unless I just sprayed the fabric refresher/air freshener/mopped the floor/polished the furniture, that wasn't likely to happen. I needed something that was going to guarantee smell-ability any time of day. Enter: Febreze NOTICEables:

If you've never heard of this before, the NOTICEables are a plug in air freshener that has two rotating scents in the warmer that change periodically so your snoz doesn't get de-scents-itized to the smell. (See, I did it again!) It is rather effective at this goal, and now whenever I walk into my room I immediately notice the welcoming smell.

A couple side notes on the NOTICEables- I was a little nervous about using a plug in freshener again after a bad experience I had when I used to use some made by Glade. Although I loved them and their wide range of scents, my cats had bad reactions that resulted in vomiting whenever I plugged them in. If I removed the freshener from the apartment the puking stopped, and I tried out this theory several times, so I know it was the Glade. I read somewhere that animals can be sensitive to essential oils, (which are claimed to be in a lot of these oil warmer/air freshening plug in things) but luckily after months of use with the Febreze NOTICEables we haven't had the same pukey problem. Secondly- the NOTICEables version of my favorite scent doesn't smell the same as any of the other products I have mentioned. There is something about the NOTICEables version of all their scents, really, that are a bit off. Not that is smells bad, just not the same. Even the name is slightly off, in this case it's called Lavender Comfort and Gentle Vanilla. Just sayin'.

Today I noticed that my NOTICEable was due for a refill, so off to Target I scampered to purchase a new one. Whilst browsing the aisle dedicated to making your home smell better the urge hit me to *gasp* try a new scent. Yes, it's true, I have strayed from my beloved Lavender Vanilla and Comfort. I decided I wanted to go with a nice fall-smelling scent to compliment the recent changes in the weather, so I went with this:

Pumpkin Harvest and Fall. Yummy. I could have gone with another that had something to do with apples, but the NOTICEables version smelled kind of chemically even though the candle I used as a control smelled great. I can't even find that scent on their website, so buyer beware, I guess.

As a final thought- Normally I do not care for the smell of lavender, but there is something about pairing it with vanilla that makes me want to lay on the carpet and inhale like they do in the Febreze commercials. Nor is there anything in my home that smells so bad that I actually require all this stuff to cover up a stench, but rather I just really like the way it smells in general. In fact, I may or may not use the Febreze On The Go bottle as "perfume" on occasion... With my "signature" scent of Lavender Vanilla and Comfort, of course.

Overwhelmed and Under-energized

2010-09-02T18:25:00.000-04:00

<------ How I feel! I loathe the actual moving process- the packing, lugging boxes around, etc. I am finally now at the part I do like- the unpacking and making everything in the new space all pretty.

Since I ended up moving back to my parents' house I'm pretty familiar with the landscape, but I'm still having trouble figuring out where to put everything. I've also hit a cleaning roadblock. As I am putting things away I find myself thinking "I don't want to put that there yet, it needs to be dusted/wiped out/hosed down so I might as well do that first instead of having to pull everything I've just put away out by doing it later." (Apparently I think in run-on sentences.) This has caused a slow-down in the actual unpacking process, but all this compulsive cleaning should help things run pretty smoothly once it's time for me to start a new Zone cleaning system.

I really need to get back to cleaning/unpacking, so I'll leave you with a few bad iPhone pictures I snapped on Tuesday, my last day in the old apartment:

Empty living room/my bedroom. :(

Empty kitchen and bathroom. :(

Roomie (who is no longer my roomie) waving goodbye to y'all in his empty bedroom.

Busy As A Bride

2010-08-17T23:28:00.003-04:00

Holy moly, has it been a week since I last posted? I have good excuses, I swear! Just like the post title says, I have been busy- busy as a bride.

No no, I'm not really getting married. For those who don't already know, I work for a living history museum that portrays life in the 19th Century. Sometimes I do what is called "First Person Interpretation", which means that instead of just talking about what is was like to live back then, I act as though it really is that era and speak to visitors as such. It's such a weird, but cool job.

Anyway, this past weekend my character got married. Re-married to be exact, as my first husband was killed at the battle of Gettysburg. This time I married a man "old enough to be my...uncle", as he likes to say. He too is a widower, so this was a second marriage for both. That being said, we came up with the scenario that we were to be married in his parlor at home, I just wore the nicest dress I owned, and the ceremony was attended by just a few close family members and friends. (One of which was John D. Rockefeller! At this date, he was only 24 years old and not the multi-millionaire we remember him as today. He is from this area and is a business partner of my now-husband. Fun huh?)

To follow suit with these plans I decided to make my own wedding cake. This was not the elaborate affair that the wedding industry has made it into today, so I set my mind to finding an original recipe (or receipt as they were called back then) that I could make at work to demonstrate for the public. In my research I found that at this time (1860's) a lot of brides still made cakes that were pretty plain by today's standards and quite often contained fruit. Not exactly what I had in mind. I kept searching until I found one that at least had a hint of what we think of wedding cake to be today. Finally, I came up with this:

Snow or Brides Cake (The Young Housekeeper's Friend-1859):

A pound each of flour and sugar, half a pound of butter, and the whites of sixteen eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Flavor it with rose water.

Frosting:
A pound of the best white sugar, the whites of three fresh eggs, a teaspoon of nice starch, pounded, and sifted through a piece of muslin or a very fine sieve, the juice of half a lemon and a few drops of the essence.
Beat the whites to a stiff froth, then add them to the sugar, and stir it steadily until it will stay where you put it. It will take nearly two hours, maybe more. Dredge a little flour over the cake, and brush it off with a feather. This is to prevent the frosting from being discolored by the butter contained in the cake. Lay it on smoothly
with a knife, and return the cake to the oven for twelve to fifteen minutes.

A little vague on some of the directions huh? Not to mention heavy on the poultry ovum... (16 egg whites!) As they did not bother to include cooking time or temp for the cake, I fired up my cast iron stove to a "moderate oven" temperature, aka 350ish for you modern cooks. I honestly can't say how long it took because I was so busy with visitors I didn't even bother to look at the clock, but just kept checking it until it was golden on the outside and a toothpick came out clean from the center.

The frosting is what really gave me a problem. After reading the recipe it sounded like it was supposed to be something like a meringue topping, but with a lot more sugar. But, never having actually made a meringue before, I didn't really know what to expect. And you can bet your life I wasn't going to spend 2+ hours whipping it by hand! I'm dedicated to my job, but that is ridiculous! Instead I took the frosting ingredients home and did it with an electric beater, and even then it took quite a while. The recipe also makes no mention of when to add the starch or lemon flavoring, so I added them after the eggs were "beaten to a stiff froth". I then took the frosting back to work the next day and demonstrated the icing and re-baking of the cake, which did harden up the frosting in a semi-meringue way.

I didn't get a close up picture of the finished product, but if you look at this scene you can see it on the table all cut up:

And here is a close up of some of the leftovers:

If I had to re-write this recipe for the modern cook, it would go something like this:

Snow or Bride's Cake:

3 3/4 cups flour

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 sticks butter, softened

16 egg whites, beaten to a stiff froth

2-3 tablespoons rosewater

Combine ingredients, bake at 350 F until golden and a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Frosting:

2 1/4 cups white sugar

3 egg whites

1 teaspoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 drops pure lemon extract

Beat egg whites until stiff, add all other ingredients until it has "body". Dust the cake with flour, ice the cake, and bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes.

Any comments or suggestions for this recipe are appreciated!

Before I forget, here is a lovely picture taken of me this weekend by Robert Szabo, a fantastic wet plate photographer. Although he took a few of me in the period wet plate style, all I have so far is one of the digital photos:

On a final note, the gentleman who plays my husband is moving to Virginia next week, so I bought him a little going away present. I didn't have any wrapping paper, so I tore out the pages for Virginia from an old road atlas and wrapped it in that, finishing it off with a little scrap blue ribbon to dress it up:

Isn't it a cute (and frugal) way to wrap something? I hope the long post makes up for my lack of blogging this past week, I'll try to not let it happen again. Try being the key word.

Ending The Lazy Streak

2010-08-10T21:04:00.000-04:00

I just wanted you all to know that I finally got off my hiney today and cleaned this place up. Remember yesterday when I guessed it would take me 45 minutes to get it all done? I decided to set my timer on stopwatch mode to see how long it actually took and worked in 15 minute increments. Not counting the time it took to run 3 loads of laundry in the early afternoon it ended up taking me:

Looks like I guessed pretty good!

Pics of the results:

Instead of trying to play catch up on the Weekly House Blessing and Zone items I missed, I'm just going to do as FlyLady says as jump back in where I am. I'm going to end this because I'm having a brief moment of motivation and I still would like to mop the floors tonight. Hopefully it doesn't pass.

When Laziness Takes Over: A Pictorial

2010-08-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

The past few days I've allowed laziness to set in and have totally neglected my routines. I have even neglected basic things like throwing away the packaging from my Ramen noodles or empty pop cans. The place is a wreck.

There is no real reason for this, I just don't feel like doing much of anything right now. Aren't I allowed a couple days of having zero responsibilities? (OK, not zero, I have been feeding the cats. Only because if I didn't, they would eat me while I slept.)

I don't feel as though I have fallen off the FlyLady bandwagon, I'm simply taking a brief hiatus from anything chore-related. It's actually kind of nice not constantly thinking about what cleaning task I have to do next, or if I remembered to set my timer for the laundry. What hasn't been nice is the fact that if someone walked into the apartment right now I would be mortified, even though picking up the mess would take maybe 45 minutes tops. Me no likey this feeling.

All is well though, since tomorrow it's back to business and I will be getting the place in order so I can have an easy-go of it come Wednesday when I go back to work. Photographic evidence of the current state of the place has been taken however so I can share my embarrassing lapse in housekeeping with all of you. Reader beware...

Un-shiny sink.

Cluttered counter tops.

Clean laundry not being put away on top of the dishwasher full of clean dishes also not being put away.

Un-made bed/couch.

Close-up of my end table.

Binx lying amongst dirty laundry on the bathroom floor.

Emily asleep on the chair. This one was just for the cuteness factor.

Well, those were the highlights. Just keeping it real people, just keeping it real. There was a reason I named this blog FlyLady Flunky- I tend to have little lapses like this, some just longer than others. In my defense, I warned my roommate before he came home from dog sitting today that the place was a wreck. When he walked in he looked confused and said "I thought you said the house was a mess!" I guess like beauty, a mess is in the eyes of the beholder.

Cha-cha-cha-changes...

2010-08-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

So, guess what... (Look at the picture to the left if you need a hint.) Yeah. I'm moving again. Just as I got a handle on my routines and really felt like this was a "home" of sorts, things are changing.

My roommate has decided to move to another state where there are more jobs in his career field, where as there are very few where we live. This means he wants to move out of the apartment at the end of the month, leaving me with 3 weeks to figure out where I am going to live since I can't afford the rent on my measly salary.

It seems as though I will be moving back in with my parents an hour away from where I work. There is good and bad to this. The hardest part will be the gas money required to drive to and from work now- the last time I lived this far away my car had much better mileage. My new (to me) and cute PT Cruiser aka Norma Jeane only seems to be getting an average of 22 combined MPG. Granted the area I live in is very hilly, so maybe it will improve when I'm back in the flat-lands.

I am also frustrated that just as I got my routines and Zones established I am going to have to throw most of it out the window and create new ones that pertain to my new living environment and lifestyle. Oy. I am so looking forward to that.

But, like I said, there is good to all of this: I am getting off the couch and back into my very own bed! I had just been hoping that when I did it would be into my own place, not with my parents- again. Oh well, I guess this will give me the opportunity to try out FlyLady's Moving Tips. Oh lucky me! ;)

BabyStep 31: I'm FLYing!

2010-07-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

I did it, I did it, I did it! Yeah, I did it! Sorry, that stupid Dora song always gets stuck in my head. Speaking of my head, it is absolutely pounding so this is gonna be really short. I just felt the need to post up the last BabyStep which is basically FlyLady's way of telling us that even though we have completed the BabySteps this is not the end. Now is the time to start picking up the other bits of the system (most of which I have been dabbling with for awhile) and keep on FLYing.

