We're FLYing!!!

That's right... FLYing.

I discovered an awesome website flylady.net and it is all about getting your house - and life! - in order, 5, 10 or 15 minutes at a time.

FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself. I really like that. I am so tired of beating myself up for having a messy home and suffering from CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). This website is helping me to pull the house together a little bit at a time while making new habits.

It all starts off with a shiny sink. Taking 15 minutes to wash whatever dishes are left and leaving a clean shiny sink sets the mood for the day. If you come downstairs to a sink filled with dirty dishes from yesterday, how will that make you feel? It makes me feel like going right back upstairs and going back to bed! But when my sink is empty and shining I am relaxed and feel that at least in that area I have some control and I feel motivated to tackle another area in need of cleaning or organizing.

The children are slowing getting excited about this program. The website sends TONS of emails a day and a lot of them I read and delete, some I save to inspire or motivate me later. But some of them are geared towards what the children can do. A couple of days ago I set my timer for 5 minutes and had the children collect 10 things from the main level of the house that belonged to them and take them to their room. Between the two of them they found 22 in the living room alone! In 5 minutes half the clutter was gone!

They are now regularly asking for "FLY jobs". So last night I had an idea. They say that it takes 30-40 days to create a habit. I made up a sign and hung it on the fridge door at their eye level and waited for them to notice it. Sam saw it first and called Julie over so they could read it together. It said that the FLY challenge for the month of May was to make their beds each morning. Whoever made their bed for all of the 31 days of May would receive a reward at the end of the month. They were pretty excited about the idea but a little afraid they would forget.

This morning as soon as Ian was up, I got up and made our bed. While I was playing with Jordan, Sam came in and smiled and pointed to my bed. "You remembered," he said. I smiled and nodded and asked him if he remembered too and his eyes were dancing as he nodded, smiling. Julie made sure hers was made before she left for school this morning.

This task took me a total of 3 minutes. I hate having to make the bed before I go to sleep just because I was too lazy to do it in the morning. At least I won't have to for the month of May!

My next idea is to create mini-challenges for the week. We have a long way to go to get things in order but we can do it!