FlyLady In A Nutshell

From the archives.
Thankfully we're past the stage of toys all over the floor 

I revisited the FlyLady because I needed a system. The FlyLady has a number of systems for organizing your home and not getting overwhelmed with housework and errands. Here are the systems in a nutshell...

1. Morning routine.
You must get up and dress till shoes, i.e. be ready to leave the house. That way you''ll be more efficient about anything else you want to accomplish before leaving the house.
She suggests that while you're in the bathroom in the morning, you give the mirrors, the sink/taps, surfaces, and the toilet a swish and a swipe. i.e. the bathroom is left clean every morning.
She suggests you get up early enough to put on a load of laundry in the morning and hang it out (or put it in the dryer) before you leave for work.
Any other morning jobs, or none, are up to you.
You can add in meditating, exercise, etc... as you wish.

2. Evening Routine.
Basically, you tidy your house by putting everything in its place, do the dishes, wipe over the kitchen and shine your kitchen sink. And you prepare anything you need for the morning.
Again, you can add your own preferences or necessities, for example, reading in bed or walking the dog.

3. Each day has an assignment.
You choose your own but for example...
Sunday: House Blessing - cleaning the house, but only surface cleaning. No moving furniture or washing windows, etc... It should take only a couple of hours to dust, wipe surfaces, and vacuum, sweep, and mop the floors around the furniture. (If it takes much longer you probably live in a big house and employ a cleaner.)
Monday: Running Errands
Tuesday: Pay Bills and File Papers.
Wednesday: Procrastination Station - where you do one job that you've been putting off.
Thursday: Food Shopping.
Friday: Cooking
Saturday: Family Day.

4. Zone Cleaning.
You divide the areas of your house into 4 or 5 zones. e.g. Zone 1 - the bedrooms, Zone 2 - the kitchen, Zone 3 - the living and dining rooms, Zone 4 - the bathrooms and halls, Zone 5 - everywhere else.
Each week of the month is a zone. So during the first week of the month you're in Zone 1 - the bedrooms.
Every day you put on a timer and do 15 minutes of cleaning one area in that zone. When the timer rings you stop. Anything you don't get to that week can wait until next month.
Remember that your weekly House Blessing is basic cleaning, the bathrooms get a swish and a swipe every day, laundry is a daily task, and the kitchen gets cleared and wiped down every evening. Zone cleaning is for e.g. washing the windows, clearing out a kitchen cabinet, doing out the fridge, cleaning behind furniture, etc...

There are women who take these systems very seriously. I've seen You Tube videos of page by page explanations of thick ring-binder files full of every task possible in a house and when it's scheduled for doing. This is what put me off the first time I read about the FlyLady. Who lives according to such important schedules for cleaning your house? (Answer: mostly SAHMs with low self esteem and no outside interests, who feel they need to make their lives into a serious business. Note, SAHMs with self esteem and outside interests don't generally go to so much minute detailing.)

Me, I like the idea of a couple of hours cleaning on a Sunday and 15 minutes a day doing out a cupboard or cleaning the fridge. Washing a window maybe. It might take six months to clean your house but it's better than letting it go for six months.

As with life itself, I'm not going to be religious about it. However, I'm going to give some of it a try and see what happens. I'll let you know.
  

Coloured Pencils

I can't believe I put DD's name on every  pencil she took to 1st Grade.
As she goes up to 6th grade, we have finally come to the end of some of them.
Phew!

Where did that eternal (well nine weeks)  summer holiday go? We only have three weeks left! How did that happen? In my defense, my teaching assignments never really ended.

The grande finale involved a surprise intensive course last week. I taught for six hours a day, spent my evenings  grading and preparing the next day, forgot about the diet completely (there's only so much intensity you can take without pizza for supper, and cold for lunch the next day) and I let DD watch tv all day and half the night (whilst eating said pizza). And of course there was no blogging. But we got through it and the extra money will be welcome.

On Thursday afternoon it finished. I came home to an apartment in a state of chaos, and not clean. Overflowing laundry baskets and no food in the fridge, freezer or cupboards. It was time to take back control, big time!

On Thursday evening I reorganized DD's bedroom. I'd already culled a load of books the last time I did a big sort out about two years ago. Since then her bedroom has degenerated into low-grade tidy and less tidy mode. There was lots of confusion as to what each drawer was designated for and a mish-mash of 'stuff' in a number of storage boxes.