As a side note- even though I'm done with the BabySteps I am going to continue writing about my experience with FlyLady here on this blog. I sincerely apologize for this lame and wit-less post, and for the fact I have not been posting as much as I'd like lately. Life has kept me busy and I am so not kidding about my head killing me. It's hard to see straight right now. I will not be able to post again until Tuesday at the earliest, so until then adios!

BabyStep 30: Seeing Into The Future

2010-07-26T22:37:00.000-04:00

Well, I just did what FlyLady said to do for this BabyStep, and checked my calendar for next month's events. Not much to report here- no birthdays that warrant the buying of a card or gift (I am going to eat my words if there is and it just isn't on my calendar and that person reads this, so I hope I'm right!), no major events involving pre-planning, nor is there much of...anything. Oh, I do have some library books due, and I do put those on my calendar so I make sure to return/renew them on time, but that's pretty much it.

FlyLady also mentions in this step to check out her Basic Weekly Plan and give it a few minutes of thought. I did this a while back and have slowly begun to implement into my life, here is what I have so far:

Monday is the day we need to take the trash cans to the curb, Wednesday is FlyLady's assigned day to do those crap jobs we put off doing. Friday is the day I go fill up and clean out my car, and I have moved my Weekly Pampering session of painting my toes to Saturday since I started leaving for my parents' house right after work Sunday night.

Somewhere in there I really need to have an "Errands Day", but I'm still trying to figure that one out. It would be OK to have my basic grocery shopping on the same day of the week, but there are certain places I have to go for that one special thing that is totally out of my way from any other place I shop. Case and point- cat food. I get my cats' food from a Mom and Pop pet store near where I work, but to get there it's actually a couple miles past work in an area I never go otherwise. When I'm low on cat food I have to plan ahead to make a special trip out there and this only occurs once every couple weeks. The perfectionist in me wishes I could work it out so all my errands were done on one day and were all in close proximity to one another so I could get them all done at once- bam bam bam! But, that's not gonna happen. Boo.

In other news: The Home Routines iPhone app I use as my Control Journal announced about a week ago that they had submitted a new version to the application-powers-that-be. I'm very excited to see the new features, but it's still awating approval! I've been checking for the update several times a day every day, but still nothing. It's driving me nuts!

FLYing Into The Past

2010-07-23T21:59:00.001-04:00

Take a good look at this house. 14 rooms available for viewing, including hallways and staircases. Tramped through by hundreds of visitors per week. Spiders who seem to re-web the place overnight. Flies. Mice. 1 staff member present for 6 hours per day, 5 days a week who has to somehow keep it clean in their "free time" between aforementioned visitors, of both human and critterly nature. Oy. Double oy.

This house is just one of the 10 buildings I am responsible for creating make-shift Control Journals for in the historical village where I work. My boss has dubbed me the "Beautification Police" for the village side, and a friend of mine for the crafts side of the museum. We've decided we want badges and tiaras as our uniform. Management has yet to comply.

I began with the house I described because it is the largest in the village and I knew it would also be the hardest to figure out a way for one staff member to handle all the cleaning involved in the little time available. I think I did an OK job, though it may have to be tweaked once the system is up and running to work out any kinks. One thing I'm almost sure of- the young gentleman who will become the full-time interpreter in this house come late August is going to hate me, no matter how easy and streamlined I try to make this for him. It is such a large house he will have to do more a day than anyone else just to keep up with it all on a regular basis.

My house is the second largest in the village, with 13 areas needing to be cleaned. A few of the buildings do not have full-time staff in them, so I have taken it upon myself to get in there once in a while to keep down the spiders and sweep the floors. I started implementing a FlyLady-esque system to help me maintain the place awhile back and so far it's been working out pretty well. However, on days like today where the heat index reached near 100 degrees it is rather easy to let my chores fall by the wayside...allowing the spiders to move right back in.

All this to explain why I haven't finished off my BabySteps like I said I would- I'm busy trying to type these Control Journals up so my fellow historical interpreters can FLY!

FlyLady Fortune

2010-07-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd pop in and let y'all know I'm still here after a few days with no blogging. I went home to my parents' house as per usual on my days off, but left right after work on Sunday this time instead of waiting until Monday afternoon. I wish I could say it was an uneventful trip but I can't. My mother was admitted into the hospital for the third time in recent months for another cancer related complication. This time it seems there may be another major surgery to correct what is wrong. Ugh.

When I arrived home tonight I got right into gear unpacking my belongings and going about my before bed routine so I can be all set to go tomorrow morning for work. My roommate had gotten himself some Chinese food for dinner and offered me one of his fortune cookies. I cracked it open and was surprised at what it said:

Seems pretty fitting for someone who writes a blog about FlyLady, doesn't it?

BabyStep 29: Pampering With Polish

2010-07-16T22:38:00.000-04:00

I'm in the home stretch with the BabySteps! Today I took a look at BabyStep 29, which is to set some time to enjoy FlyLady's Weekly Pamper Mission. Every week there is a new mission posted on the Home page and they can include anything from taking time to give yourself a facial, to the current mission of decluttering your music collection down to music that you really love and taking the time to listen to it.

I don't know how much I will do the actual weekly missions they throw out there, as I am not what I consider "high maintenance" when it comes to my beauty routine. I pretty much cover the basics on a daily basis when I take off my makeup at night and brush my teeth. In the morning I put my makeup back on, I color my hair every few weeks when the greys start to create a skunk-stripe along my part (yes, I am 27 and am somewhere around 40% grey. It sucks.), and throw in shaving and plucking my eyebrows a couple times a week for good measure.

Other than that I don't really have personal care activities that need doing, nor do I want to add any. Sure, giving myself a facial sounds nice, but I never found they really did me much good nor did I enjoy doing it. In fact, it was a hassle and felt more like work than pampering. Over the years I have tried several things that many consider "pampering" that I also felt were more work than they were worth, and cost more money than I cared to spend. Over the past year or so you could say that I have actually "decluttered" my pampering rituals and have narrowed it down to the above mentioned routines.

The point of all this is, while some of FlyLady's Weekly Pamper Missions may sound good and worth trying, overall I will be sticking with one pampering activity that truly makes me feel good: painting my toes red. I can't paint my fingernails due to my job (sadly, nail polish as we know it wasn't around until the 1920's after the advent of car paint, so it would be rather out of place with my 1860's look), so I just do my toes. And I love red toes.

(Not my toes, thank you Google Image search!)

No one really even sees them but me and my roommate (I don't even own a pair of sandals or flip-flops anymore), but when I am at home and barefoot I love looking down and seeing my vintage-looking red toes. It makes me happy. So- Sunday is now my designated toe-polishin' day. Mmmm. I wish it was Sunday...

BabyStep 28: Green Tea and Gummies

2010-07-14T23:08:00.000-04:00

BabyStep 28- I'm almost done! Of course, when it comes to sticking with Flylady one is never done, but it will feel good to say I completed all the BabySteps. Today was the instruction that we need to remind ourselves to treat our bodies right by eating good food, drinking water and getting our rest.

#1- Eat Good Food. Well, if you read my last post we all know that I have issues with this. Need to work on that one.

#2- Drink Your Water. This is a very big issue for me. I am a bit of a pop/soda-aholic. As in, I can single handedly drink a 24 can case of Pepsi or Coke in about 3 days. That's BAD. Really, really, REALLY bad. Not only is it loaded with sugar, empty calories, caffeine, blah blah blah, but it also dehydrates you, causes osteoporosis, makes you bloated, rots your teeth, yada yada yada. I have gone through spurts where I work on replacing the majority of this ~~delicious elixir~~ devil's drink with water, but I have never been able to stick with it long. It's mostly the mental/physical addictions to the caffeine. I feel like I NEED to have it. If I don't, I'm convinced I will drop dead due to lack of my power source. If I don't have it, I really do get headaches from the caffeine withdrawal. Plus, I really don't like plain water. It's boring. It's tasteless. It's rather unappealing. However when I DO drink it, I notice that I loose about 5 pounds in a week from flushing out my water weight, and I become more (TMI ALERT!) regular. It is only after I am off of the pop that I can see the damage it was doing and didn't even know it.

Recently I was introduced to something that has make cutting back on the pop bearable: Arizona Green Tea and Pomegranate mix.

First things first- I hate tea of any kind, and just the thought of a pomegranate was unappealing. But I did a taste test without being told what this stuff was, and I thought it was juice or Kool-Aid, not tea. It's THAT good. Yes I realize it still has caffeine, but at 7.5 mg per serving, it's significantly less than the 35-55 mg per serving the average pop contains. This is good because I am getting enough caffeine to ward off my mental addiction without the physical overload I was ingesting with the pop. Also, this drink is calorie free, having been sweetened with sucralose, aka Splenda. I am not receiving a bunch of empty calories as I was with pop, and the sweetener is not aspartame, aka Nutra Sweet/Equal. That crap gives me a headache like nobody's business. Oh yeah, in the few weeks I've been drinking this stuff (with about a 50/50 ratio along with my pop), I have lost 5-8 pounds. I'm sure most of this has been water weight from the Pepsi-bloat, but still. Coincidence? I think not.

So, although it's not water, I do feel justified in using this green tea awesomeness to combat my Coke-addiction (or Pepsi, depending on the day). It's pretty cheap too- I buy it at Walgreens for around $3.75 a "can", which contains enough to make 3 gallons. It ends up being a fraction of what my pop costs.

#3-Get Your Rest. I pretty much covered this back in the post where I set my bedtime, and I can report back that I am on average getting around 7.5 hours of sleep a night now.

To wrap up and round out this "your body is a temple"-esque post, I would like to share one of my new loves: Gummi Vitamins. I suck so bad at taking a multi-vitamin on a regular basis, but when I saw that they now make some in the form of gummi snacks I wanted to try them. I do most of my grocery shopping at Aldi, and it just so happens they carry their own brand of these tasty little treats.

I found them grouped in with the other medications for $3.99 a bottle, which contains 60 gummies. For an adult dosage of two gummies/day, this will last me a month. Not too shabby, and OMG are they good! I look forward to taking them every morning and get bummed that I'm only allowed two. In fact, I am going to bed now so my unconscious state will make the time pass faster until I can take my next two. Good night!

BabyStep 27: Table For One

2010-07-10T23:39:00.001-04:00

Oy. Long day at work. But I got to have some fun pretending my work house was for sale, and my character has a new love interest, so that's always a plus! ;) Anyway, the Baby Step I was assigned today was to start making a point of thinking about what I will be having for dinner before 6:00 rolls around and add this as a step in my Control Journal. Wah.

I used to do this all the time- I had a menu planning day and a grocery shopping day, and even went so far as to work left overs into the whole equation to stretch my budget. That was back when I was living with my then-boyfriend. Now that I am with my roommate I have made the attempt to get back in this habit, but it's pretty rare when he and I share a meal. He and I have more of a "you eat what you want, I'll eat what I want" system, with a mutual meal thrown in here and there. Sometimes this happens when he makes something and is able to eat all but a tiny portion and gives the rest to me, and sometimes I will make a stew or the like in the crock pot and share it with him.

Menu planning and cooking for one person is kind of hard, especially when that someone eats like a bird, i.e. me. I am hardly what you would call a foodie. I like my food simple, especially when I am making it myself. The fewer ingredients the better. I also fill up quickly (a Happy Meal is about the maximum amount of food I can eat in one sitting), so even if I make something easy like Hamburger Helper it ends up being enough for 5 meals for me. I simply cannot eat the same thing that many times in a row before getting sick of it, so some of it ends up going to waste. Sigh.

Right now I live off of the food I make at work, Ramen Noodles, cereal and Miracle Whip sandwiches. That last one has two ingredients- Miracle Whip and bread. I love it. Sometimes I revert back to an old favorite of mine, A-1 sandwiches. Double yum. I am hardly what you would call a healthy eater, can you tell?

