Shiny sinks,
There is little doubt in my mind that a lot of you, being the Net loving chickies (and dudes) that you are, have heard of HRH The FlyLady.
No? Where have you been? She has her own website. I’m going to apologise for her here- for a self-adorned ‘Clutter Guru”, her website is an absolute atrocity. Not to mention garish, difficult to navigate and enough to give a serial link-clicker like myself heart palpitations. If you are actually trying to find your way to FLYing, I suggest the Beginner BabySteps. Go shine your sink!! Now!! (Yes, really.)
FlyLady is, for the uninitiated, a completely insane and mildly obsessive compulsive woman from somewhere in the US’s Deep South that has devised a whole system for keeping your house, car, kids and pets as spotlessly clean as possible. I kid you not.Right down to the tops of your door frames. Because, as any good pseudo 50′s housewife knows, your house just is not clean until your door frames pass the white glove test. If you follow FlyLady to the feather letter, she even guarentees your relationship is strong, your bills are paid, your boobies are un-lumpy and that you drink 2 liters of water a day.
Now me personally,I have a Heart/Hate relationship with the FlyLady. She is omnipresent, it seems, and follows me around wherever I click- she has infiltrated both my FaceBook and Twitter accounts. Annoying. Especially when she tells me to go to bed at 2pm (oh, yes, FlyBabies have a mandated bedtime, and it doesn’t run on EST.). I know, I should delete her. But my internal Martha Stewart just won’t let me.
Reasons I {Heart} The FlyLady
* She got me going when it was just all too hard. And I was trying to figure out the complexities of running a house with a small baby and actually having top shower, cook, and acknowledge my husband’s existence.(whaddya mean, it’s been two months?)
* She has drummed into my head her FLY-isms. Like “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done”. Bloody good advice.
* She actually stops me over obsessing. If it’s not finished, well, hell, it’s cleaner than it was when I started. Unless the Chop is helping..
* There is a system for cleaning your house. Hallelujah!! Who woulda thunk it? Even if I don’t do it, it’s nice to know it’s written down, and I can jump back in when I please. if I only I can find the notepad I wrote it in.
Reasons I {Hate} The FlyLady.
* Her website gives me a migraine.
*She sends out 20 emails a day. Not even joking.
* I just can’t imagine it. The idea of actually being that organised is somewhat disconcerting.
* I cannot for the life of me get the Bloody House Blessing done every week. And that makes me feel bad. I call the feeling ‘dust guilt’.
* She began to send me religious emails. I don’t mind religion, and I don’t mind house cleaning. But I don’t like to mix the two.
* She makes me paranoid. Every time I turn on my clothes dryer, a purple haired woman with wings pops out from my shiny sink and starts screeching “Fire in the dryer!! Fire in the dryer!!”.
* Her acronyms annoy me. And I’m normally big on acronyms (you may have picked that up). So I’ve renamed the SHE- from ‘Sidetracked House Executive’ to ‘Shitty Housework Expert’. And my house is no longer in a state of CHAOS(Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome)- I like to call it a state of COMA (Come Over Mine Anyway).
By posting this, I live in fear. Of the FlyLady. And her meeelions of little FlyBaby followers tracking me down and beating me to death with Rubber Scrubbers. Please don’t. I may just jump on the bandwagon again some day soon. Just as soon as this blogging addiction wears off. Because, right now, the computer rules. And if I did all my housework first I’d never get to blog. OK? OK.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I knew I'd be tracked down eventually!!
Hi Gladys. Thanks for your comment. Sorry it didn't appear straight away, Blogger sucked it into the spam folder.
To be honest, I'm not even sure what to say. This post is an old one, and was written very much tongue in cheek. As stated, there are reasons I do love the FlyLady,a nd although I no longer do the full FLY, i still incorporate alot of her ideas into my daily routine- like a swish and shine, and a load a day of washing. The house looks good. It's just that the tops of my doorframes are dusty!
Agreed, though, FL does have a huge heart, and she's helped a lot of people. I'm so glad she works for you
Thanks for visiting RRSAHM
I do hope you come back.
You are SOOOOO busted !!
First of all, you need to make a DAILY DIGEST email, that is if you even want to receive the emails. You don't HAVE to, you know. The other thing is, you don't have to go to her website AT ALL. You can go to her Facebook page, and in the Notes, there is a "Daily Flight Plan" which has all the missions in it, and no testimonials. Now as far as the "religious" emails, she warns you ahead of time before she says something "spiritual in nature" so you don't have to go on reading that part if it doesn't appeal to you. As far as her website is concerned (www.flylady.net), I think it's great. I can find anything I need to. The left-hand column has everything organized. I figure a person will either like her or they won't, but she has helped me and millions others that were not "Born Organized." Her system works if you follow it. She also says, NUMEROUS times, to adapt her system to suit your family. You don't have to go to bed at any hour that does not suit you. She makes everything as generic as possible to reach a broad audience (with the one common factor being that everyone is there to get advice on how to maintain a home and still have time to live life). Once you're "FLYing" you can spend 2 hours MAX on your house per day, you don't have to spend all day cleaning. She DOES NOT advise anyone to do that because that causes burnout and resentment (for yourself because you're the one who "did it all" and for your family because you were too busy working on your house than spending time with them).
