Tag: routines

Baby Step#9: Five Minute Room Rescue

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The Fly Lady’s method is all about building habits to keep our house tidy and running smoothly. This isn’t just about keeping a clean house. It’s about managing our home without it overtaking our lives. It’s about making our house a home, a haven.

I don’t especially love cooking, cleaning and the like. I sure like the results when I do all those things, though. My family likes it, too.

This is why I started doing Fly Lady. I haven’t gone through the steps as quickly as I thought I would. I’m still showing up, though. I’m not going to quit.

It’s not about making my home perfect and picture worthy (Though, I’d like a few of those days!). If your house is messy and cluttered, and you try these steps, it is going to look better. Just in the past weeks with me only completing 9 of the 31 steps, I see a difference.

Today we talk about about the 5 Minute Room Rescue.

First, let’s chat about CLUTTER for just a bit.

You can’t clean or organize clutter. You just can’t.

I know. I know. Everyone talks about clutter. Marie Kondo had a whole series on Netflix, about clutter, which I binged watched in one day.

I am starting to work on the clutter in my home. Step 10 is going to help with this. So, while we will get to clutter in our next step, a 5 Minute Room Rescue is going to help us keep the house picked up while we tackle clutter.

Now, I could have gone about this a few different ways. I could have picked the room in the house that was the worst and most cluttered (Henry’s room). I could have picked the most visible room in the house. This is the one people see when they first enter my home. (Kitchen) Or, I could have picked the room that brings me the most stress when I enter. (My bedroom)

I picked my bedroom.

Your 5 Minute Room Rescue will just start with surface cleaning. We are going to work our way up to decluttering. Just get started.

5 minutes a day. That’s it. Just 5 minutes. Pick up the visible trash first. Next, put things back in their proper place. Then hit the spots that need a little more thought.

Remember, the goal isn’t to declutter. We are just cleaning.

To be fully honest, about two weeks or so ago, I was so fed up with the piles in my bedroom that I spent a few hours in my room decluttering. If you have time, do that! Get in there and declutter. It feels so good.

Today, I timed myself for 5 minutes. I worked really hard for those 5 minutes. I did zero decluttering. It was just putting things in their proper place and taking dirty mugs to the dishwasher.

If I keep working in my bedroom this next week, those 5 minutes will add up. Then I can move on to another room. Fly Lady has a way to go about this with her Zone Cleaning Method; but I haven’t got that far in the Baby Steps yet.

I will probably add a 5 Minute Room Rescue to my Evening Routine. I’ll try that for the next week and see if that is a good time for that task.

More thoughts on decluttering to come! Let’s take it once step at a time, though.

Baby Step #8: Morning Routine

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We’ve had some unexpected interruptions these past couple weeks. We evacuated from our home due to a Wild Fire (You can read about that here). We are back at home, safe and sound. I’ve been wanting to get back to my Baby Steps and the routines I was trying to build.

When things are chaotic and not normal, routines actually really help. They bring in structure even if you cannot fully complete your usual routine. You don’t have to make a decision on WHAT to do, which is often hard during a crisis. You just follow the routine and slowly get back to order.

The Fly Lady starts with establishing an Evening or Before Bed Routine. With an evening routine in place, the Morning Routine is more likely to happen.

So, it took me a few days of doing my Before Bed Routine before I really focused on my Morning Routine.

Honestly, I’m still trying to get all the things on my Morning Routine list done. Most days I do most of the list. I have yet to complete it all. I’ll get there, though.

MORNING ROUTINE

  • Fill Diffuser
  • Coffee and Time With Jesus
  • 2 Minute Yoga
  • Get Ready and Dressed To Slippers
  • Start Laundry
  • Swish and Swipe
  • Empty Dishwasher (Lily’s job. Sometimes I need to do it.)
  • Sweep * (If I don’t sweep the night before)

    What is Swish and Swipe? It’s just a quick swish of the toilet bowl and wipe down of the toilet seat. The Fly Lady goes into more detail about that in her book .

2 Minute Yoga? Ok, I’ll talk more about that in another post; but it’s
exactly how it sounds. Yoga for 2 minutes.

Here’s to resetting and getting back to routines!

Reset, Routines, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

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So, what’s getting you through these trying times known as 2020?

Today is the 3rd anniversary of The Tubbs Fire. This was the wildfire that forever changed my hometown, my county, and our community. Things haven’t been the same since. Fire season is now a very real and constant threat for us.

5 days ago our family got back after being evacuated from our home for 6 days due to the Glass Fire here in Northern California.

This was taken from our front porch. The fire came over the hill to about a mile
from our house.

August and September had already been a doozy of a month from smoke from another fire, power outages, and well, the list goes on.

