I'll Give it Another Try

In case I've never told you, my mother is a very smart woman. Really, she's amazing. She's taught me many a thing over the years: cooking, baking, crafting, patience, kindness, love, etc., etc. (you know, all the things a good mom is supposed to teach her daughters). One thing that has become well ingrained in my mind are her philosophies on cleanliness, such as, make your bed; it makes all the difference. It's so true! Take a neat and tidy room and leave the bed messy and guess what?...the room looks messy...the entire thing! Make the bed and voila! Now the room looks clean. Or, say you have a room that isn't really tidy at all and make the bed, suddenly things look much better. Not perfect, just better. I think of this every day when I make up my bed; it's great motivation...try it.

Now that I'm an adult and a mom myself I'm beginning to realize how much the philosophy on a made up bed relates to other areas of our homes. The kitchen for example. Have you ever walked into a house that was perfectly clean, all except the kitchen? It's a complete distraction. Nobody notices that you spent an hour dusting every hard surface in the house or that you have beautiful, healthy plants and streak-free glass in all directions. Nope! All they're gonna see is your pile of dishes, the crumbs on the counter and the sticky mess on the tile. Or, flip it just like the made bed. Magic happens in a mostly messy house when the kitchen is spic and span. There's just something about all those gleaming surfaces shining that makes you smile.

The kitchen is where my problem lies. For the most part, I am very much a clean freak, (I married the exact opposite, but that's completely beside the point for this story.) but when it comes to my kitchen cleanliness...not so much. I don't really know why, either. No matter the reason though; it's time for a change! A couple months ago I started looking for options to help me keep my kitchen clean. I knew some family members had tried and liked Flylady so I decided to start there and see how it went. Well, things didn't go exactly as planned and I made it about as far as...well...Day 1 --shining my sink. It lasted a day, maybe two, but neither Owen nor I were very excited about making it work. So it failed. Pondering on this since then has made me want to try again. So, I'm giving it a go and today I shined my sink...again.

Look at that sparkle!


















I'm excited to have a clean kitchen...all the time (rather than every couple days). And I'm excited to have it not be such a chore, which is what Flylady focuses on -- not having to deep clean everything, but rather, maintaining cleanliness by taking baby steps and only cleaning for short periods of time. Speaking of the Flylady philosophy...this also closely ties to another of my mom's words of wisdom. You won't have to spend all day cleaning your [house] if you take five minutes every day to pick up. She'd tell me this every weekend after I'd just spent all day cleaning my bedroom. And while this is also true; it's still sometimes a struggle for me to follow through with it. So, maybe I'm a slow learner!

p.s. Mom -- Thanks for being the best mom ever, even if it does take me a while to catch on to some things. :)