Toilet Jewelry

2010-07-06T14:02:00.001-04:00

Every month FlyLady chooses a habit for us to focus working on. This month she chose "Swish and Swipe", the act of spending a couple minutes every morning swishing the toilet brush in the toilet, and swiping away any muck around the sink area. For this FlyLady states she uses things like old shampoo (soap is soap as far and she is concerned) for the swish, and glass cleaner and paper towels for the swipe.

I started doing this on a regular basis a few weeks ago as it was one of my more recent BabySteps, and so far it's been pretty painless. I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to try out the new Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Cleaning Gel as my "soap" during my Swish and Swipe. I read some reviews (which were mixed), but decided to spend the $3/4 bucks at WalMart and try it out.

So far, not bad! I bought the Citrus scent which isn't offensive, and after two weeks of use my toilet is still clean. This product is not intended to keep your toilet clean all on it's own, but to extend the time in between regular cleanings. The gel plus my daily Swish and Swipe seem to be doing the job, meaning I should never have to "really" clean my toilet again- yea! Sure, I could use whatever random soap product I have lying around, but this eliminates a step for me (always a bonus), and- I'm such a sucker for a gimmick. At least this gimmick seems to work! Plus, it's pretty:

Yes, my toilet is so clean I felt comfortable showing you a picture of the gel, up close and personal. It looks like a little jewel, doesn't it? I read a review where a woman referred to it as her "toilet jewelry", and I am so stealing that term. I just wish I could remember where I read the review so I could give her credit! Oh, the gel does not turn the water blue; that is from one of those toilet tank tablets. My roommate still wants to use them (despite the fact I find them ineffective at keeping the toilet clean), and I found no warnings saying I shouldn't use them along with the gel, so I gave in. His reason for wanting to use the blue tablets: He likes to make the water turn green. You do the color math. He'd kill me if he knew I told you that, but he's still camping, so ha ha!

My cat also appreciates the Swish and Swipe I do on the sink every morning, because nothing says love like a clean sink to sleep in on a hot July day:

BabyStep 26: Jump In Where You Are

2010-07-04T23:11:00.000-04:00

Much like my post from last Memorial Day, I also spent this holiday at home doing housework. My roommate is away on his annual camping trip with his family and I decided not to go visit at my parents' this week. Without Roomie here to feed my cats I would have had to just made it a day trip and I really just didn't feel up to it.

So- instead of grilling various meats and watching fireworks, I stayed home and did my FlyLady work as though it was any other day. I slept in a little (a whole hour- whoo hoo!) before my cat Emily decided I'd had enough and stood on my chest demanding I get up and feed her. I took my sweet time doing my morning routine (which on any normal day would be finished by 10AM but today drug out until Noon), and then set out to do a couple errands.

My afternoon routine included some extra deep-cleaning that needed to be done. The ceiling fan in the kitchen was just encrusted with thick dust that wouldn't budge with a regular dusting, so I had to get up on a stool to wipe it all off. The glass shades that go around the light bulbs will be run though the dishwasher tonight. Hopefully I will never have to do this again as long as I maintain it with my Weekly Home Blessing dusting.

I picked more mulberries from the tree outside the balcony; I'm doing this almost everyday because I can tell it's season is almost over and I want to freeze as many as I can before it stops giving for the year. I have been using them in pies at work and they are quite yummy!

Now my day is almost over, but that's OK! I didn't have to work today because of the holiday, and my usual days off this time of year are Monday and Tuesday, so for me this is a long weekend! That means that while the rest of you sucka's are taking part of the daily grind tomorrow, I'll be kicking back and doing nothing! OK, that's a lie. I'll be re-organizing my kitchen cabinets.

Today's BabyStep was pretty easy; I was to take note of the bottom of any email FlyLady has sent out. On every single one she reminds us that we are not behind and to jump right in wherever they are. Got it. No witty commentary or deep contemplative thoughts on this one.

Oh yeah- Happy 4th of July!

BabyStep 25: It Ain't Gonna Happen Overnight

2010-07-02T23:38:00.000-04:00

OK, enough fartin' around. I've been flying for over a month and I still haven't finished the BabySteps. I haven't fallen off the wagon, but life gets in the way, you know? It's time to knock the last of these puppies out.

Today's BabyStep is to learn how FlyLady's routines developed. She wrote a personal testimonial about how this was done, one step at a time. The gist of it was this: It didn't happen overnight. I need to remember this. I still have days where I just feel too tired or lazy to do every single thing in one of my routines, and then I beat myself up the next morning and feel like a failure.

The funny thing is, none of these things are that important. If they aren't done the world will not come to end. I need to recognize that I have done so much already and made several life-style changes in such a short amount of time, and anything I do in my day is benefiting me, even if it all isn't completed by the end of the night. Not doing one thing does not erase all the other good things I did that day.

Sorry for the short (and not well thought out post), but it's time for bed. So tired. It's that funny life thing getting in the way again.

It (Was) My Birthday, I'll Whine If I Want To

2010-06-30T19:06:00.001-04:00

Hey 'Yall, I'm back! My Daddy fixed my laptop power cord when I went home on Monday, so I'm back in the blogging business. Time to play catch up:

I turned 27 last Wednesday (June 23rd for all of you who want to mark it on your calendars for next year). And to be honest, as far as birthdays go, it kinda...sucked. I'm taking a free-to-whine-pass here, so bear with me. Here's a run-down of how my day went:

1. My mother was admitted (back) into the hospital for complications with her cancer treatment the night before.

2. I had to work. Not that this was a big deal or unexpected, but does anyone like to work on their birthday? Plus, it leads to what happened next:

3. There was an earthquake. Sure it was up in Canada, but I actually did feel it down here in NE Ohio. I was sitting in a chair and I felt myself swaying back and forth. I thought I was going nuts until I jumped on Twitter and saw there was a logical explanation for it.

4. There was a BAD storm. So bad that I had to bring a classroom-worth of high school kids visiting the historical farm where I work down into the cellar of my work house for safety. I had to act like the brave adult when I am actually terrified of storms. Not fun.

5. Thanks to above-mentioned storm, the power back at my apartment was knocked out. It was out long enough my cell needed charging (being our only form of communication as we don't have a land line), so I had to go to the library and plug it into one of their computers to charge it up. I was just stuck sitting there, tethered to phone. Boring.

6. (This is where the true pity-party begins, you have been warned.) I DID NOT GET A SINGLE BIRTHDAY PRESENT OR CARD. No birthday dinner with my family either, which is our custom. No cake. Not even a cupcake. Or a Twinkie with a candle stuck in it. Yes, I got plenty of "Happy Birthday" messages on Facebook and texts, but that's it. In fact, the next day at work someone asked me what I got for my birthday, and my reply was "Nothing." She thought I was joking. This made me feel worse about it.

Am I just being selfish? I am 27 after all. I feel this puts me in the official "Almost-30" category. Am I too old to expect/want anything I feel I missed out on this year? It's not like I expected a big birthday bash or heaps of presents like a kid, I'm already pretty used to my birthday being low-key. But this year, is was such a non-event I couldn't help but notice.

I'll be sitting here in the corner moping if you need me. Regular FlyLady-related posts should be resuming soon.

I'm Still Alive...Barely

2010-06-24T18:50:00.000-04:00

Just wanted you guys to know that I have not (willingly) disappeared from Blog-Land. My laptop power cord broke and I won't even be able to attempt to get it fixed until Monday or Tuesday. I am writing this from my iPhone, not easy to do! I have several posts in mind, so once I am up and running again I will post those. Until then posts will be brief.

Thanks for understanding!

BabyStep 24: Swishin' and A-Swipin'

2010-06-19T19:54:00.001-04:00

Finally! I've made it to BabyStep 24: Swish and Swipe. I've actually been doing this off and on the whole time I've been doing this round of FlyLady, but today I officially added it to my morning routine in my Control Journal.

In the mornings (after I have finished doing anything that may make my bathroom sink messy) I take a disposable disinfecting cloth and wipe down the outside of the toilet (I live with a boy after all), and usually use the washcloth I used to wash my face to do the sink. I only use washcloths once before washing them (the thought of a used and dried cloth kinda grosses me out) so I figure why not get one more use out of it before it goes into the washing machine anyway?

I have not been swishing the inside of the toilet bowl with anything on a regular basis yet- I don't want to go the route FlyLady has and keep some cleaner in a container with the brush right there in the bathroom. I realize it's handy, but my cats would get into that ASAP. I have read some people use denture cleaner tablets, but I am interesting in trying that Scrubbing Bubbles toilet bowl stamp thing, eliminating any actual effort on my part. But, being a Google-research/product review freak that I am, I'm going to look into the effectiveness and cost before I run out and buy it.

I don't really have much else so say tonight. I'm pretty sure I have narrowed down potential car names to either Betty or Norma Jean. I'm strongly leaning toward Norma Jean. (Marilyn Monroe's real name, of course.) I'm pretty neurotic when it comes to naming things, lord help me when I have kids and have to pick names for them.

Ta ta for now, no blog post tomorrow night for sure, I'm going back to my parents' house right after work for a Fathers Day dinner at Big Boy, my dad's favorite restaurant. Cause we're fancy like that.

Cruisin' Again!

2010-06-17T23:10:00.003-04:00

I HAVE A CAR! I HAVE A CAR I HAVE A CAR I HAVE A CAR! Ehem. Please excuse me, I lost control there for a minute. But as I was saying, I am now in possession of an automobile. I am now the owner of a 2003 PT Cruiser Limited Edition. Sounds fancy, huh? It has all these bells and whistles that many people consider standard these days, such as power locks and windows. Yeah, in my last car I had to put forth physical effort to roll my window down. It was rough.

It's an older model with high miles, so I am fully expecting things to go wrong eventually. I'm just hoping "eventually" is years from now, ha! But, the body and interior are in really good shape, and I look pretty cute driving it, if I do say so myself. Cause we all know that's what is important when it comes to a car...

I took a couple of pics while I was putting things like my jumper cables and my Hey Tom Car Duster away in their new home:

The official color listed on the car title is "Cherry", but I prefer to think of it as a Candy Apple Red. It is also much cuter in real life, the dim lighting does not do it justice.

And of course, my FlyLady License Plate Frame had to be put on. This is now listed as a "last chance item" in the Fly Shop, so pretty soon this will be a collector's item! ;)

My roommate asked me what my car's name was, to which my reply was a quizzical look. I have no idea what I would name this car; I have never done it before and have always thought it was a weird thing to do. Maybe I'll try a few out to see how it feels. All I know is I want something with a retro-vintage-1940's-pinup girl-feeling. Betty? Candy? I'm at a loss. Suggestions?

Playing Catch-Up

2010-06-15T23:41:00.000-04:00

Phew! It's been a crazy week! I'm still without a car (should be getting one tomorrow night!), so I have been catching a ride with my roomie when he goes in. Problem is, he goes in anywhere between 1-2 hours before I need to be there, which cuts into my morning routine time. So- things have been a little off-routine the past week, and working a 15 hour day, getting home at midnight and having to go right back in the next morning (early!) and car hunting didn't help either!

I did the best I could with keeping up with my routines, but I had to let a few things go again. I still did stuff, but only the bare minimum. Mainly the things that would most effectively make my day run smoother the next morning and nothing more. I used today to play catch-up on my Weekly Home Blessing and Zone work, plus a few extras that needed doing around the house, such as hosing off the balcony and sidewalks to put a dent in the suicidal-mulberry splatter spots that we keep stepping in and tracking around the house. Anyway, here's a running list of all the things I did today, minus the extras that weren't on my actual to-do list today:

Gotta go, it's past my bedtime! Hopefully I will have new (used) car pics to show you in my next post!

BabyStep 23: Afternoon Delight

2010-06-10T23:32:00.000-04:00

Need to knock this out really quick, I won't be able to blog for a couple of days and hate just disappearing from blog-land.

Today's BabyStep is to set an afternoon routine. Check. Did it a looong time ago. Had to, or else (for me) nothing would have gotten done Weekly Home Blessing or Zone work-wise. Since my change in hours at work those two things have since been moved to my morning routine, so my after work/afternoon routine looks like this:

It's so nice to be able to come home and not have much to do. Sometimes I have been doing a little extra in the evenings, but the feeling that I can come home and actually relax for a bit is soooo wonderful.