All the books went onto the bed and I did a real Conmari on DD's behalf. Some books were siphoned off for my school library, some to pass on to friends with younger grandchildren (yes I am that age), others to my teaching resources, and a few to throw away. (Yes you can throw away books.) It's strange how books that we absolutely had to keep only a couple of years ago, don't interest us at all now.

The storage boxes now contain 1. Lego (because it's just too expensive to give away), 2. Art supplies, and 3. empty to be decided. The games are all in the living room sideboard. Also culled - we no longer need "Who Am I?" or 300 piece jigsaw puzzles. DD's clothes were already organized so nothing to do there.

The big problem area is years of accumulated colouring pencils and felt tip pens. We never throw them out, of course, and every year there are new sets received as gifts or just to start off the academic year with pristine supplies. There are now boxes and numerous pencil cases filled with perfectly good coloured pencils but just not in sets.

I take one pencil case-full for teaching and I regularly top it up from the supply of orphan pencils. Sometimes you get a pencil that won't sharpen because the lead is broken all the way through. Those do get chucked. And very occasionally a pencil will be absolutely finished down to the quick. These are also lovingly chucked into the bin.

I had to get the room tidy as one of DD's friends turned up for an impromptu sleep-over. This turned out to be an amazing incentive not to just leave half of it for the next day. There's one pile of colours, school supplies and artwork left to sort out but I told DD she'd have to do that herself over the weekend.

Smug And Friendly R2BC

The last of the clutter heading to the Yedidya Bazaar

This week's reasons 2B cheerful are about a lovely weekend. Social as well as productive. The linky to more R2BC posts is on Michelle's Mummy from the Heart.

On Friday morning I was up early(ish) and well into my work (writing the answer key for the exam my students sat on Tuesday) when a friend whom I've not seen for ages, called. She is a very good friend who moved away a couple of years ago and we sort of lost touch. However, she was in Jerusalem for the morning and asked if she could pop in for coffee. This is the best suggestion as I didn't have to get ready to go out and I didn't have to waste time actually going out.

She gave me half an hour to jump in the shower and then do a quick tidy-round of the apartment. No time to clean but at least it was tidy and the sink was free of dirty dishes. It's amazing what you can achieve in 20 minutes of frenzied panic when you know a guest is coming.

We had a lovely chat and catch-up over coffee and then she said she was driving down to my preferred supermarket. I should always go to this supermarket as it's much cheaper than the smaller one around the corner. But I don't always have time for the 15 minute walk each way or I don't have the energy so I pop around the corner and spend way more money on food. (New week's resolution is to go to the bigger supermarket every week now that the worst of the winter is over.)

So I grabbed the opportunity and took the ride down to the big super. I bought all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables, and some other staples. I was quite shocked at how little it all came to compared to what I've been paying recently. (New week's resolution is to absolutely and no excuses, go to the bigger supermarket every week now that the worst of the winter is over.)

I came home and graded all my exams. Whilst I was grading, another friend whatsapped some photos from their (she and her son) two day trip to Mt. Hermon to play in the snow. They were on their way back to Jerusalem and would get in just before Shabbat. I had to ask, especially as I had a kitchen full of food: "do you have dinner planned or would you like to come to us?" I was sure she'd say no as she had an invitation to someone else, or they were so tired they just wanted to eat a sandwich and go to bed. She accepted immediately. 😊

This was good as it made me cook. And, with an already tidy house, the necessary cleaning wasn't too much of a chore.

We had  relaxed dinner. She brought goody bags for the kids' desert and they took them off to play while we chatted over green tea. It was all very laid back and I was left with a fridge full of cooked food for today and tomorrow in a clean and tidy house.

This afternoon I got out all the decluttered things from last summer that had only got as far as the cupboard in the spudy. The Yedidya Bazaar is next week so this week they'll all be taken to the venue which is a synagogue hall five minutes walk from my home.

As soon as Shabbat went out at sundown, I planned my lessons for tomorrow, wrote some emails, and blogged. And after reading some other blogs, I shall watch something on Netflix whilst sewing up two pairs of DD's leggings.

It's been one of those weekends when everything got done as well as being sufficiently social to make me feel thoroughly smug and blessed with friends.

Holiday Families And Fasting For Love - R2BC

5. Living in the Desert.
I went to visit my friend who lives in the desert.
Seriously, the real desert is at the end of her street. 

Lots of reasons 2B Cheerful this week despite the seemingly overwhelming hateful, political events happening in the world. The linky is with Michelle on Mummy from the Heart where we celebrate the small things every week.

