FLYing high

Ever heard of FLY lady??

My aunt swears by her, and honestly, my aunt's house is SPOTLESS.

She also has 3 kids, granted her's are MUCH more spaced out than mine (her oldest is 16 and youngest is 5) but still, her house is SPOTLESS.

Did I mention her house is always SPOTLESS?

So, I've been doing Fly Lady's techniques on and off since the twins were born. Some weeks I was a crazed follower, and other weeks I did nothing at all to contribute to the cleanliness of my house.

Well, I'm just in one of those," I can't stand the clutter any longer" types of moods.

I've been doing a purge.

I've gone through all the girls clothes and figured which ones I want to keep and which ones I can donate, I've done the same with my clothes as well.

All those clothes I've been holding on to because maybe, possibly, some day I'll be able to fit in them...right.

They're gone! I've come to terms with reality, and I've donated them all.

I have to say, I'm not as depressed about it as I thought I would be, it actually feels good to get all the extra un-needed stuff out.

The clothes-purging has inspired a purging of all things clutter in my house!

I went in our office yesterday and took out all the bins of junk that were stored in the office closet. Literally, these bins have been in this closet since we moved in over a year ago! And in over a year, we have never opened one of those bins!

So, obviously there must not be anything too important in them!

Don't worry I looked through them before I tossed them! I found more clothes (shocker) to add to the donate pile, but 90% of that crap was plain old toss in a garbage bag, trash.

It's unbelievable to me that I have had that much crap taking up space in my house for this long!

Now, I'm tackling the storage closets in my bedroom which have inevitably become an easy place to throw stuff when I'm trying to clean up really quick because we have company coming over!

I'm not proud of it, but it's reality.

At least I'm trying to fix it now, points for trying right?

I really like the concept behind fly lady. She recommends setting a timer for 15 mins. and de-clutter. Once the time is up, you stop. It helps you from getting overwhelmed. I also try to set one goal for myself a day. For example, yesterday my goal was the office closet -accomplished :)

Today's goal, is to get the clothes in the twins room organized by what they can wear now, and organize their hand-me-down clothes in their closet.

I think the "slow and steady wins the race" strategy is a good one, and it works for me. I can get my goals done during nap time and at the end of the day I don't feel like such a slacker.

Winning!

Fly Lady's zones are really great too! Each week there is a zone. This week is the Master Bedroom, so even though you still need to do light pick-up cleaning throughout the other rooms in your house as well (darn) you do all the deep-cleaning stuff in the master bedroom.

It works, because eventually you have a set schedule down for cleaning your house, so you're not running around wondering what needs to be cleaned, or just realizing you've never dusted your baseboards, and company is coming over in 15 min.!

Who hasn't been there?

So, hopefully in a year from now (sarcasm) my house will be totally de-cluttered and self-cleaning!

A girl can dream!

Did I mention, I'm doing all of this while trying to pack for our week-long vacay to the Nags Head, NC.??

What can I say, I'm one of those weird people that like their house to be spotless, when they leave for vacation!

Oh, well, happy cleaning everyone!