In other news, my roommate and I have a tree growing outside our balcony that is now producing small berries very similar to blackberries. Even though I swept it off a few days ago, the effort was completely fruitless (get it, fruit-less?) because when I got home, it looked like this again:

Sigh. I Googled "blackberry tree" to try and find out what these berries were/if they were OK to eat. Turns out it is a "white mulberry tree", and the fruit is edible, so we picked about 5 cups this afternoon. I will be attempting to bake them into a pie at work tomorrow.

It was a delightful way to spend the afternoon, and having my routines set they way they are allowed me to do so. We were also rewarded for our efforts with hands that look like this:

(Wordy) Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-09T21:59:00.000-04:00

I tried to post on Sunday, I really really did. Blogger would not let me. It said it was down in my region. Then I went back to my parents' house over Monday and Tuesday to turn in my leased car. I am now sans car. I hate that. While I was there I came across my old hard-copy FlyLady Control Journal.

While perusing the pages I came across some ~~mean~~ sweet, ~~nasty~~ adorable, ~~antagonizing~~ helpful little notes my younger sister left me:

I won't post the next one, it involved "harming" myself on Friday and cleaning the mess up on Saturday. She meant this with love, I'm sure.

Apparently she thought I led a much more interesting lifestyle than I did/do.

And that ladies and germs, is my sister. This also gives you a taste of how non-FlyBabies reacted to me explaining/doing the system the first time around. They didn't get it, called it a cult, and joked about it. Feel the love!

BabyStep 22: A Change In The Wind

2010-06-05T21:19:00.000-04:00

I'm going to try and keep this short. I know I have said this before, but I am exhausted! Today was the last of these longer-than-usual days at work, and I am happy to say that despite the increased hours the apartment is looking better than ever. I am making deep-cleaning progress everyday with my Zone work, and thanks to the 10 minute Weekly-Home-Blessing chore I do every day it stays maintained. It's been difficult considering I have been going into work at my usual time, but staying 3 hours longer, leaving me less time in the afternoon/evening to do everything I need to do.

Tomorrow will be the first day of what will be my regular work schedule for the rest of the summer/early fall. I will be leaving the house 1 1/2 hours later than I have been lately, so I think I will continue with my current bedtime/wake up schedule, but shift my Zone and WHB work into that extra 1 1/2 hours I now have in the morning. This way I won't be doing my cleaning while I am already exhausted after work and will now have my evenings free to relax before it's time to start my Before Bed Routine. It's like found time! (At least, I'm hoping that's how it feels.)

Here is how I think this will go:

7:30- Wake up.

7:30-10:15- Morning Routine/10 mins WHB, 15 mins Zone work.

10:15: Leave for work.

10:45-5:15- Work.

5:45- Get home from work.

5:45-9:30 Afternoon/after work routine (even though that BabyStep has yet to come!), consisting of nothing more than feeding the cats, laundry, and balancing the checkbook. Relax!

9:30- Begin Before Bed Routine.

11:30: Bed.

That's the plan, man!

OK, I need to end this, I want to spend 15 minutes tackling this cluttered cleaning closet:

Oh yeah, today's BabyStep was about getting my butt in gear and creating my Control Journal in case I have been procrastinating in doing so. I haven't. I still use my iPhone app "Home Routines" everyday, I feel like it's my lifeline.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-02T22:01:00.000-04:00

Sorry for no post yesterday and for not having moved on to the next BabyStep yet- I promise I'm not slacking! This week I am working longer hours than usual and have had to let a couple of things in my routines slide (trying to learn that "good enough" is good enough). I just don't want to overdo it by adding another step into the routine when I'm just trying to get through the week and maintain the house while not letting it get worse, but not making real progress either.

OK, so this post isn't exactly wordless, but I do wish to conclude with some window shopping I am doing. These are all things that I really want from the FlyLady store but can't possibly afford. Not that they are overpriced, but I struggle to to get the bills paid AND still afford food. There is no room left for luxuries, no matter how much they would help my FLYing.

Want level: 6/5

Want level: 4/5

Want level: 5/5

Want level: 4/5

Stainless Water Bottle

Want level: 4/5

Dish Towels

Want level: 4/5

I'm sure my mother would say: "How does it feel to want?"

Holiday Housework

2010-05-31T22:59:00.001-04:00

Since I was gone all of Saturday and most of Sunday I had some catching up to do. I'm not saying the house went to pot while I was gone, but there were a few things that I had to do (like scooping the litter box) when I got home. My roommate did a good job keeping things tidy as well as feeding my cats, for which I was appreciative.

I didn't have any Memorial Day plans, nor did I mind not having plans. I actually could have gone somewhere today, but actually preferred staying home to get caught up. I really didn't want to feel behind before the work week started. I did my usual routine, plus did a couple extras that really needed doing but don't really fall into my WHB or Zone work. One of these extras was turning this nasty window fan:

Into this:

The whole job took only about 1/2 an hour because my roommate actually -wait for it- OFFERED TO HELP! Gasp! A man offering to help clean! Bring me my smelling salts, I think I shall faint! I had been planning to wash the outer screen parts in the bathtub, but my roommate said he had a garden hose and would I rather do it that way? I said yes, a hose would save me from having to clean the tub when I was done, and then he TOOK THE SCREENS OUTSIDE AND DID IT FOR ME! I think I'm still in shock.

End Of Week Wrap-Up and Surprise Comments!

2010-05-28T22:45:00.001-04:00

No BabyStep tonight (I know, you were sooo looking forward to it. I'm sorry.), but I did want to do a quick end of week wrap-up before I head over to my parents' house tomorrow morning. It's not for anything fun, like Memorial Day festivities. No, my car lease is ending next week so I have to go with my Dad to get that process started and figure out what I am going to do about a car come June 9th. It's going to be a long day/weekend of decisions, number crunching and paperwork. Can't you just feel the joy oozing from my pores? (That was my attempt at sarcasm, by the way.)

Wrap-up Topic #1: The Battle Against the Ants has ended (I hope), and I won! Thanks to those who left comments with suggestions on how to get rid of them, and although it wasn't actually one of your suggestions that did the job, one of them did lead me to something that worked.

This morning I was reading the suggestions and decided to start with sweet-smelling dish soap set out near the spot the ants were coming into the house. Apparently after a few days the ants are supposed to be attracted to the smell and will climb in the soap, only to drown in the grease-fighting goodness. Interesting. My roommate has some pink-grapefruit liquid dish soap sitting by the sink, so I set a saucer of that out on the balcony. Not one to just take advice and run with it, my Google-holic self started searching the Internet for others who have gone this route to see what success they had with it. While getting blissfully lost in Internet-land, I found myself on a website that had several ant repelling/killing methods, including the soap. As I scrolled down the page another method caught my eye: plain 'ol black pepper. Hmmmmm. Supposedly putting a line of this along the doorway would repel the ants. I had this too! Two ant-killing/repelling strategies must be better than one! I grabbed the pepper and poured some in front of the door, balcony side.

Now, for the last few days I have come home to find ants all over the apartment and my cats going ape-*hit trying to chase them down. Today I walked in and found: nothing. Not a single ant. I looked out on the balcony and couldn't see any there either. So far so good! I checked the soap-dish and there weren't any downing victims there, so I have a good feeling it was the black pepper that did the trick. I know I'm a little weird, but I actually feel kind of bad the soap-trick didn't have a chance to work! So, thank you to whoever suggested it, but I'm sorry I didn't set up my experiment in a professional manner to find out if it worked or not! Moving on...

Wrap-up Topic #2: I had an interesting and exciting commenter today! Apparently NikkiStarr, producer of FlyLady's radio show reads my blog! My blog! She left me a message on an older post, and here's what she had to say:

"I live 2 doors down from The FlyLady, and I promise, she is far from perfect and she openly admits it. It's part of the reason I listen to her advice. I can't take advice from someone who is perfect because I'll never be. I also have the privilege of producing her radio show. She is the kindest person I have ever met in real life. She has never called herself a guru, and her only mission is to help others. If tough love is needed she does provide it, but always in a very kind way. She's never been angry at anyone on the air. She doesn't tolerate whining and she NEVER whines herself. Also, the What Part of Baby Steps don't you get tweet was a serious question as we're always striving to make sure we communicate correctly. We should have included a ? at the end. We often post the No Whining picture if we've received a lot of whining posts or emails. Just a reminder that you can do anything for 15 minutes. Most of the time I whine longer than it takes me to just do what I'm whining about. That might just be me though. I struggle to embrace the "Do it now" principle. Thankfully, there is no perfect in this system.

I have been enjoying your blog and wish you the best on this journey. I can't wait for you to have your own home! No matter how these baby steps turn out that will be the best! I hope it happens soon. I'll keep reading and hoping it does! <3"

My first thought was "Someone who actually knows FlyLady reads my blog! Holy crap!"

My second thought was "Someone who actually knows FlyLady reads my blog... Holy. Crap..."

I mean, this woman speaks to FlyLady on a regular basis. Has she mentioned my blog to her? Does FlyLady know I exist? Does she know about some of the more tongue-in-cheek things I have said on my whiny days? Does FlyLady know I whine? Oh God, FlyLady knows I'm a whiner and that I write about her. FlyLady is coming after me, I just know it!

I kid, I kid. Seriously Nikki, it's great to know that you follow my blog and I appreciate your comments! I hope you continue reading what I have to say and take the snarky (I love that word) things I say in the manner they were intended. Which would be snarky, but lighthearted. ;) Now please, tell FlyLady not to hurt me!

Gotta go finish my BBR, see ya on the flip-side!

BabyStep 21: Ask FlyLady, And Attack of the Giant Ants!

2010-05-27T21:35:00.002-04:00

This is going to be a quickie post, it's already 9:00 PM and I try to start my Before Bed Routine around 9:30 so I get everything done before my 11:30 bedtime. Whoa. I totally sound like I drank the Purple Kool-Aid, don't I?

Today I moved on to BabyStep 21: Check Out Ask FlyLady. This is a section on her website where she answers a question from ~~other Purple Kool Aid drinkers~~ her followers once per day. Today's question and answer was about FlyLady's Swish and Swipe habit, but since this is also an upcoming BabyStep I'm not really going to say anything about it right now. I read it, that's what's important.

In more important (to me) news, our apartment has been taken over by an army of ants! These aren't little buggers either; my roommate says they are Carpenter Ants that are more interested in eating wood than they are in stealing any picnic food we have laying around. We live in a historic home, so there is plenty of woodwork in this place for them to munch on!

Roommate also said that this happened last year too, and nothing he did got rid of them. I used to get ants every summer in my last apartment and had luck with pouring white vinegar along the area where they were getting in. This ALWAYS worked in the past, so of course I tried it first here. I assumed I would pour the vinegar along the doorway to the balcony (current portal of access), and poof! they would be gone, leaving me to bask in my all-natural-remedy glory and gloat (just a little) to my roommate. Boy, was I wrong!

These ants must be tempered in nuclear-waste or something, because they pretty much laughed in the face of my vinegar acid-bath.

"What? You think you can stop US with your pathetic white vinegar? Muwahahahaha! We laugh in the face of vinegar!" Bum bum, bum bum, bum bum bum... Nom nom nom... (That was the sound of the ants marching on and eating more wood.)

Never has vinegar failed me when it comes to ants, so I was pretty shocked. All we can do now is step on them to keep the numbers down until we find something that will annihilate these little devils. It's really gross too; some of them are so big juice goes squirting out of them when I squish them. Sometimes we see live ants carrying away the dead bodies of their fallen comrades. It reminds me of the scene in Forrest Gump where he carries all the injured soldiers out of the jungle.

These are all the ants my roommate killed in about a 30-second period. Blech. Oh, just so I don't sound totally callous, I would like to add that if I see an ant that didn't die with the first squish and is still squirming around, I do go back and give it a mercy squash to put it out of it's misery. Any suggestions as to what might actually kill these things?

P.S. I made it within my time-limit, it's 9:29 now. Time to drink more Purple Kool-Aid.

What Is Wrong With Me?