I saw the fire coming over the hill just about a mile from our house Sunday night. Our power went out and so we packed up and went to a friend’s house for the night until Andy got off work. With our two big dogs, it’s hard to find a place to stay when these evacuations happen. Thankfully this time around Andy had the week off so we took the Shangri-La and headed for bluer skies. We spent the week up near Tahoe and had an unexpected EvacuCation. I’m very thankful we had a place to go and that we could all be together. I’m grateful we had a home to come home to.

The Shangri-La. Our home away from home.
Snow Flower Lake
We are not strangers to camping.

Coming back left Andy and I feeling really tired, physically and mentally. The time away was nice; but being evacuated is not relaxing in the least.

It has taken me these 5 days to begin to feel like life is getting back to somewhat normal. There were some added bumps to the already bumpy week. When we returned home we had unexpected car trouble and a very unexpected trip to the doctor with X-rays to boot.

I seriously cannot make this stuff up. 2020 has been like a very bad comic book written by a drunk person.

So, I RESET.

I have to.

I have to start over, start new, put the crazy weeks behind me and just do the next right thing I know to do.

We are getting our house back together. I’m doing my best to get back to our school routine. I’m giving myself a butt load of grace because….. car problems and unexpected Dr. visits.

I get back to MY ROUTINES. I’ve been working on my routines here. Routines help to put some structure back into our life when things get chaotic.

I bought some REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS and put them in the fridge because I like my chocolate cold. Stress eating? Maybe. It’s helping, though.

I’m admitting that I can’t do it all and that I’m tired. We are all tired.

I’m choosing rest over getting it all done. (After I caught up on laundry and grocery shopping. Food and clean underwear are a priority.)

Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who
are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I’m going to take God up on that promise.

Baby Step #7: Before Bed Routine

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The last couple of weeks have been wonkier than usual. Normally, I would let the wonkiness of life get me off track. This time around, the wonkier it gets the more I strive for routine.

If you’ve read last week’s post, Baby Step#5, you read about life in my home state of California lately. Crazy. So I haven’t been going through the baby steps as quickly as I planned.

Today I took my dad to the hospital for his hernia surgery. Because of Covid, I couldn’t go in with him. While I’m waiting to get him and my in-laws have my kiddos, I’m taking a few minutes to write about the next baby step: Evening Routines or Before Bed Routines.

My point is, life is full of disruptions; but if I stick to these routines, I really think it will make my life more peaceful and less stressful. So I keep plugging ahead.

I think that I will actually have two night-time routines. The Evening Routine (and the one I’m talking about today) would be what I would do after dinner time and before the kids go to bed. My Before Bed Routine would be just that, before bed. I’m not there yet, though. That might sound too complicated for some. I’ll just call it my Evening Routine for this post.

Why am I starting with my Evening Routine and not the Morning Routine? First, this is how the Fly Lady does it!! Second, I think a good evening routine will set me up for a successful morning.

Here’s my Evening Routine so far. I put it in my control journal. I just wrote it out simply on a piece of binder paper. Nothing fancy here!

EVENING ROUTINE:

  • Shine Sink
  • Sweep
  • Living Room Pick Up
  • Fold and Deliver Laundry
  • 2 Minute Hot Spot
  • Check Tomorrow’s Calendar

*I’m usually folding laundry at night. So what I’ve been doing is putting any laundry that I fold of the kids into a basket and leave it by their door. Then they put away their own laundry in the morning. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks and it’s been working really well. Yay!

** Today I got dressed down to the actual shoes since I was taking my dad to the hospital. Everyday, I’ve been getting dressed before I start my day. It has made a positive difference.

Baby Step #3 Be Consistent

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I thought I would do my recap first today.

Let’s Recap:

  • My sink is still shiny. Yay!
  • I got dressed to my shoes. This is easy because I went to church. I still stand by my not wearing shoes in the house.
  • I wrote Steps 1 and 2 on a sticky and stuck it on my bathroom mirror.

So, if you log on to The Fly Lady’s website or have read her book, she teaches about morning routines, afternoon routines, evening routines and THE CONTROL JOURNAL. Today’s step is to log on and take a look around the website. It has a lot of great information. If you don’t have time, maybe pick another day. You will definitely get lost down rabbit holes. I think it is important to get the whole picture of what her Fly Lady’s system is. Her book is really helpful, too.

One thing I want to talk about today is being Consistent. I’m technically not adding steps today; but that’s okay. It’s easier to be consistent with small attainable steps or build habits little by little than having the mentality of “go big or go home”. I’ve done that too many times and it never works.

I’m going for slow and steady.

Have you read Atomic Habits by James Clear ? This was such a good book and really backs up the concept of slow, small, consistent steps for lasting change.

Doesn’t that sound fabulous???

In case you missed the first Baby Steps. Start Here: