Maintaining....

Lately...  I've been maintaining.   I've had a lot going on this week.  Our pool team made it to the city championships.  So, this past Tuesday we had our regular pool night.  Then Wednesday, around 4, I went to Charlotte for the tournament and didn't get home until 2 am.  Of course I had to get up at 6 am with Jasmine.  We lost... which meant Thursday we stayed home.  I have to admit I'm kind of glad we lost Wednesday because if we had come back Thursday I would have lost my mind.  Thursday evening I slept.  Friday I was back up in Charlotte by 5:00 and got home around 1:00am.  Then I had to be back in Charlotte by 8:00 am, and we finally lost around 5:00 that night.  Needless to say I've not paid much attention to my house.  But like I said.... I've been maintaining.

 I've got my bedroom, master bathroom, main bathroom,  Living room, Lilly's room, and her bathroom all clutter-free.  I've just been cleaning off the "hot spots" in those areas.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I'm nowhere NEAR where I wanted to be when I first started doing this whole "flylady" stuff.  But, in following what she says, I realize that I was being WAY too much of a perfectionist, wanting everything done ASAP.  I know now that it'll take some time to get all of my rooms clutter free and clean, but they say that 'slow and steady wins the race'.  Well, it has been in my house anyway.  So, my daily routine in my house is pretty simple so far:  get up, make bed, brush teeth, shower and get dressed.  Swish out the master toilet and wipe down the sinks.  Then, once Lilly wakes up, we go through the same routine with her and her bathroom.  When Jasmine wakes up, I start a load of laundry.  Once downstairs, I empty out the dishwasher.  Then I make my way through the house cleaning off the hot spots in my already decluttered rooms.  You know the hot spots:  those places that seem to automatically attract the stuff that no one takes the time to put away.  I have one in my kitchen, two in my living room, 2 in my bedroom, one in my bathroom, one in our aquarium room, and one in Lilly's room.  2-3 minutes at each hot spot every day, and it keeps them at bay.  In the evening, I start the dishwasher, scrub my face, brush my teeth, and go to bed.  I need to start going to bed earlier, but that really couldn't be helped this week.  I make sure that I take one day each week to quickly (as in, no more than 15 minutes.... and no moving of furniture, etc) vacuum the upstairs and one day a week to quickly vacuum the downstairs.  This week I'm adding in the one day a week to sweep, mop, and wax the kitchen floor.  This one will take longer than 15 minutes, simply because of the waxing.  Maybe 25 minutes, though... tops.  We'll see.  I'll time it.   I'm not adding anything else because I know it'll just fall apart.  And then we'll see how that goes for a couple of weeks. 

Oh, and THIS is something I'm SUPER proud of!  We're going to the beach for a week beginning on Saturday.  I've been slowly packing for almost a week now.  I have a list, and I'm ticking off things as I go.  I've done most of the shopping I've needed to do, and now I'm just enjoying the fact that, for the FIRST TIME in my life, I won't be doing the 'flight of the bumblebee', trying to get everything ready on Friday.  What that means is that I'll be straightening my house instead so that I can come home to a clean house!

This coming week is the week to focus on the main bathroom and the kids' rooms.  The Sneak Peak of the Week isn't up yet for this coming week.  It'll tell me what to expect for the week.  I do know that it'll be easy peasy for Lilly's room.  But Jasmine's room has a TON of clothes from Lilly that need to be put in boxes for the future.  I also need to weed through her current clothes to see which ones I need to put in the "too small" boxes.  Once I get Jasmine's stuff manageable, I'll feel like I've gotten something seriously accomplished.  Maybe that'll be after this week, maybe not.  But if not, I'll at least be a huge step closer than I was!  And if it gets too overwhelming, I'll just step back and continue to maintain instead.  As long as I maintain, I'm not going backwards... and that is super-duper important.