BabyStep 30: Seeing Into The Future

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!

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FLYing Into The Past

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!

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(Wordy) Wordless Wednesday

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!

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BabyStep 22: A Change In The Wind

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.

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BabyStep 11: Bombshell Inspiration

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. 

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BabyStep 8: Birth Of A Control Journal

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.)

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