Fly What???

O FlyLady, FlyLady, wherefore art thou FlyLady? The condition of my home is what happens when someone gets lazy and forgets to put on her shoes and shine her sinks.  After yesterday's big push (a marathon 6 hour all-hands-on-deck cleaning frenzy, the kind NOT recommended by FlyLady) I've recommitted to being a better FlyBaby...15 minutes at a time.

Oh wait, you're not familiar with this Flylady of whom I speak? 

The FlyLady is Marla Cilley, author of the book "Sink Reflections" and chief de-clutterer in charge of the FlyLady website. She devised a system for cleaning and organizing your home and life in small, manageable blocks of time. Here is a little cut/paste from her Wiki page: 

Key points in the FlyLady system include:

Babysteps and Routines

New recruits to the FlyLady system are called "Flybabies" and are introduced to "babysteps" - a series of 31 small daily tasks which introduce and then reinforce aspects of cleaning and decluttering, building up to creating personalized routines for morning, afternoon and evening.

Shine Your Sink

Cilley's first instruction to new members is "Go shine your sink!" She asserts that even in a messy kitchen, the cleaned-out and polished sink provides positive reinforcement to the person who cleaned it, encouraging further cleaning in the rest of the room and home.

15 Minutes at a Time

Cilley that recommends using a timer to work for only 15 minutes at a time. The short time commitment helps stop procrastination, and reduces opportunities to get sidetracked or bored.

Clutter Cannot Be Organized

Cilley recommends that her followers get rid of excess items in their homes, and bring in less items, rather than attempting to organize them. This reduction "decluttering" is done 15 minutes at a time. One such exercise is FlyLady's "27-fling Boogie," in which the follower quickly selects 27 items in their home to discard or give away.

Weekly Routines

Marla advises the use of a weekly routines, whereby each weekday is assigned an additional task or focus; Monday is daily cleaning, Wednesday is errand day, Thursday is grocery day and Friday is "desk day", focusing on paperwork and finances, as well as the day to declutter the car.

Weekly Home Blessing

Cilley's adaption of the Pam Young and Peggy Jones' "Slipshod cleaning" is the one-hour housecleaning mission called the "weekly home blessing." Using their timers, followers are instructed to vacuum, dust, mop, empty trash, change bedsheets and clean up old magazines. Each task is allocated ten minutes only.

Get Dressed to Shoes

Cilley insists that her followers "get dressed to lace-up shoes" before beginning their housekeeping tasks.

Zones

Flylady divides a house into five sections or zones, which are allocated to the five weeks or partial weeks of the month. Each day the email list will provide a "mission" with a detailed cleaning task in the current zone.

Control Journal

Flylady advises the use of a "Control Journal," a household management notebook or binder, to store the owner's routines, lists and other important household information.

Flylady Reminders

Daily reminders of the routines, zones and missions, as well as "testimonials" of the system and products, are sent to subscribers of the FlyLady list.

Perfectionism leads to Procrastination

FlyLady asserts that the most frequent reason for procrastination and inefficacy is perfectionism, as people won't start a task if they think they don't have the time or the ability to do it perfectly. Some frequently repeated sayings in this respect are "good enough is good enough" or "housework done incorrectly still blesses your family".

No Whining

FlyLady often repeats that her website, chat room and Facebook page are "No Whining Zones", and that "If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all"

Support

FlyLady followers have a webchat on the website www.FlyLady.net that allows them to talk to other FlyBabies and keep each other going throughout the day. Typically, they chat after doing their 15 minutes of work. Top Of The Hour is :00 on the clock, and it generally signals the start of 15 minutes of work as well as Bottom Of The Hour. On the :15 and :45 is generally breaktime, where they get some water to drink and chat with each other to help each other along. The regulars in the chat state they couldn't get done what has to be done without the help of each other.

Does it sound intimidating? Well it isn't. It's not hard either. It really is about "jumping in where you are" and working for only a few minutes a day and in no time at all (okay, maybe a few months) your home and most likely your life will be more organized. And you'll live happily ever after! (okay the FlyLady NEVER actually promised that, that's totally me! *wink*) 

If you're curious, check out her website at FlyLady.net. 

And by-the-way...I've been a FlyBaby since 2003!

Off now to lace up my sneaks and get in a 27-Fling Boogie before my next cup of coffee.
Laters!

Perspective...

That pretty much sums up what I have learned over the past 6 months since my husband was laid off from his job of 12 1/2 years and the 5 month journey that led him to his new career. 

