A Helping Hand

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.  :)

Read more...

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me!

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.



Read more...

Ending The Lazy Streak

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.

Read more...

Cha-cha-cha-changes...

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!  ;)

Read more...

BabyStep 25: It Ain't Gonna Happen Overnight

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.

Read more...

Playing Catch-Up

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! 

Read more...

BabyStep 23: Afternoon Delight

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:

Read more...

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.

Read more...

Holiday Housework

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.

Read more...

What Is Wrong With Me?

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!

Read more...

BabyStep 20: Airing My Dirty Laundry

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...

Read more...

BabyStep 17: Go To Bed!

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.

Read more...