The Apron

2 weeks ago i decided i needed some new aprons, and the frugal Taycia wanted inexpensive but durable. I first checked the ones on the Flylady.net website. Cute, big pocket vests--$19.99 plus shipping. OUCH! I know that purchases from her shop fund the program and keep it free...but I have already spent my $$ on the Rubba tools and Duster LOL!! I looked elsewhere online and found some CUTE cobbler style ones from plentyofaprons.com. Now, i love cobbler aprons, especially if they are long enough in back to cover my butt as i tend to wipe my hands on my butt more often than on a towel. $8.95 each for v-neck aprons plus shipping was too good to pass up! So i ordered a couple, and waited....and waited....and am still waiting. By last Thursday the waiting had been driving me CRAZY, and the link won't give me tracking info and i am grumpy. So i was working on decluttering in the bigger Attic room and came across the bag'o'shirts to be 'recycled'. Most of these shirts are Zach's old dress shirts that he has worn a hole in the elbow and i was planning on taking them down to the Cleaners and just having the sleeves hemmed but never got around to it. I had the genious idea of recycling the fabric into an apron, but wasn't quite sure on how i was going to accomplish this. So as soon as we got home from Story Time, and i got my kiddoes fed their lunch I began creating. I started just cutting and pressing and sewing and Bonzai'd zach's Blattner shirt into:

I loved the design so much that i made 2 more out of other shirts the same day. The pockets are the salvagable material from the sleeves, the side buttons are from the sleeve cuff as well. Needless to say i will be sending the Aprons i ordered back and getting my $25 back, especially since i made three aprons from old shirts in about 2 hours.

Five minutes.

Know what i can do in five minutes? I can pick up the stray toys that migrated to the living room and toss them as far as my kids rooms (they get a timer later to pick all that up BWAHAHAHA), straighten the couch cushions, get blankets stuffed back into the 'blanket basket', and still have time to deal with the papers Miss Jo left on the dining table.

In 10 minutes i can vacuum, or spot clean windows, or dust the main floor, or quick clean the man room (Dust AND vacuum).

In 15 minutes i can get my kitchen from a sinkful of dishes to spotless, save for some of the ground in grunge on the cabinets...but that is another 15 minute project. I can also fold and put away one load of laundry in 15 mn or less.

What can you do in just a handful of minutes? Get out an egg timer and do it now!!

FLYin by the seat of my pants!

I joined Fly Lady 8 weeks ago. I had finally hit rock bottom on my housekeeping, tired of the STUFF being shuffled around because nobody knew what to do with it. i have been meaning to post about it, but have been PRO-crastinating big time.

I caved and actually checked out the Fly Lady website, signed up for her Big Tent site and daily digest email, and clicked the 'Getting Started' link in one of the big purple boxes. I read through the page and curiosly clicked the "Beginner Babysteps" link

GO SHINE YOUR SINK appeared on an image of a sticky note. Intrigued by this, i went into the kitchen and reluctantly took all the dirty dishes out of the sink and scrubbed it with some Soft Scrub (anyone with white enamel knows how stained they get). It was SOOOO pretty! I didn't want to put the dirty dishes back in, but in order to deal with those i actually had to UNLOAD my dishwasher.

By day 4 i had been shining my sink for FOUR days and getting ALL the way dressed to the shoes i hated so much (yeah, i am a barefoot girl--but the shoes do have an affect on the attitude), and i began my Control Journal just like Fly Lady suggests. Amazingly the journal seemed to help keep me on task better than any other 'tool' i had tried to use. By Day 15 i had a whole routine for morning and night, my Mt. Washmore was more under control, I was dressing to shoes every morning, and my sink was almost always empty. On top of that i had been following the 15 minutes of decluttering every day and had literally gotten rid of an entire room full of stuff just chipping away for 15 minutes each day. By day 31 i was FLYing high after realizing that Zach and I had moved over 250# of un-used stuff from our home to the thrift stores in town. I still have another load to drop off that is un-accounted for, which i need to do soon as my pickup bed looks like a travelling yard sale!

I still have a long way to go, but i now have the tools to keep FLYing high!