Shame on me....

I've become a blog-slacker. (that's a real thing, right?)

So to end my shameful lack of blogging...I give you "Pinterest Pins of the Day".

Today's theme is Upcycle/Recycle.

Let's start with an oldie, but a goodie made from vintage photo slides! What better way to showcase vacation slides from your 1960's Disneyland trips but to turn them into a cool lampshade!

Vintage Slide Lamp

Next up, An old pickup truck tailgate turned into a kistchy retro style bench with cool vintage license plate covered arms:

Tailgate Bench

And finally, something useful to do with that old computer tower that you're not using...turn the case into a one-of-a-kind mailbox. Put your mail where e-mail used to go!

Mailbox

Okay, that's all folks-gotta run cuz the dinner bell is a ringing!

And for today....

Pain? I don't have no stinkin' pain!

I just gotta share this real quick:
I have been a sufferer of Plantar Fasciitis (it's a foot pain thing) for years and nothing I have done has helped. In fact, taking massive amounts of ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation actually caused me to have stomach issues. Well suffer no more, I have found a miracle! It's HEEL SEATS from the Heel That Pain website. In a desperate attempt to find something to find help for my feet I did a Google search for "heel pain" and their website came up. I figured for $14.95 I didn't have much to lose so I ordered a pair of their HTP Heel Seats. They came in the mail last Thursday and let me tell you what a difference they have made in my pain level. Within minutes of putting them in my shoes I had a 75% reduction in pain and I noticed this morning that I have virtually no pain at all while standing in my sneakers with my heel seats.

Normally just ordering 1 pair costs $24.95, but you can get them for $14.95 plus FREE shipping if you click on the "renewal"  offer and let them send you a new set every 90 days.
They also offer a Gel Heel Seat which is made of a softer material, but I went with the original heel seats. And they're not just for plantar fasciitis, they're for heel spurs and heel pain as well.
Disclaimer: Heel that pain does not know who I am and is in no way sponsoring the writing of this blog post with free stuff or anything. I'm just a customer who loves having pain-free feet!
Okay, that is all. Have a nice day!

Adapting and changing...

As a homeschooling mom there are many decisions I have to make each school year and which curriculum to use is always the most important. I also love that, as homeschoolers, if something isn't working for us we can change to something else at any point along the way. At the beginning of the school year my 14yo son wanted to move away from some of the online curriculum he had been using since 4th grade, mainly Time 4 Learning, and try something new. So we started the school year using unit studies, workbooks and a rather expensive Christian-based curriculum on cd's, none of which held his interest the way Time 4 Learning did. Being this is my 7th year of homeschooling I have learned that if something doesn't work then put it aside and find something that does, so today marks our first day back on the Time 4 Learning website. Now yes, I realize that their curriculum only goes up to 8th grade and my son is technically in the 9th grade, however, due to his Autism and learning disabilities he functions at different levels than the average 9th grader. I think this change will make our days less stressful and more productive. I'll keep you updated. In the mean time, here is a link to the Time4Learning website.

It truly is "to each, his own" My 18yo daughter loves doing unit studies in fact she loved the Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett so much that she actually asked me to purchase them for her. In her Senior year she used American Government, Scrapbooking, Digital Photography and Pioneers. For my daughter the unit studies provided her with a more research based type of learning experience which is more in line with how she learns the best and is more like what she used when she was at the charter high school she attended for 2 years, the same one her older brother graduated from. The curriculum there was independent study and research based. She would have graduated from the charter school but she wanted to graduate a semester early and not all of the classes she needed to do that were available when she needed them. Their program offers only certain classes in the fall and others in the spring. What I did in homeschooling her was to make her homeschool classes as close to the charter schools as I could. Now I have a brand new college student and she couldn't be happier!

Want List

With my birthday coming up in a few days, My Hubby has been asking me what I would like him to buy me, so here is my Want List:

The Ninja 3 in 1 cooking system. 

This is on my list, the TOP of my list because I have a love/hate relationship with cooking dinner every evening. While we are not empty-nesters (that glorious day is coming soon!) our college kids are almost never home anymore so most evenings it's pretty much Hubby-who now has work hours that can go late into the evening, our 14yo son, who I may have mentioned has Autism and me for dinner. Autism Boy (as he proclaims himself to be) is not a "foodie" so he pretty much eats from his list of about 20 or so foods that don't bother him to eat. (It's sensory integration disorder issue-not related to my cooking...or at least that's what the experts tell me) So anyway, I think that one of these one-pot, dump it in and cook it either slow (if I remember early enough in the day that the family will want to eat dinner) or fast (because I kind of forgot the whole dinner thing, again) would be a valuable asset to our small appliance collection.

