Do the Flylady daily missions

These are the places where clutter tends to accumulate. Over time it becomes invisible because you are so used to it being there.

Here are some of my hotspots that need on-going bursts of attention:

• The living room coffee table.
• The living room fireplace. On top of the mantle and in front of the fireplace.
• The kitchen table.
• The kitchen countertop.
• The dining room floor.
• My office floor, around the periphery.
• My desk.

...but was not shining when I went to bed last night.

I was so busy last night with my virtual dinner party on 43-Things and with other internet trivia that I did not pay attention to my real kitchen. Not only did I leave my real dishes unwashed after eating, but I also did not notice that I had left a pot of pasta sauce simmering on the stove by mistake. By the time I discovered it, it was a blackened mess, and I was too tired to clean it up.

But things are mostly clean and shining again this morning. :)

...sort of. I had things to be recycled and given away that had been accumulating in my trunk. So, I took them out of the trunk and put them in the back seat. I’ll try to remember to drop them off as I’m out and about over the next 2 days.

Now, time to de-clutter in the house.

I got home a while ago, and put on some music, and worked on cleaning the stovetop and the kitchen countertops and watering a sadly neglected houseplant. I’m taking a break for a few minutes, and then I plan to go do that vacuuming. Maybe I’ll do some laundry too.

This isn’t any particular mission today. There’s a goal already out there called Write something. Anything. Sentence. Paragraph. Short Story. Novel. Epic. Anything.. My goal today is similar: “Clean something. Anything. Dirty Stovetop. Cat-fur-covered carpet. Cat-fur-covered furniture. Cluttered kitchen countertop. Messy dining room floor. Messy paperwork in my office. Dirty laundry. Anything.”

...with the start of the new month of April. I’d like to build two new things into my daily flylady routines:

(1) opening all the mail every day.

(2) tracking my expenses every day.

If I could do these 2 things each day, as faithfully as I shine my sink, it will be a good thing.

I haven’t been doing any missions lately, but I try to at least do my morning and evening routines, or, if nothing else, shine my sink.

But last night I had too many dishes and bowls and pots and pans leftover from cooking for a crowd, and got home too late, and was too tired to deal with them.

The good news is that I put them in to soak earlier this morning. I’m going to try to get them done this morning, and get my sink shining, before I have to leave for church.

So, I’ve been at this for a month now. I’ve read all the babysteps through the last one, for day #31. I’ve done many of the babysteps, though not all. I had already been doing a few of them on my own before I started using flylady. One of my 43-T goals is to “Take care of myself”, and that’s one of the babysteps. One of my completed 43-T goals is to “eat breakfast everyday”, and that’s part of the pamper mission for this week. So, maybe I’m not quite flying, but at least I’m learning how to walk. Yay for me!

This week’s missions are about the bathroom and the home office. I still have a lot of de-cluttering to do in my home office before I can really clean it.

Today I wasn’t very successful at de-cluttering. I couldn’t seem to manage even 15 minutes of it. But this evening I had a little micro-burst of energy, and managed to clean a pile of kitty vomit on the living room carpet and wash all the dishes and shine my sink. I’m hoping to have more time and energy tomorrow to dedicate to de-cluttering and other cleaning.

• I was looking for some cleaning supplies in my kitchen pantry closet, and discovered a package of “Cosmic Cat Herbs” that someone gave me a couple months ago. Not only that, but I discovered that the cat herb [seeds] were infested with tiny black creatures which had apparently hatched and then escaped from the plastic packet and, thankfully, died on my cleaning supply shelf. So, I got to clean that little mess up.
• I looked under my sink, and discovered that it wasn’t too bad under there. I cleaned up some spots and spills.
• I cleaned the top of the refrigerator. There was a lot of wonder in that little mission. The refrigerator top was clear of clutter, thankfully. It had a thick coating of grey greasy grime mixed with the fur of my 3 black cats. It took me awhile to figure out how to attack the problem, but I’m happy to report that the top of my refrigerator is white and shining. Even though my normal cleaning routine is very minimal, I must be doing something right. I can’t imagine what it would be like for all the surfaces in my kitchen to look like that!

I just wasn’t very good at posting this week on my progress, mostly because I didn’t have much tangible progress to report. It was a struggle just to keep going with my daily routines.

• On one of these days, I did a swish & swipe on my bathroom. It took a little longer than 2 minutes but not much. :)
• I have done some of the reading on the flylady site, and over and over the message is repeated to keep at it, to not give up, that it takes at least 28 days to form a habit. So, I haven’t given up. :)
• I did finally get some decluttering done in this office. :)
• My sink is still shining. :)

The bad news is that yesterday I did not get dressed, and spent the day in bed. The good news is that both Friday and today, I was up and dressed and out of the house in the morning. Also, I’ve done the assigned babystep reading. And I’ve attempted to keep at my daily routines, as best I can. And my sink is shining.

But reading is easy. It’s the doing that’s hard. And it’s the negative voices that make it hard. (And not feeling well physically doesn’t help.)

The coming week will have missions in the kitchen zone. I’m hoping to start trying a few test flights.