2010-05-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

Kill. Me. Now. Please? I don't know what's wrong with me. Yesterday I did great with my routines, did 15 minutes of Zone work, a 10 minute Weekly Home Blessing chore, drank water for the first time in forever (I'm a total pop-aholic) and did some unexpected laundry (cat threw up on the bathroom rugs I had just washed the day before, grrrr). With all that visible progress, one would think that I would be filled with some sense of satisfaction.

But nooooo. Instead I felt two things:

1. OMG, even with all I did today, there is still sooo much more to do! (Yeah yeah, I know. BabySteps. Whatever.)

2. OMG, I did so much today, and this is what it's going to be like EVERY DAY FROM NOW ON! I feel like all I did today was clean! Sure I took breaks, but never did I get to sit down and just watch a TV show. Today I turned on my DVRed episode of "The View" as usual when I got home from work, but I had to keep pausing it so I could go change the laundry over, or call my bank before I forgot, or enter some other random yet responsible thing that popped up here. After being home for 3 1/2 hours, I had only made it through 27 minutes of the show, which included fast forwarding through commercials. Is this what my life is going to be like every day if I keep going with the FlyLady routines? I don't even have kids!

It just seems like all I do now is clean/FlyLady stuff. Even with using my timer and taking breaks, it seems like FlyLady has sucked my life out of my life. (Not that I had much of a life to begin with.) I thought doing this program was supposed to help me get out of CHAOS so I would have more time to live my life, but right now it feels like the opposite is happening.

"No sorry, I can't do (enter random activity here), I have to go do my Zone work or FlyLady will somehow find out I didn't and yell at me. No, trust me, she KNOWS."

Yesterday I actually told my roommate that I would only go outside and play Cornhole with him if we went RIGHT NOW, because I still had my Weekly Home Blessing, Zone Work, and Before Bed Routine to do. I was rushing through a fun activity so I could go and clean to avoid going to bed with a guilty conscience. What's up with that?

My only theory to this crappy feeling is that right now it seems like so much because I haven't had a cleaning routine for so long, my cleaning "muscle" is out of shape. I'm not used to doing these things on a regular basis, and therefore my internal routine of sitting around and watching TV after work is still inside me screaming "Hellloooo? What are you doing? Oprah is on!". Hopefully the cleaning routine will replace the TV routine and doing all these things everyday will become the new "normal". Or am I being too optimistic and it will always feel like a struggle? Comments please!

BabyStep 20: Airing My Dirty Laundry

2010-05-24T17:51:00.002-04:00

Sort, wash, dry, fold, put away, wear, sort, wash, dry, fold, put away, wear, sort, wash, dry, fold... you get the point. Laundry: it's a vicious cycle, isn't it? It's also something that almost everyone has in common, unless you are wealthy (and ridiculous) enough to be able to wear something once, get rid of it, and buy something new. (Psst: If there really are any people like that out there, I'm open to the idea of being adopted...)

FlyLady wants me to make doing the laundry part of my routines. If you peruse her site you will find pearls of wisdom such as "A load a day keeps CHAOS away!", and "Tackle Mt. Washmore!" The idea behind this is that it will prevent the laundry from piling up and becoming the big tedious project that we all know and detest. Nothin' says love like clean underwear!

She suggests making laundry part of my morning and evening routines, but that's not going to happen.
In my last apartment I was lucky enough to have a laundry room right inside my unit, so it was no problem to start my daily load before I went to work and then throw it in the dryer when I got home in the afternoon. I trained myself to put the load away as soon as it came out of the dryer so I wouldn't be living out of a laundry basket, and the whole system worked great.

Unfortunately things have since changed. The house I now live in is an old home that was converted into 4 apartments, 3 of which are currently rented including ours, with 2 people living in each unit. This makes total 6 people living here. 6 people who all share 1 washer and dryer. I don't like this math.

If I were to start a load in the morning now I would run a high risk of someone else coming along wanting to use the laundry room while I was still at work, and that wouldn't be very neighborly of me. I also encounter times when I am all geared up and ready to put a load in only to find that someone has gotten there before me. All I can really do is be flexible and do my laundry in the afternoons.

Oh, how I miss having my own laundry room. Not only could I do laundry whenever I wanted, but now "throwing in a load" is more akin to taking a trek to Outer Mongolia. First, I go into the bathroom where I keep my dirty laundry basket:

(Ignore the book, I read in the tub. So cliché.) Then I walk through the kitchen...

...and around the corner to the apartment's door:

Outside the apartment door I find myself in the hallway, where I then have to carry the basket down the stairs to the first floor:

(This is the part that sucks if it's raining.) Once I am downstairs I go out the door onto the front porch, turn to the right, then have to walk around to the back of the house:

At the back of the house I find myself at another doorway leading to the ~~dungeon~~ basement stairs:

After I carefully maneuver the stairs, I wind up in this little gem of a laundry room:

It's damp, smelly, and home to plenty of bugs. Charming.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour, but I'd better get back to my Zone work and Weekly Home Blessing or FlyLady's gonna have my hide...

BabyStep 19: My Own Bed And Breakfast

2010-05-23T17:48:00.000-04:00

Last night's benefit dinner at work is over- thank you all that is sweet and holy! I can't remember when I have been ready to go to bed hours before my bedtime just because I am so physically tired. Even when I have had "busy" days at work before I would still find myself staying up way too late at night because I just didn't feel ready for sleep. This week gave me a taste of true domestically-related physical labor (it's not like I was working outside plowing a field or anything!), and it left me truly tired yet satisfied at the end of the day.

I just worked 7 days in a row with today being my only day off before we get back to the grind, but I find myself looking forward to going back tomorrow so I can enjoy my freshly cleaned "history house" and prolong that feeling by implementing some of my FlyLady habits to keep it that way. I'm planning on making a routine schedule to help me keep up with all the cobwebs, dust bunnies and soot a historical home seems to accumulate everyday, not to mention the grit tracked in by all the visitors.

Moving on to the actual BabyStep this post is supposed to be about: Today's assignment was to read a testimonial a FlyBaby had written which wound up being published in FlyLady's first book Sink Reflections. It was about a woman who has done so well with her FlyLady-ing that her home now feels like a quaint little B&B. One could say I am jealous. Here's why:

I've written before about how I struggle with my current living situation. I have noticed that as much as I clean, organize or declutter around here I still don't feel the deep-rooted sense of satisfaction I used to obtain from doing FlyLady. I think it's because none of this really mine. I am basically working hard to clean someone else's apartment and the martyr in me balks at that from time to time, especially if my roommate doesn't even notice.

I also have issues with the fact that even if I cleaned this apartment top to bottom, it will never feel like my own bed and breakfast. No matter what I do, it will always be a small apartment where the kitchen gets close to 90 degrees whenever we use the oven, the dishwasher must be rolled across the kitchen to the sink to be run, sports are always on the TV, towels are used in lieu of real curtains, and I sleep on a couch. This place just will most likely never feel like a "home" to me, let alone a B&B.

There is where my work "home" comes in. There is just something about that house that instills that "homey" feeling in me. Although I have no actual ownership of the building I feel as though it is "my" house. This actually occurs with a lot of the employees there, and I guess when you work in a particular site long enough it is bound to happen. However, the sense that it is "mine" goes beyond being territorial. I actually take pride in that house. When I clean the butcher block table in the dairy kitchen after a long day of churning butter, I feel as though I am cleaning "my" table. When a light a fire in the cast iron stove, I feel as though I am lighting "my" stove. If I run out of time at the end of the day and can't get everything tidied before I have to leave, I feel bad that I left "my" house messy. I try to respect that house and treat it as though it really were a home and not a museum show-piece. Being that it really was a home for over 100 years, I would hope that the previous owners appreciate this! Here is a view of my work home from the front:

A view of my front "sitting room", similar to a modern living room.

The house is quite large with 4 upstairs bedrooms, 2 kitchens, a sitting room, a parlor, a "sick room" and a cellar. That's a lot for one person to try and maintain everyday, especially with all the foot traffic that comes through there and no vacuums! By implementing my FlyLady teachings into caring for "my" house, maybe I will have an easier time maintaining it and be able to enjoy having a "home" of my own even more, even it's only for 5 hours a day.

BabyStep 18: The Lord Has Spoken

2010-05-21T22:03:00.004-04:00

Today's BabyStep: Read FlyLady's 11 Commandments and put them in my Control Journal. Done and done. However, I feel the need to comment on one of these Commandments:

Commandment #2 is a reminder to get dressed every morning, including lace-up shoes. FlyLady is very big about lace-up shoes, but for a reason. She says that if you are wearing shoes that lace-up it will be harder for you to just slip them off whenever you feel like it, which in turn makes it easier for you to keep your "Frannie" moving and get things done during the day.

Well, I have a little confession to make: I do not even own a pair of lace up shoes anymore. These are my everyday shoes, my "sneakers" if you will:

These are called "Alice" and were made by Crocs. I say "were" because I'm pretty sure they no longer sell them, which is sad because I love these shoes. I have had my pair for 2 years and have worn them every day. I'm not kidding. Summer, winter, what-have-you, I have worn these shoes. Personally I ~~can't stand~~ don't care for the look of regular Crocs (the clog style with all the holes), but I thought this Mary-Jane style was pretty cute! They are easy to care for too: if they get dirty I hose them off in the sink and let them dry for 1/2 an hour. Done. I like to wear them with fun socks:

(From the look of this picture, me thinks it's time to hose them off again!) Despite these not being lace-up shoes I am doing very well with keeping my shoes on my feet during the day.

Oy, is it time for bed yet? I'm so tired. It's been a helluva week at work. Today was the last day I had to prepare for the big benefit dinner taking place tomorrow, so I had a lot of 1845-house cleaning to do in between talking to school groups. Seriously, my "breaks" were when I was doing my spiel for a group and got to sit down while we churned butter. Otherwise I was busting hump trying to clean the parlor carpet with a broom (how I longed for a Hoover!) and dusting cobwebs out of corners. Cobwebs that I removed from the same corners just two days ago. Those spiders are quick! The kicker in all this is: the forecast for tomorrow is rain, which means that the dinner guests might not even get to venture out into the village where "my" house is to see all the hard work I have done, and it will have all been for nothing! Well, not nothing, because the house looks very nice and I will get to reap that benefit come Monday, but still. I want to show it off.

Speaking of where I work, here is a picture taken a couple days ago of me washing some of the butter I churned. I know there is one reader out there who will appreciate it!

Edit:

Lee said: "If you get to use a real wooden butter mold I'm just going to die with jealousy. Spoken as a true history geek here lol."

Well Lee, I hope you have your headstone picked out, because it just so happens I do mold the butter using wooden molds after I am done churning:

Taken with my cell phone last fall. This is one of two designs I can mold with.

And by the way, I washed my shoes. :)

Bedtime Follow-Up and Happy News

2010-05-19T21:01:00.003-04:00

Monday night was my first night with my new set bedtime of 11:30 P.M. With my current work schedule this gets me about 8 hours of rest, depending on how long it takes me to fall asleep.

I actually did get in bed on time that night even though I didn't have to be at work the next day until 10:30, a little past an hour later than what is normal. I figured I might as well start the habit on a night where I had a little leeway in the morning in case it took me awhile to fall asleep and I didn't get much rest. I informed my roommate that he must vacate the living room/my bedroom at that time, which should only be an issue when there is a late night sporting event he wants to watch. He will just have to deal with it.

I had previously decided that until my work schedule changes once the school-group season at work ends and switches over to the regular public summer season, any days that I have to go in later than normal will still have the same bedtime/wake up time. Any extra time I have in the morning will be just that- extra time.

I'm so glad I made that decision, because sure enough Tuesday morning I awoke to find that one of my cats was sick. I was able to use my extra time to monitor her symptoms and devise a game plan concerning taking her to the vet. If I had given myself the "gift" of going to bed/getting up later I would not have had time to do all this and possible not even noticed that something was even wrong.