Before you speak FOR Flylady, why don't you let others investigate for themselves so they don't have an inaccurate impression of her?
PS. I do have a sense of humor and I did find your blog a little bit funny I'll admit, but I also don't like the idea of people being turned off of Flylady simply because it did not work for you. Or maybe you didn't give it enough of a chance, I don't know. Or perhaps it didn't work for you at that particular time in your life, but it could work now. I have breastfed two babies, I totally get you on that level. When you're exhausted and feel gross from not showering as often as you'd like, you don't exactly feel like cleaning. You feel like showering and sleeping. lol
Good luck with your home. I respect your opinion. For all the people reading your blog, please do your research and make your own opinions.
Not only is there FlyLady.net, she is on BigTent, Facebook, apparently Twitter. You use whatever platform(s) she has that work for you. You don't need them all. If emails are inconvenient, don't sign up for them (BTW You can get them sent in a DIGEST, you don't have to get 20.) Flylady has a very BIG heart and just wants to help people who are struggling with maintaining their home AND have the desire to live in a clean and uncluttered home, yet lack the know-how to put together a system and stick with it.
Oh you make me laugh! I checked out the site years ago when people were talking about her and quickly closed that puppy!
Wow, how have I not heard of her? I'm not a neat freak by any means, but there's something very compelling about all those cleaning and organization tips that I'm going to have to go back and read. I really need to know how to clean the lint out of my dryer hose! Maybe her site sends out subliminal messages or something.
Hahaha! I love it!
I'm the same, I delete all of her e-mails, but I just can't bring myself to unfollow them…it makes me too much of a bad parent/wife/woman
I discovered the FlyLady when I was pregnant with my youngest.
I have to say the shining of the sink gives me crazy happy feelings. I LOVE a shiny sink now.
The rest made me insane.
Like the emails? I used to think "Lady, if you had a job that had you at work until 2am, you were breastfeeding an infant who insisted that happen EVERY 2 hours when you weren't at that job, you'd realize I don't have the time or energy just to DELETE THE FREAKING EMAILS you send."
Then I got a new email addy.
I cannot clean with shoes on in the house. I can't.
I unfollowed her on twitter for exactly this reason. And I don't get how her website is somehow excluded from the whole decluttering thing. That being said, I did do the babysteps thing. I changed it up a bit to suit me. No matter what I'm not wearing shoes in the house or going to bed before 11pm. Non negotiable. But it has helped me develop a workable routine. Which is good for me because I tend to live in either a complete state of mess or anally retentive tidyness. So a balance is a good thing.
OMG, that is hilarious!
I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about being that organized! LOL Thanks for the giggle.
She's got some good stuff hey. Shiny sink, wearing shoes, 15 mins at a time. You're right, the website is atrocious though.
I'm pretty sure you can change the email settings so you get a 'daily digest' or maybe even a weekly one. Maybe go hunting on the site, and we'll call emergency services to go find you if we don't hear from you tomorrow.
I had a look at her website before and tried her system for about 5 minutes and nope, couldn't hack it. I love my own system which is doing the least possible as long as possible.
What? At least I have a system. Heh.
I've never heard of her but you've made her sound soooo appealing….
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Hilarious! I am actually a naturally organised person, and I still can't handle the flylady system. For one thing – I am not going to spend that much time cleaning, tidying etc. I don't get the random "necessities"about shiny sinks and lace-up shoes, and, yep, that website… shudder.
YOu crack me up Lady
Ack. She needs a system for organizing her website. My head hurts just from looking at it for 4 seconds.
Thank you for the warning, not going near this blog ever. I love dust and dust bunnies, I mean my house is lived in not a show home. xxx
Ahhhh, you make me laugh.
Her Body Clutter Book…ummmm.
You may have inspired me to do a "review".
Some houses try to hide the fact
That children shelter there.
Ours boasts of it quite openly,
The signs are every where.
For smears are on the windows,
Little smudges on the doors;
I should apologize I guess
For toys strewn on the floor.
But I sat down with the children
And we played and laughed and read,
And if the doorbell doesn't shine,
Their eyes will shine instead.
For when at times I'm forced to
Choose the one job or the other,
I want to be a housewife…
But first I'll be a mother.
I had this poem stuck up in my entryway for years. That woman needs help, seriously. Talk about anal…