Do you have your shoes on today?
No, seriously. Do you have your shoes on?
Where are your shoes? Put on your damn shoes!
Ok, ok … so maybe this is a slight over-exaggeration on my part, but it’s not that far off.
Today, as with every 15th day of the month from now until I run out of things to do, I will review a website, book, store, or new fun new product right here on MBV.
Review of the Day
I was first introduced to the Fly Lady about four years ago by an overzealous coworker who thrived on organizing her life, letting old habits resurface, then organizing things again, and again … and, again.
She loved Fly Lady and I liked her, so I signed up for the emails.
Whoa!
I was bombarded every few hours with email reminders, who I can only assume were targeted at stay at home moms or homebound freelancers. In between Kelly’s Missions and the FLYing Lessons were simple reminders “not to forget your shoes.”
This quickly became a hot humor issue in our office, and we’d jokingly remind each other, when we weren’t getting Fly Lady’s reminders, to look at our FLY feet and ensure our FLY shoes hadn’t FLOWN off!
But, in reality, I liked Fly Lady. F-L-Y, or Finally Loving Yourself, is a website dedicated to ending CHAOS and organizing your homes and your lives. Targeted, as I initially suspected, at stay-at-homers, Flylady dot Net is a community of “FLY babies” with a forum, Q&As, and even a Blog Talk Radio channel.
The website, while being a tad too chaotic for my taste, is chock-full of more information than you could ever want to FLY through. There is an FAQ page, menu planning and recipe ideas, cleaning tips with fun names like “27 Fling Boogie,” and even a Fly library. She has a killer FLY recipe for shining your sink (which we used at the B&B) and her household duties list is divided into Fly Zones for easy weekly tidying!
She uses nifty FLY lingo to keep things interesting, and an easy Google search box, for when you can’t find that last mission! There is even a super FLY store where you can FLY shop yourself silly, and even buy a family fun pack of FLY dusters and timers. (For 66 bucks!) Ouch!
Well, in the process of writing this post and FLYing back and forth between the Fly Lady’s site and my own, I’ve convinced myself that I am, once again, ready to FLY. I work from home, I like organization and planning, and I like a clean house. So, I’m gonna rejoin the FLYers club today, and get my sink a’shining in no time.
And, I’ll probably even put on my shoes.
Have you ever heard of Fly Lady or participated in the programs? What did you think? Would you recommend it?
No, I still have slippers on, because in Italy we put those on as we enter our country homes. I looked at FlyLady some years back, bemused. Then I went to the forum and read. Apparently there are people who live in garbage dumps and don’t know the first thing about removing that first layer! I know that isn’t you, Cherrye.
I still recall reading a woman’s account (it is always women, eh? and they’re cleaning up after everybody) of cleaning her entry and entry closet. Twenty-five garbage bags later…imagine people like that living in the land of no closets.
OMG. 25 garbage bags?? I can’t imagine! Seriously. I am speechless.
When I lived alone in the US, my house was pretty much always clean. I like the rotatation of doing certain rooms on certain days, though. There were also some good organization techniques.
BTW, in our new house, we are going to have a CLOSET. I can’t wait! 🙂
I’ve never heard of her. Will definitely check it out…maybe I’ll feel more Italian if I can share some cleaning tips with le donne….
Hey girl, I’m right there beside you as I like things organized too. It’s not that I’m a clean freak but nothing ticks me off faster than having to search for something I need.
Shoes? Are you CERTAIN we have to wear shoes?
Ha ha, funny, Michelle. You can be the new Fly Donna.
I hear you, Jan. I like organization, too. I think you’ll be just fine without the shoes. It’s the Fly Lady who is obsessed with shoes! lol
I tried this out a couple of months ago, and it worked for a total of about two days. I work full-time so trying to put in an hour or two of cleaning every day meant that I had no time to do anything I wanted to. But I do like the system (other than the email overload) and will probably pick it up again when I stop working.
I liked the idea of the “27 fling boogie” as it’s generally pretty easy to find 27 things to throw away, and once you get in the mood you find even more things you are ready to part with. I sometimes think of the fly lady when I’m “flinging” out my purse. I probably NEED to rejoin, but honestly I know I’m not ready yet…or maybe I’m too lazy. That’s why I need to put on my shoes on the weekends, so I’ll feel compelled to get up and start FLYing.
I have shoes on currently because I just took my trash can & recycling cans to the curb. lol
I’ve never heard of Fly Lady, but it sounds interesting and I’ll go check it out.
Oh no, Britni, I am sad to hear they still bombard you with emails. Maybe I won’t rejoin. That is really overkill.
LOL, AO. Did you see Judith’s comment above? Wow!
Good job, Rhea! Wear those shoes, girl!!
LOL I wrote an article about being a FlyLady dropout last year! 😉 The shoes thing…really.
I’m enjoying your blog!!
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Ha, DanaB I loved your article! Very, very true. For me it was the emails (and, like you said, the shoes.) I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am obsessed with shoes, too, just for a different reason!
yes, fly lady & i go way back…introduced through a friend. my problem with her~ the shoes, always the shoes…shoes that actually TIE!! don’t own ’em! won’t buy ’em. too hot in the summer to wear ’em! & don’t get me started on that ‘clean your sink’ thing. fly lady obviously does not live with 4 teens!!!! bless her heart…
Yes, I became aware of the Fly Lady 5 years ago. There are some good ideas that can be incorporated into ones life, i.e.keeping your kitchen sink shiny. I ran across my book last week and made a mental note to read it again.
I had signed up for the email alerts but as a working women found that these didn’t help when I was sitting at my desk. Yes, the site is way too busy for me too. I bought the book and find that enough to start on the path of getting organized.
There are two things I took away that were very helpful:
1. If you have a room/area that is way out of control and you want to organize it but the task is too overwhelming and you don’t know where to start, set a timer for 10 minutes. You do this every day and pretty soon your task is done.
2. Magazines. I love to look through magazines for decorating ideas or recipes, hardly ever read any articles. I had monthly subscriptions arriving in my mailbox. I’d keep them as there was invariably some recipe, project, etc. I was gong to do or I was going to drop them off at the Sr. Center next time I was close by. Well, I found myself with stacks of magazines and finally dumped them into the recycle bin and when the subscription ended I didn’t renew.
Linda
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