I would like to apologize for the lame-ish post here, but I am just soooo tired right now! There is a big benefit dinner at work this coming Saturday night and I have been so busy at work doing things like detail-cleaning the 1845 house I work in and churning 3 lbs. of butter a day to serve at the dinner, in addition to speaking to the usual 15+ school groups we get per day. I don't have time to so much as sit down or eat anything the entire time I am there, there is just so much to do!

On an entirely different topic, my friend Kat from The Burb Blog had her baby this morning! I met Kat about 4 years ago when we both played the same Internet game, The Sims Online. (Oh, how I miss that game!) Our avatars became roommates within the game, only to discover afterwards that we were both from he same real life city. We eventually met face to face and became friends. I had to move away last year when I lost my job, but we have kept in touch. She got pregnant with her first child a few months after that, so I have missed her entire pregnancy (which was quite the ordeal- freak blood loss, blood pressure issues and months of bed rest), but all that came to an end at 9:20 this morning when she delivered her 7 lb. 13 oz. baby girl Lucy! (Lulu for short.) Welcome to the world baby! (Look at those cheeks!)

BabyStep 17: Go To Bed!

2010-05-17T17:41:00.000-04:00

OK, confession time: I totally lied to you in yesterday's post. Well, maybe not lied because that would be an intentional act. Let's call this "speaking too soon", shall we? See, I stated that I hadn't gotten around to doing BabyStep 17 which involves setting a specific bedtime and sticking to it. I swore that I was going to do it last night, but it just didn't happen. By the time I finished writing that post it was already pretty late, and I still had my Before Bed Routine do to. I did the routine and got in bed, but by this point I was only going to get about 6 hours of sleep. I've gone with less, but I prefer more.

Fast forward to this morning- I slept through my alarm! Actually, I slept through 4 of them! I always set multiple alarms because I have a history of shutting them off in my sleep if my body is too tired. I never remember doing it; in fact, I once had an entire conversation with my boyfriend when he tried to wake me up because he saw me turn my alarm off and go back to sleep. He asked why I wasn't getting up, and I told him my boss had called the night before and told me I didn't need to go in that day, so naturally he let me go back to sleep. None of that was true- I was talking in my sleep and he thought I was wide awake! I don't remember any of this, and it's safe to say I was late to work that morning and my boss was NOT happy...

Anyway, I slept through all my alarms this morning and woke up 10 minutes before I was supposed to be walking out the door. I usually get up at least an hour before I am supposed to leave. Thank goodness I had done my routine the night before! Doing this allowed me to only have to put my clothes on, feed the cats, and take care of bathroom necessities. I wasn't scrambling around to pack food, look for my keys, etc. Everything was where it needed to be already and I managed to get out the door right on time. Phew!

I'm still having a little trouble figuring out how to set my bedtime. First off, what is the recommended amount of sleep for adults these days? 8 hours? 7? According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults should be getting between 7-9 hours per night. Should I choose the middle ground, or play with it a little and see what works best for me? And what do I do on days where I don't work? What do I do on days when my work schedule strays from the norm a bit? Stay with the bedtime, or let it vary? Am I over thinking this? Ugh.

With my current work schedule I need to be getting up around 7:30. This means to get enough sleep I need to go to bed at 11:30. Totally doable, but there's something about putting a number on it that seems so limiting. We'll see how this goes.

Odds and Ends and Poofy Hair

2010-05-16T22:58:00.001-04:00

I have a little catching up to do! I have not moved on to the next BabyStep yet, as it involves setting a specific bedtime and I did not want to do that on the weekend where I was free to stay up late/sleep in a bit. I start back to my regular work week tomorrow so I will be establishing the bedtime starting tonight and will report back on this tomorrow.

In other news:

1.) I fell a little behind with my routines over the weekend. I am noticing this is becoming a pattern. It's just a lot harder to complete my morning routine when I don't have a certain time I need to have it completed by. When I am working I find it easy to set myself to task and get it all done before I leave the house in the morning. On my days off there isn't that cut-off point, and I tend to get lax and not do everything. I could create a self-imposed deadline, but I just don't wanna.

I did get right back on track last night, and I realized how much smoother things go now that these routines are taking shape. I no longer have to worry that I'm forgetting to take something I need with me to work, because now it was pre-packed the night before. I no longer have to sit on my couch/bed with the sheets all a muss because I made it that morning. I'm finally seeing enough improvement around here to feel a little more motivated to do my routines regularly.

2.) Although I haven't officially begun Zone work yet, I did feel a little ambitious the other day and took a crack at the bathroom. Since I moved in this apartment the shower curtains have been driving me batty; they were covered in soap scum that rubbed off on my hands anytime I touched them. They belong to my roommate so I couldn't just toss them and buy new ones, so instead I decided to wash them in the washing machine.

Before I did so I Googled around for info, and found that people have actually had good luck with washing plastic shower curtains in the washer and have used several methods to do so. Some use hot water (theory being it relaxes the plastic so it doesn't shred in the machine), some use cold (they are afraid hot will melt the plastic.) Some used bleach, some used white vinegar, and some used plain old laundry detergent. Some combined these one way or another.

I ended up using warm water with laundry detergent and bleach. I also threw in some some white kitchen towels and washcloths to act as "scrubbers". There was no damage to the curtain, and it came out looking a million times better. Here is the before:

Yuck. Soap scum city. Now here is the after:

Much better!

3.) This has absolutely nothing to do with FlyLady or housekeeping, but I want to share anyway. I work for a living history museum, which means I dress in 19th Century Costumes and portray life in Ohio for that era. Mainly I do the Civil War (1860's), sometimes the Ohio pioneer era (1815ish), and only a few times have I done late Victorian (1890's.) Today I had to do 1890s for a Victorian Tea we hosted, which meant I had to put my hair up into what is called a "Gibson Girl" style. This is not easy, as my hair is only just past chin length. I practiced for hours yesterday trying to get it right, and it still took me over an hour to do it again this morning. Luckily, I found a hairspray that made this all possible, called Freeze It.

To give you an idea of the look I was going for, here are a few pics of an original Gibson Girl, Evelyn Nesbit:

There are many variations to this style, but the key factor is the poof, or "cloud" of hair piled on top of your head. This is my problem; some of my hair at the nape of my neck isn't even long enough to each that far up the back of my head to be gathered into the knot on top. The Freeze It took care of that no problem and just held it in place with no bobby pins or anything. It also has "brighteners" in it that actually made my hair look healthier than it really is instead of giving me that hairspray-dulled look. I actually found this by accident at WalMart while I was looking for something else, and almost passed it up. It comes in a gold can and only cost $3.00, so I figured it couldn't be much good. Luckily I pulled out my iPhone and looked up some reviews, and everyone said they loved it. I agree! For this amount of hold and the low price, it can't be beat. I go through a lot of hairspray doing my hair for work and this will not only get the job done, but not break my budget as well. I beats the expensive salon spray I used to use for over $10.00 a can! Here's a pic:

FYI: This shows the Original formula, but I am using the Mega Hold version. To wrap this up, here are some pics of me with the Gibson Girl hairstyle. The back loops were done partially with my own hair, and only one small hairpiece. Sorry for the yuck quality on most of these, they were taken with cell phones:

Setting out the lemonade.

Working with the cast iron stove.

Being silly and wearing a gentleman's hat on top my my Gibson Girl hair poof.

12 hours and a hard day's work later, the hair hasn't moved! (God, I look tired!)

The back. I'm sorry I have to go brush this out now! Good night!

BabyStep 16: Rolling My Eyes

2010-05-13T18:54:00.000-04:00

Seriously? This is today's BabyStep? Haven't we been reading the messages since the very beginning? (Well, technically, we have been instructed to go to Big Tent and read them, which I already described my annoyance with here, but I digress.)

Are these just "filler" BabySteps? Are they meant to buy us time so we can practice what we are already doing without adding new steps? If so, why doesn't she just say so like she did in BabyStep 3: "Do what we have already done"? I don't get it.

Personally I think the whole month-long BabyStep system needs to be re-hashed a bit. Some of these steps are just a tad redundant. That's all have to say about that, I'm outta here.

BabyStep 15: Between The Sheets

2010-05-12T18:21:00.001-04:00

My mission: Make the bed and add this step to my Morning Routine. Did I do it? Yes! Not that it took much of an effort, cause, I sleep on a couch, and um, yeah, there is no way to really make that look pretty. Plus, I was supposed to do it as soon as my feet hit the floor, and that is so not gonna happen.

It goes more like this: Wake up, go to the bathroom, feed the cats, go outside and have my morning smoke (don't judge me!) while I read my morning messages from FlyLady on my iPhone, then come back in and make the bed. These things must happen first. (I am really all about italics in this post, aren't I?)

Anyway, here is the before pic I took last night of my couch/bed:

Blech. I used to take the sheets off every morning and leave them folded up on a chair until I went to bed that night. This got to be a pain really quick. It was like having to change your sheets every.single.day. Eventually my roommate and I decided that the couch actually looked better with my bedding left on (it's an ugly couch), so it stayed. But, it only looked nice if it was actually made. Otherwise, it looked like the above picture- a mess. By the way-the striped pillow is totally my roommate's, it's one of his "living room pillows for naps." It totally annoys me how it clashes with my nice-ish bedding. I would also like to point out that the towels and blankets being used as curtains in the background are also the bane of my existence and not my doing. I live with a boy. Enough said? Ugh. Now for the after pic:

Better! (Except for the "curtains"...) Notice how I am trying to hide the striped pillow? I realize that yes, this is just a couch with sheets and a coverlet thrown over it, but it's really the best I can do. I didn't "win" my bed in my breakup (it was a mutual purchase), and even if I had there is no place for me to put it in this apartment. It was such a nice bed too...

It had book shelves down the sides...

And storage space underneath...

It was even prettier in my last apartment with my robin's-egg-blue walls. These were taken when we lost our jobs and had to move in with my parents. Sigh. I miss my bed. I got more satisfaction out of making it. Am I whining? Too bad. I sleep on a couch.

BabyStep 14: Pencil Me In (Plus Some Gossip!)

2010-05-11T20:24:00.003-04:00

Guess what?

(What?)

It's that time again!

(What time would that be?)

The time where I tell you what BabyStep I am on and what it was all about!

(Oh, goody!)

Sorry, I just got a little sick of starting of my posts the same way all the time. Thought I'd stick my neck out and show my dorky side. (Not that it doesn't show most of the time as it is.) Anyway, yesterday's assignment was BabyStep 14: Read an essay that Kelly wrote. It was all about using calendars.

Personally, this is one thing that has actually stuck with me since my first go-round with FlyLady. I tried using a wall calendar so my then-boyfriend could see it too, and I got all fancy using different colored pens for different event types. (Red for bills, green for paydays, blue for personal events, you get the picture.) I loved the color coding, but not the hard-copy situation. I didn't like not being able to access my calendar from work, and hated having to use White-Out when plans changed. Since my then-boyfriend didn't seem to be checking the calendar anyway, I moved on to a digital format.

Enter Google Calendar. I loooooove Google Calendar. I spent so much time searching for and trying different online calendaring systems, I think I fried my brain. But, I found the one that works perfectly for me, so brain cells be darned!

The main reason I like it so much is the color-coding system it uses on the month view. I like to be able to glance at the month and just SEE what is going on. My fried-brain just took to it naturally. Now that I have the iPhone I can access my Google Calendar on the phone's browser, but the month view just isn't the same:

Ahhhh! No color coding! No one glance planning! With this, I have to click around on each day to see if there is an event or not. I can switch over to the desktop view, which looks like this:

Ah. Much better. I can see what's going on. Trouble is, the interface for adding/editing events in this desktop view doesn't fly so well on the phone. There are third-party iPhone apps that have created calendars that look and behave like the Google Calendar, and can sync with it as well. I'm just not paying $7.00+ for them when that is the exact amount I currently have in my checking account. (I so wish I was kidding about that.) I just wonder why Google can't do what these app guys have done- make the mobile-month view look like the desktop-month view, but have the interface more streamlined for the iPhone. Puhleeese do this Google. I live for the month view.

I will now apologize to those readers who are not iPhone users for my above ramblings. It's my new toy. I'm sure I'll bore of it eventually and stop talking about it.

OK, complete change of topic- who saw FlyLady getting a little, um, crabby with her FlyBabies today? I was checking my Twitter updates and came across this:

What the...? Anyone else take at least the tiniest bit of offence to her tone? But wait, we're not done. There was another Tweet with a link to her Facebook page that landed here:

Oooook. I think FlyLady is just a bit grumpy today. Actually, this is one of the things that turned me off to her before. I used to listen to her Blogtalk radio show back when it was brand new, and there were times when I could just hear her wanting to strangle some of the callers. If you know FlyLady, then you are aware of her no whining/don't be a martyr rule, but give me a break. Even though the program itself is free, I'm pretty sure she makes plenty of money from all those timers and scrubber things she sells. Shouldn't she try a little harder to disguise her irritation? First she tells us not to strive for perfection, but then gnashes her fangs at us in a very passive-aggressive way when we can't live up to her own personal level of perfection. Sheeesh.

Am I the only one who wonders if one day she will just totally loose it and flip out, ending that which we know as the FlyLady Empire?

BabyStep 13: I'm On A Mission

2010-05-09T18:02:00.001-04:00

Ow. Ouch. Owie. Whimper. Whine. In other words, I hurt! Friday afternoon I somehow managed to crack off a corner of my back lower molar while munching on some of my roommate's Captain Crunch (shhh, don't tell!), and since then I have been in agony. The tooth itself doesn't hurt at all; in fact, I didn't even know I had done it until the sharp edges the break created started to slice into my tongue. I'm not being overly dramatic either. My tongue lies (lays?) right up against this tooth, waaay in the back of my mouth, and I can't even swallow without the side of my tongue scraping up against these little razor blade edges. It. Is. Torture.

Since then I haven't been able to talk, eat, swallow, or even sleep properly. Someone suggested I use a nail file to dull the tooth edges until I could get to a dentist, but since I am uninsured the nail file is as close to a dentist's instrument my tooth is gonna see for awhile. I chiseled away at it the best I could, and it seems to have helped a little. I still have to pop Tylenol and Ibuprofen a couple times a day to keep the swelling in my tongue down (did I mention this has made my tongue swell?), and I'm praying all the talking I will have to do at work tomorrow doesn't undo the little healing that has taken place. Sigh.

The point of all this whining? Well, let's just say I have been in so much pain I took a FlyLady break Friday night and all day Saturday. Cause really, considering this pain ranked right up there with the time I had my wisdom teeth all removed with Novocaine ONLY, and NO pain meds afterwards, I really didn't give a bleepity-bleep if my sink was shiny. Not one iota. But it's OK, I think I've made up for my lapse in productiveness today. Which leads me to: BabyStep 13: Pick one of Kelly's Missions and do it.

This step is supposed to be our introduction on how FlyLady breaks your home into Zones to keep it what my mother refers to as "Company Clean" all the time. I'll speak more on Zones in a later post, as I am having a bit of a conundrum about it. And by the way, for those of you not in the know, Kelly is one of FlyLady's ~~minions~~ sidekicks. Sort of like Batman and Robin.

I went as directed to Kelly's Page O-Missions and picked the one I ~~could muster up the will power~~ wanted to do. This week FlyLady is in Zone 1 (front entrance, front porch and dining room), so all the Missions pertained to that area. I don't have a dining room (heck, we don't even have a kitchen table), so the dining room missions were out. I don't really have a front entrance either, so front porch (balcony) it is!

My Mission was to sweep down this area and make it all purdy again as it the first thing people see when they enter our homes. Not really true in this case, as I am pretty much the only one who goes out on the balcony, but I did it anyway. I apologize in advance for these pictures, my digital camera was misbehaving so I had to take them with my iPhone:

The above shot is the balcony, in all it's undecorated glory. This is the before pic. I swept away as many of those stupid little helicopter-seed things from the nearby tree, though most decided to just get stuck in between the cracks of the floor. I also got out a bucket of hot water and floor cleaner to hose down the patio table. If you look closely, you can see a film of pollen has collected on the glass. It was gross. There is no after pic as you wouldn't really be able to see much of a difference anyway, but trust me, I spent 1/2 an hour doing all this.

I also took the liberty of sweeping the inside stairs that lead up to our and one other apartment, and am now considering it my "front entrance area." In reality this is a common area, which basically means we all use it but no one takes the responsibility to sweep it. I did it a few weeks ago just to be nice, but no one has touched it since and some new dust bunnies were forming on the stairs. Buh-bye bunnies!

That's about it. Mission complete. I would however, like to share with you one last pic:

This is the broom I used to do all this sweeping. My roommate made it. With his own two hands. We both work at a living history museum where we dress up in funny clothes and pretend it's the 19th Century. I love it. He is doing it until he can get a full-time teaching job. Regardless, he spent all last summer making brooms. It's a handy little skill! If the world ended tomorrow and we somehow survive, he has the know-how to keep us the tidiest little nuclear-mutants around.

BabyStep 12: Hit The Delete Button

2010-05-07T21:06:00.000-04:00

Today's BabyStep: Delete all the emails from FlyLady. Done. End of post.

Just kidding. But seriously, what else can I write about this step? Other than that technically according to FlyLady's own instructions, I should be going to Big Tent to read her ~~daily barrage~~ perfect amount of messages, not receiving them as emails. I've noticed other little glitches like this in the system and tonight I just happened to be in the mood to point one out.

As it so happens, it is an option to have the messages sent out as emails, either as they come or in one lump sum at the end of the day. However, in every BabyStep instruction page up until now, FlyLady reminds us that we should be going to Big Tent and reading the messages, and not a word about emails. Just sayin'.

BabyStep 11: Bombshell Inspiration

2010-05-06T17:38:00.001-04:00

Sigh. Today's assignment is to add an inspirational page to our Control Journals and spend 15 minutes filling it with our favorite inspirational quotes. Oh brother.

It's not that I'm against the idea. I like quotes, I really do. I just don't have any "favorites" that come to mind so that I can write them down. I basically spent my 15 minutes Googling phrases like "Inspirational Quotes" and "Quotes about cleaning", just trying to get something good to add to my page. The whole process left me very uninspired.

Finally, I remembered a quote by Marilyn Monroe in which she said:

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

I really, really like this quote. I like it because as beautiful, talented and famous as she was, she was nowhere near perfect. In fact, she was quite the "hot mess". (I picked that one up from my younger sisters.) And yet, all those negative personality traits are just part of a bigger package that in the end, is pretty wonderful.

I wouldn't exactly call this an inspirational quote per se, but more of a reminder that when I am getting down on myself for all my bad traits (which include most of Marilyn's), that they don't make me a bad person. People are sort of a grey-area. You have to take the good with the bad, and look at the whole package. Even in yourself.

BabyStep 10: The Black Hole

2010-05-05T20:29:00.000-04:00

As you may have (but probably not) noticed, I had another FlyLady-free day yesterday, but it was hardly a vacation. There was running around, voting, and lots of driving involved. This was after working one of the busiest days we have had at work in quite awhile. I did my before bed routine when I got home, but after that my energy level was in the red. Today I picked right back up where I left off and followed through with BabyStep 10: You can do anything for 15 minutes.

The assignment was to set my timer for 15 minutes and throw away as much trash as I could find, and when the timer goes off, set it for another 15 and use that time to take a break. The point being that no job is so bad we can't do it for 15 minutes, and also practice allowing ourselves the timed breaks and not killing ourselves trying to get it all done at once.

One question: How dirty does she think my house is? Is FlyLady assuming her followers are all candidates for "Buried Alive: Hoarders"? There is no way I could have walked around the apartment that long just picking up trash-I think the task would take 30 seconds, at most. Then it hit me- there was a place in the house that had at least 15-minutes worth of garbage tossing: my purse. (Cue ominous music here: dun dun DUN!)

I have a messenger-style bag which is great for what I need. I am not a girl who changes her bag to match her outfit, so this is my everyday, everywhere purse unless I am going somewhere that requires me dressing up. The only thing I miss about other purses I have had in the past is there are NO organizational pockets inside. This leaves me a lot of common empty space for things to get tossed into, and subsequently, forgotten. And, they add up. Here's an inside shot:

It was hard for me to take shots that really showed how full of junk my bag was, but let me put it this way: it has about 1/2 the cubic storage capacity of one of those green reusable grocery bags, and it was 3/4 full. Yikes! I dumped the whole thing out, set my timer for 15 minutes, and got to work. I began by sorting out what was trash, what was stuff that just didn't belong in there, and what needed to get put back in. Here is a shot of all the trash I pulled out:

Holy crapola! It was mostly old receipts, since I fell out of the habit of putting them in my wallet then balancing my checkbook every day. Lately they have just been stuffed willy-nilly in the purse and forgotten. This has had a negative effect on my bag and my finances. Need to pick that habit up again. At this point the first 15 minutes was up, so I walked away from the mess on the floor (promising my roommate I wasn't going to leave it there) and did my 15 minute break.

When the break was up I went back and sorted out the rest. There wasn't much that didn't really belong in there, just a couple pairs of winter gloves. Here is a shot of everything that needed to go back in (minus the hairspray, that was cut out of the pic):

I set the timer for another 15, and got back to work. I went as far as to call the numbers on the back of all my old gift cards to find out the correct remaining balances, then wrote the amounts on the cards with a Sharpie. I reorganized my wallet, then put everything back in. Here is the final product:

Again, it is hard to get a shot that shows the actual situation going on in there, so I would like to draw your attention to the red arrows. Recall how I said it was 3/4 full in the before pic? Those arrows are now pointing to visible patches of the bottom of the purse! That's how much garbage I threw away! To think I was lugging all that junk around everyday.

Circling back to the original point of the assignment, I will say that this one of the few FlyLady methods I have absolutely no problem with following. I love that I am supposed to only work in 15 minute increments, then have a timed break. Sure, sometimes my breaks may run a tad longer than 15 minutes, but the whole system does facilitate big jobs getting completed without them feeling like big jobs.

BabyStep 9: Decluttering (And Some Other Stuff)

2010-05-03T13:38:00.003-04:00

Today's BabyStep teaches us that the key to a calm, collected, clean home is to declutter. FlyLady says that you can't organize clutter, you can only organize the things that you love. This makes sense- the less you have the easier it is to keep it all neat and tidy. When I did FlyLady before I did this step, and it really did help. Only this time around, there really isn't going to be much decluttering going on.

When I moved from Indiana back into my parents' home a year ago, I did a major decluttering job. I didn't want to pack and move any more than I had to, so a lot of things were either sold off, donated, or thrown away. I only took what I actually needed into my parent's house, such as my clothing, bathroom toiletries, some office supplies, and very few books and movies. All of my kitchen supplies, the majority of my books and movies, and some furniture went into a storage unit my sister was renting.

Then I moved out of my parents' house to my current shared apartment this fast February. In this current situation, there are two of us living in a small one bedroom apartment. There is no room here for me to even bring in a bed, so I sleep on the couch. Literally all I have here is the bare minimum. I have clothing, but only the in-season items are in the apartment. The rest goes into boxes in the basement. I have my bathroom stuff. I have my bed sheets. I have 5 framed pictures that sit on some shelves in the living room just to put a touch of "me" in the place. That's about it. If you were to walk in here and glance around, you would have no clue a girl also lived here, that's how little I have in the place.

In a way, this will work for me by allowing me to get into the deep cleaning portion of the FlyLady program sooner, but I do imagine there will be a few decluttering posts coming in the future. But for now, the best I can offer you is FlyLady's Decluttering Instructions.

I would also like to point out that at the bottom of the Day 9 BabyStep page there is the instruction to add a 5 minute Room Rescue to my morning routine. Nowhere does it say what exactly this is, nor does she link to it. I have taken the liberty of digging through FlyLady's ~~cluttered~~ hard to navigate website and included that link here.

Now on the the "Other Stuff". I would consider last night another fail. 10:30 rolled around and I had not done any of my before bed routine, and I had a funny feeling that wasn't going to change. I had another headache that had persisted all day and I just felt drained. I also felt bogged down by some pressing financial problems I am facing. I know this are just excuses, because I have not felt well before and still managed to do my routines. This time something else was missing that played into the situation. I lost my motivation.

Here is how the apartment looked when I went to bed last night (as how it still looks now, 13 hours later.):

Sink with dirty dishes, Hot Spot uncleared. The cat box didn't get scooped, nor did I bother to take my makeup off. Ugh. I will pay for that last one in a few days when my skin yells at me. I realize that this is all hardly the end of the world, but it was a definite lapse in establishing my routines.

I really don't really have an answer as to why I lost my motivation, nor do I know what to do to change it. Is the FlyLady system flawed in that not enough has visibly changed in the house to keep me motivated? Am I flawed and truly lazy at heart? Or was this just a fluke? Even now, I reeeeeally don't want to get up and take care of these things, even though it wouldn't take much of an effort.

BabyStep 8: Birth Of A Control Journal

2010-05-02T15:55:00.003-04:00

Ah, the Control Journal. The heart and soul of the FlyLady program. When I think of the Control Journal, I think of NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston. It's the go-to guide, the keeper of the routines. It's the Handbook for the Recently Deceased (any Beetlejuice fans out there?) for FlyBabys. I may have an overblown imagination. Regardless, the Control Journal is the core item used within the FlyLady Program.

The Control Journal is where you will write down all your routines, your Basic Weekly Plan, emergency contact information, Zone cleaning lists, etc. The BabyStep for today was to find an old 3-ring binder to put all this stuff in.

My first time around I did exactly as instructed. Actually, I didn't have an old one, so I skittered on down to Walgreens and purchased a new one, along with some plastic page protectors and dry erase markers as FlyLady later mentions this can be helpful. You are supposed to begin by filling this binder with paper and just writing down your routines, preferably in pencil as they will be edited later. Yeah, right.

FlyLady ~~scolds~~ reminds us not to be perfectionists throughout the system, but I'm sorry. Writing my Control Journal in my child-like scrawl with pencil on notebook paper left over from high school was not exactly going to motivate me. That would be like writing the instruction manual to a space shuttle on the back of a napkin. Just a little lack-luster, IMO. No, I am a perfectionist when it comes to certain things, and I wanted better. Well it just so happens that FlyLady herself offers a printed version of the Control Journal for purchase, just in case you didn't listen to her and are being a perfectionist anyway. Fancy that!...

Well of course I purchased the official FlyLady version, put it in my pretty purple 3-ring binder and was off and FLY-ing! Problem is, after I gave up the system for the second time, I moved. Twice. I didn't throw it away, as I felt it warranted keeping even while de-cluttering, but it now sits in a box in my storage unit an hour away. I could go get it, but I felt that this time around I wanted something a little sleeker and stylish to serve as my Control Journal. I wanted an upgrade. Something that was un-cumbersome to carry with me should I have the need. I wanted to go digital. There's an app for that! As a new iPhone user I am constantly trying out apps for this and that. Some are fun, some are cute, and some are truly handy. I am about to introduce you to one that is all three. Allow me to present HomeRoutines!

HomeRoutines is an iPhone app which integrates into the FlyLady system seamlessly. It is designed specifically to set up daily routines, as well as to-dos, zones, and the like. It was not created by FlyLady nor is it endorsed by her, but the creator Rosie did a bang-up job with the design and functionality. Here is an example of my personal routines as shown on the app:

See the stars to the left of my tasks? When you complete one, you tap the star and it turns gold. How cute is that? Also note the bottom of the screens- there is a little clock icon with 15 minutes next to it. This is a little timer that you can start right there from within the app if you need to go do a 5-minute Room Rescue, put out a Hot Spot for 2 minutes, or de-clutter for 15 minutes at a time. Until just yesterday 15 minutes was the only time option available, but Rosie updated that and now you can set the timer for as long or as little as you like. When the time is up, some music goes off that makes you feel like you really conquered something. I hope Rosie keeps on with the updates, making this even more compatible with the FlyLady system, as it appears FlyLady does not have any interest in developing an official app of her own.

This is what I will be using as my Control Journal from now on. I hope you other iPhone users check it out and try it as well. (And no, I was not asked to give this review. I really did pay for it/use it on my own accord.)

BabyStep 7: Pick Out Your Clothes

2010-05-01T22:35:00.001-04:00

Yet again I am posting about a BabyStep the day after I should have done it. This time I am behind on BabyStep 7: Picking Out Your Clothes. I have a good excuse. Really, I do. ~~My dog ate my homework~~. ~~My grandma died.~~ ~~I got a flat tire~~...

Yeah, none of those are true. My real excuse is that I went back to my hometown yesterday right after work for a doctor's appointment, then went to go see mi familia when I was done. I stayed much later than I had planned and ended up spending the night because I hate driving in the dark and just didn't feel like it. And it's kinda hard to pick out your clothes when you don't have any with you!

I arrived back home this afternoon fully expecting to find an unshine-ified sink awaiting me. Imagine my surprise when I took a peek and it looked just as nice as it did when I left yesterday! I was so pleased my roommate had been considerate enough to keep it clean while I was gone (as well as feeding my kitties), so I made a point of thanking him. That's when he made his little confession...

Turns out he did make an effort to keep the sink clean- by not using it. He said he didn't want to have to wipe it out, so he instead used the nearby bathroom sink to rinse his dinner dishes (including a pan that Hamburger Helper was cooked in) before putting them in the dishwasher. OK... Not exactly the route I would have taken, but I can identify with the getting annoyed with drying the sink every time you have to rinse a dish. I guess it's the thought that counts.

Anyway, back to today's (yesterday's) BabyStep. I have now picked out my clothes for tomorrow and hung them on the bathroom door hook. Here is my proof:

See that pink thing? Yeah, you are totally looking at tomorrow's choice of underwear. You're welcome. The other brightly colored thing is my pair of neon-rainbow-striped knee socks. I'm a total fashionista, can't you tell?

Actually, getting back into this habit is going to prove helpful for me. My roommate and I share a one-bedroom apartment, so he sleeps in the bedroom and I sleep on the couch. Not the most ideal living arrangement, but whatcha gonna do? I'm actually OK with and used to the couch, but the problem is that my clothes are in his closet in the bedroom. There have been times where I had to get up and dressed on his day to sleep in, and I end up waking him up while rummaging through the closet. (Of which I only get 25% of the space in...Just sayin'.) By laying out my clothes the night before he can catch up on his much needed beauty sleep uninterrupted.

I was hoping to write a second post tonight, I have found an iPhone app that is PERFECT for the FlyLady system and am itching to tell you about it. But alas, I took some Excedrin earlier and now it feels like it's eating a hole through my stomach. Pepto didn't help. Second post must wait. Later!

BabyStep 6: Hot Spots!

2010-04-29T19:21:00.003-04:00

Believe it or not, I was mildly productive today. When I got home from work I allowed myself a late lunch and an hour nap to help get rid of the headache from Hades, but after that I actually got a few things done.

I put a few dishes in the dishwasher and ran it; started a load of laundry (that reminds me, I need to go switch it over to the dryer- OK, done.); and tackled today's BabyStep 6: Hot Spots.

FlyLady's definition of a Hot Spot is an area that will take over the house if not dealt with on a constant basis. She uses the analogy of a forest fire that if not put out right away, will burn up an entire forest. The same idea happens in our homes; these small areas can expand to take over an entire room making it look unsightly.

With this description in mind, I set out to identify some hot spots in my home. It didn't take me long to find them, either.

Exhibit A:

My end table. I am a big pop drinker, but not so big on putting the empty cans in the recycle bin in a timely manner. Also pictured is the empty bowl of what had been Ramen Noodles (yum!) from my late lunch, a box of cookies that has been sitting there for about 2 days, a can of cat treats, and some manicure supplies that have been there at least 2 weeks. Oy.

Exhibit B:

The dishwasher. In this apartment the dishwasher is freestanding and must be rolled over and hooked up to the kitchen sink to run. Doing so blocks the entry into the bathroom, so the rest of the time it gets put in the only corner large enough on the other end of the kitchen. It also happens to make a convenient dumping ground for stuff when my roommate and I come home. Pictured here are my purse and his backpack, my pop can (been there for at least 2 days...), my iPhone, my cigarettes (Yes, I am a smoker. Don't judge me!), a dust rag, and a battery charger. Ugh.

The assignment was to set a timer for 2 minutes and start clearing a hot spot. We didn't have to finish, just do whatever could be done in 2 minutes. I chose my end table. When the timer went off I wasn't quite done, but I finished it anyway because leaving it incomplete just seemed dumb and would have driven me nuts. Here is the after pic:

All done! The only thing sitting there is the pop I am currently drinking. It looks sooo much better. Incidentally, I cleared off the top of the dishwasher too. I had to before I rolled it over to the sink, so I am counting this as extra credit.

I am so glad today's BabyStep actually involved some cleaning. I was getting a little sick of the steps that left no visible progress in my home. I'm sure my roommate appreciates it too.

I just hope I can stay motivated to finish my tasks for the night. I will still have a load of laundry to put away, a dishwasher to empty, a litter box to scoop, and a sink to shine before I go to bed. And my headache is coming back. Waaaah.

BabyStep 5: The Voices In My Head

2010-04-28T21:48:00.005-04:00

I should have written this post yesterday, but my blog had other ideas. A friend of mine notified me that she was having trouble commenting on a post, so I looked into what that problem could be. (Incidentally, this is the same friend who introduced me to FlyLady years ago. Her name is Kat from The Burb Blog. Like the shameless plug?) It seems to have been a problem with the template I had been using, so I started tinkering around with the HTML code trying to figure it out. This was a mistake.

Let's just say I couldn't find the source of the problem within the miles of ~~nonsense~~ code, and the more I tried to fix it, the worse the problem became. I ended up spending 8 hours trying to get the blog back up and running using the original template, but finally I had to admit my defeat. This wasn't a case of my perfectionism getting in the way- the blog really was unreadable. I designed a new background to look like the old template and went back to using good ol' Blogger Minima, with some adjustments.

Anyway, yesterday's BabyStep 5 was as to write down what the "nagging negative voices" in my head were saying, then turn those words around and say something nice to myself.

Um, hello? Does anyone else get the impression that FlyLady thinks we are nuts? I think it's the phrase "voices in your head" that does it for me. I mean sure, sometimes the voices in my head tell me to burn things, but that doesn't mean I'm crazy! Does it?

Shut up.

No, you shut up!

Just kidding.

I do wish she had been a little more specific in her instructions. Am I supposed to focus on the negative things I think about myself pertaining to the FlyLady program? Or negative things in general? Am I putting too much thought into this? Here goes:

The Voices In My Head Say:

1. I'm lazy. It doesn't take much effort to do the things that need to be done, and yet, I still don't do them.

2. I'm not good enough, overall.

I think that pretty much covers it, especially #2. Now to put a positive spin on these inner demons:

1. I'm not really lazy (most of the time). I just feel overwhelmed and don't know where to begin, resulting in nothing getting done. (Can you tell I have done FlyLady before?) The other times, when I really am being lazy, it's OK. Nobody has to be on the ball at all times, and no one is going to die if the laundry isn't put away RIGHT NOW. Or tomorrow. Or next week...

2. Yeah, this one gives me some trouble. This is an issue I deal with on a daily basis, and have for years. I basically feel like in every instance of my life- my looks, my personality, my relationships, my work, etc., I could have always been better than I am. I don't even feel that this is being too hard on myself, because as much as others tell me that I did fine, I KNOW in my core that I could have tried harder or done better, but I just didn't want to. And this makes me feel like crap. I don't even know exactly how to negate this as per FlyLady's instructions. I guess I could do the whole self-help mantra of "You are perfect just the way you are", but I personally think that's a cop out. I mean, it can't possibly be true. Imagine Hitler telling himself this and accepting it as being true. Those of us on the outside can clearly see that it is a bunch of crap! Not that I'm comparing myself to a Nazi dictator, but I hope you get my point...

OK, I think I have had enough of this bloggy baring of the soul. I feel all squirmy and uncomfortable now. Thanks Flylady.