Next on my list:

The 5X Lighted, Tri-Fold Makeup Mirror

This baby made the list because let's face it, I'm no spring chicken and seeing the age in my face at 5 TIMES regular magnification will be fun. NOT. But it would be nice to actually be able to SEE my face when I'm putting on makeup, eyeliner in particular, lest I leave the house looking a bit more like Cleopatra than I had intended. Again.

And finally, we're back in the kitchen with this bad boy:

The Cuisinart Elite Collection 12 Cup Food Processor

I currently own a 34 year old Cuisinart food processor that originally belonged to my Mom. And while it still works, and works amazingly, the bowl has finally cracked, there are cracks in the base housing and I've misplace a blade so it's not as useful as it was years ago. Not to mention the darn thing weighs in at about 150 pounds so lugging it from the cabinet to the counter requires either my hubby to be home or a team of at least 3 to pitch in and help. Not that this new one weighs much less, when I was out at Bed, Bath and Beyond with Hubby last weekend, he tried to get me to lift the display model and I couldn't. So I informed him that if you get me one of these bad boys you might as well get the bright red because it's going on the counter and staying there and matching the kitchen color scheme is important to me.

I actually think this would go nicely with the Ninja Cooking System for doing all that choppy prep-work before I toss our dinner ingredients into the pot and I'd really love to have both, but I'm not holding my breath...of course Valentines day IS next month!

We have my son to thank for this post...

I asked my 20 year old son for a blog post idea, and he said one word: PONIES. And by ponies he means My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (aka MLP:FIM). So here you go. My son is a "Brony" (male fan of all this pony stuff) and therefore should be happy with this post...and maybe you will be too.

This is the cast of MLP:FIM

They are ponies and they do fun stuff.

Little girls like them,

as do college-aged boys.

No, I don't get it either.

But what's important is that we don't judge.

Oh yeah, and my son made this MLP:FIM/Beer For My Horses crossover video.

It was featured once on Equestria Daily.

Fans of Country music superstar Toby Keith will totally "get" the video. 

Do you think Mr. Keith will like that I called him a "superstar"?

Okay, that's it. I could go on and on about MLP and how they promote a fostering of good values and friendship and pink things...but I don't feel the need. He said Ponies, and I produced a blog post on ponies so my work here is done. 

Laters Everypony!

2012 A year in review? I think NOT.

A lot of bloggers do one of those "Year In Review" posts at the end/beginning of a new year, not this blogger. For me, 2012 was a year to put in a box in the back of the closet and pretend it didn't happen. For me it was a year that took a routine Dr's appointment and turned it into dozens of Dr's appointments, too many blood tests to count, numerous ultrasounds and scans including one where I given a radioactive substance to ingest. Yes, I was radioactive! WTF?! All this and here we are a year later and all these doctors and technicians still have no idea what is growing in my spleen, how long it's been there and what they should do about it. All the while, I had no symptoms or negative side effects and still don't. The upside, there is nothing else going on inside me that I should be worried about and that makes me happy. I love happy.

And all this poking and prodding was woven in with my Hubby's job falling off the face of the planet just weeks after a the big bosses held a meeting at the plant and sent out a follow up memo where the company proclaimed to be doing well and not to believe the rumors of their imminent demise. I'm sure somewhere in Germany, where the parent company is located, there were at least a few pairs of pants on fire. I hate liars.

And despite all this craziness, our homeschooled daughter completed her Senior year of high school on a accelerated plan and graduated an entire semester early. See, some good stuff came out of 2012! As of February 4th, she'll be a college student. I love college.

2012 also gave my Hubby and I a few months to "test drive" retirement while he was on unemployment. This experiment led us to deduce that we both need to invest in some good hobbies between now and real retirement. I now understand how Bingo came into being. I love Bingo.

And with the test drive now behind us, Hubby has embarked on a new career with a good Christian company that seems to be solid, solvent and trustworthy. He's not currently seeing any pants on fire and that gives him some peace of mind. He loves peace of mind.

Well crud, I just did a year in review. Not a full year though so maybe we just won't count it, okay?! What's that??? My pants are on fire??? Uh oh, gotta go! Bye!