well according to FlyLady, in order to start on my 31 day path to de-cluttering my house and restoring order to my otherwise dis-orderly home and life, today I was meant to undertake just one task. This task was to set me on the path to a cleaner and brighter home life. This task? To shine my sink! yes you heard it folks, take a scrubbing brush and silver polish and shine the kitchen sink. I have to ask WHAT THE ?? My urge to shine my freaking kitchen sink was somewhat overshadowed by my desire to even SEE MY LOUNGE ROOM FLOOR. Now there is a task that needed doing. But my kitchen sink?
So I did what FlyLady specifically said not to do and I leaped to Day 2 to see what monumentally important task was on the agenda for that day - and to be fair "get up and get dressed to laced shoes including hair and face" was an improvement on the kitchen sink polishing suggestion. I do find that one of my downfalls is not showering until sometimes midday. Not that I don't think that I have a perfectly decent excuse for poor hygiene practices some days. With a toddler who is nearly two and a newborn who has good intentions of sleeping but is kept awake by the aforementioned toddler, well you can imagine some days that the priority of hair washing takes a major backseat to just staying sane. But I digress......
So today I made it my task to get up and dressed before any of the children could awaken - a task made more urgent by the fact that the dishwasher repairman was arriving at 7am - or midday - or anywhere in between. I don't know why companies like to do this to you - in this day of modern technology when they have service calls logged on high-speed computers and mobile service vans equipped with all of the technology one could want - is it too much to ask that you narrow my service call timeframe to a little under 5 hours? But then I shouldn't complain really.... it's not like I had anything more important today than to polish my sink.
But back to getting dressed before midday..... I did take objection and refuse to go the laced up shoes - one doesn't really need their boots on to polish sinks or change pooey nappies in my opinion. I did however let my hair see a brush for the first time in two days and if 'doing my face' was achieved by the splash of water thrown in my eyes and the quick swipe of lip gloss across my lips then allow me to tick that task off for today.
I had a go at the de-cluttering in 15 minutes thing but to tell an a-type-personality that she has to 'de-clutter for 15 minutes and then stop and do this again tomorrow until all the clutter is gone' - well, why don't you just tell me to take a blunt kitchen knife and draw it repeatedly across my arm until it falls off in a bloody stump on the kitchen floor (I bet FlyLady has a great suggestion for cleaning blood stains off linoleum though don't you think??). I mean really, as if I could just stop cleaning after 15 minutes. If you want to de-clutter then you have to get serious about it - at least spend 2 hours moving the clutter from one room to the next until it all ends up in one room at the back of the house and you can close the door and pretend that room does not exist. So that is what I did. The lounge room is now looking half-way presentable and the kitchen is on the road to being fully de-cluttered by tomorrow. Of course we can no longer open the door to the computer room and David is just going to have to understand that it's time to give up his computers and get a new profession because, well I'm sorry honey, but we just can't get to the PC's anymore. We all have to make sacrifices to live a clutter free life.
I'll let you know how Day 2 goes.
Carla
