A Healer’s Geste

A Plan

Ok, so it seems like half my posts are about my new way I’m planning to keep up with housework (including menu planning, class work, and paper organizing) — some new way to organize my life. The good news is, each attempt, even if it doesn’t completely stick, usually does bring me a step closer to maintaining a clean home and staying organized.

The past week sleep in 3-4 hour chunks (though not one hour blips anymore…except for last night…), combined with not being able to plan my week before it happened and some assorted stomach ickiness coming and going, meant that I started the week off behind and never caught up. I had that yucky feeling of standing in the dining room, surveying my home in its mediocre state, not knowing really what to do or where to start (if the house wasn’t on the market, it wasn’t bad and I probably wouldn’t have cared at all). But the week before (it had been creeping up on me the prior week), I had reserved and picked up from the library an assortment of cleaning books (not organization, but actual cleaning). I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know or see any ideas I hadn’t already at least heard of, but two books in particular gave me the starting point I needed (I needed a boss, a Mom, saying “Do this, like this!”) and motivation that really, it is possible to not spend all day cleaning and still have a clean house.

The two books I found useful were from two separate people, both of whom I was familiar with but had never read for myself. Jeff Campbell‘s Speed Clean came into both Matt and my families when we were young. “Red Juice” and “Blue Juice” is common currency between us, yet the juice and the great mop was all we knew (WalMart sells a copy-cat; that’s what I have). The second was actually FlyLady‘s book, Sink Reflections. I knew of FlyLady, but I could only spend two seconds on her website before I felt like crawling up a wall from text and tacky-clipart overload, so I’d never gotten into her website myself.

Jeff Campbell had a very straight-forward “do it this way!” but simple and quick approach to cleaning…to get in, get it done, and get out. I appreciated it very much. So yesterday I made it to WalMart (sans boys — thanks, Mom!) and bought a pile of cleaning cloths (18 100% cotton bar mop cloths — washrag size — for $5), a feather-duster, two cleaning caddies (a separate one for the bathroom), & Soft Scrub; the day before I had stopped at Harbor Freight Tools (a local hardware discount store) while I was in Richland and found a bib-apron with lots of pockets, a scraper, a razor blade holder, and a scrubbing toothbrush. I already had scrubby pads, Comet, ammonia, and all-purpose cleaner. Outfitted with the specific tools and a reminder of how to use them properly and efficiently, I felt mentally ready to go.

FlyLady’s style is a bit too sappy and fatuous (perhaps the positive side would be “whimsical”) for my taste, but she does make several good points: her concepts of a Basic Weekly Plan, Zones, and wearing shoes. My sink is currently shining. :) I like her term “Home Blessing Hour,” but I detest her FLY acronym (Finally Loving Yourself). Sure, she was hospitalized for depression and had problems along that line….but not taking time for ourselves and not loving ourselves is not a common problem — we are basically selfish creatures and her book returns over and over to taking time for yourself and indulging yourself and yourself, yourself, yourself….I bet that’s a big reason she’s so popular and loved. I’m guessing, from her book alone, that she is Mormon — that tell-tale “presenting myself as a Christian without ever saying I am or am not and trying to stay ambiguous while still emphasizing my spirituality.” Oh well, I will plunder her Egyptian gold while rejecting her focus on self — Romans 7 shall be my guide, not some motivation pep-talk on how I need to Finally Love Myself. So, anyway, I would actually recommend giving FlyLady’s stuff a read if your shields are able to deflect self-loving nonsense, banal language, and visual assault. You can also get a similar concept — but not so succinctly and coherently put together — on organizedhome.com.

I’ve been rambling. I am up later than I said I would as I sit here, happy that my sink is shining, listening to men’s roudy laughter (it is poker night), and thinking I shouldn’t have spent so much time banging the keyboard rather than doing something constructive toward these new plans.