On Sunday there is fast Day in the Jewish world. It's the second biggest fast day after Yom Kippur. It's supposed to commemorate the destruction of both the first and the second Temple in Jerusalem. And they added a load of other sad or tragic events to make a day of religious mourning. Delve a bit deeper and we can find reasons to make Tisha B'Av (the 9th of Av) a day we can all relate to.

They say that the Temples were destroyed as the result of baseless hatred among people. I suppose it meant among Jews in particular but let's be inclusive in this day and age. Either it means as a punishment from God or as a natural result of baseless hatred - take your pick. I can relate to a fast against baseless hatred. So.....

1
Tisha B'av
I'm going to fast on Sunday in solidarity with all those fasting against baseless hatred in the world and all those suffering from it. Not a reason 2B cheerful as such but a positive action. Of course I don't just fast, I also try to spread the love in real life and do my bit on social media to protest wrongs and get the truth out there where there is injustice.

The real desert

2
Work work
One intensive summer course is over bar the grading of papers. I really enjoyed it. 25 hours of frontal teaching to the same group of students in a week is exhausting but it was also a good experience. A certain amount of bonding happens when you're with one group for 25 hours within five days. And there is no time for anyone to lose momentum so they all worked hard and they will all pass once they send in their final  projects (bar any surprises with the grading).

For me it was an unexpected extra paycheck in the summer. I've already spent it of course as we need a desktop computer that DD can use and I promised her a smart phone for 5th grade.

3
House work
Yeah I know, but I've done practically nothing all week and it's nice to see the bottom of the kitchen sink and the laundry basket again. Seriously - we were washing up cups on a need to use basis. (I admit that this is where hoarders come into their own.) Next stop the bathroom.

4
Summer Holiday Families
We have our summer holiday family. We love them and we are grateful for them. Any single parent with an only child will know that holidays can be disappointing. I'm not talking about a trip to London or other places where there's lot's to do. I mean a traditional beach and pool break in a hot climate.

In a family with two adults and more than one child the adults have help and company, and the kids have playmates. But try taking your pre-teen to play in a pool or on the sand for hours by herself. It doesn't work unless you also want to spend hours playing with her. Call me a bad mother, but after a couple of hours I've had enough, let alone repeating it for days without another adult to step in so that you can at least read your book for a bit. Think of it like one parent taking one of the kids away. See what I mean? It wouldn't work.

So we have our Summer  Holiday Family. We go to the beach together, we go to the pool together, we're going camping for three days (yurting actually), we go to the zoo, the water park, and we even just stroll into town together of an evening to eat out. It's a simple concept but essential and we love it.

March Project and Celebration - R2BC

Almond blossom in Jerusalem. One of the signs of spring.
We even have a song about it. 

In case you  missed it. I'm making a celebration and doing a project for each month of 2018. So far January celebrated 'Turning Over a New Leaf' and the project was to get all my paper work in order. It's almost done. 😜

February celebrated the end of the winter and the first signs of spring. The project was major decluttering and spring cleaning. It's almost done. 😜

March is really the start of spring here. I put the radiators away today. (We have socks and fleeces if it gets a bit chilly in the evening.) That's a reason 2B cheerful in itself. Here are my other Reasons 2B Cheerful for this week.

This year the festivals of Purim (which is our equivalent to Mardi Gras and Carnivale) and Pesach (Passover) both fall in March (the 1st for Purim and the 30th for Pesach). So the Celebration is friends and family.

The project is getting together with friends, inviting friends for Shabbat meals (not every meal), making the effort to do all those 'coffees' that I really want to do but the winter kept getting in the way, and spending time with family (over Pesach).

Basically, it's a kick in the behind to get off the sofa, out from under the blankets, and reconnect with the world. There's a sub-plot to this project because in order to make all those coffee dates I have to be up to date with my work. And in order to invite people over I have to be on top of the housework because I can't invite people to a dirty house. So it's also a general kick to get going with everything. Those lazy winter evenings that started at 5 pm are over (and we didn't even do one jigsaw-puzzle).

Tonight is the actual night of Purim in Jerusalem so we're starting off in grand style by going to a Purim service and party at friends. It's dressing up for those who want to, a vegetarian potluck, and a lovely get-together of old and new friends. I'm taking potato salad. And tomorrow we have some friends coming over at lunchtime for the Purim meal. Not a bad beginning to a month of socializing.

So  here's to a sociable March. And of course to finishing off that paperwork thing, continued decluttering, and finishing spring cleaning.

The R2BC Linky is back at Michelle's Mummy from the Heart for the month of March. I'll be hanging out there as usual with the gang.