FlyLady - Day 4

Day 4 - Write These Things Down

Yesterday I went around and put up a few stinky notes to remind me of the new things I've learned. The last couple of days have been pretty easy for me and I decided to poke around the FlyLady website a bit due to reading some of the testimonials and getting curious about what they were talking about. I learned more about FlyLady's Routines....Before Bed & Morning and I decided to add that to what I am already doing. The sticky note on my obviously unclean mirror above says "Swish & Swipe"...I'll talk more about that later.

This is the mirror in my closet. Yes, I know the mirror isn't really usable, but I love to see my baby's ultrasound pictures everyday. There are two pictures for each of our 3 kids...their first ultrasound and then the ultrasound when we found out their sex. The sticky note on this mirror says, "Make the bed".


Ta Da!!!

Yes...I normally would not make my bed...like ever! Maybe if we were having company and I thought they might come upstairs. If you are a family member or a really good friend...nope! Sorry...when I get comfortable with someone do I really think that them seeing my bed unmade is going to make them say, "I can't be friends with you!" I think not! I remember telling Michael when I first started this journey, "I bet I'm going to have to start making the bed!" Yep I do! It's really not that hard and it is nice to see a put together bed during the day. Oh and yes we are still sleeping with the Afghan on because for some reason Washington State hasn't figured out that it will be June next week.



Yesterday we also went to Wal-Mart and spent $28 to get supplies to keep the house looking nice. I got bleach, 3 new toilet brush (one for each of the bathrooms), 3 bottles of glass cleaner, Borax, Washing Soda and Koolaid Lemonade.

My goal for the day was to get the bathroom in good shape. I say good because I was only focusing on the sinks, mirrors and toilets. I did not let myself get carried away and stress out over the dirty tubs, showers, and floors. Baby steps people! The above picture is the cabinet in the half bath on our first floor. I keep forgetting to take before pictures, but I needed to get this organized so I could fit the glass cleaner and paper towels in the cabinet. It really wasn't super bad before, but it's definitely a lot nicer now.

Back to the "Swish & Swipe"...part of my morning routine is now going to include this. After you are all done getting ready for the day before you leave your bathroom you are supposed to a) Swish your toilet w/cleaner and b) Swipe your mirror and sink with glass cleaner. Done...in about 2 mins!

See my new toilet brush in the corner. I'm seriously not sure why I never thought of having a toilet brush in each and every bathroom, but it completely makes sense. Humans (okay some humans not all) are really good at making excuses and being lazy. For me the toilet brush and cleaner was always down in the laundry closet and that was enough of an excuse to put it off. Now I have a brush and cleaner in each bathroom so no excuses. These nice brushes with holder were only $3 and some odd cents so they are cheap, but life changing! Okay maybe not life changing, but you know what I mean. FlyLady says it best, "Nothing says love like throwing up in a clean toilet when you're sick!"

You might have wondered what the Koolaid Lemonade was for.....homemade dish washing detergent. This isn't a FlyLady thing this I heard about from my friend Christina she hasn't blogged about it, but she mentioned it on FB so I decided that might be fun to try...this is the website she got the information from. I used mine for the first time tonight, but I haven't checked the dishes. I hope it works because it's much for cost effective!

Back to the bathrooms...I did all three of our bathrooms "Swishing and Swiping" away. Enjoying every bit of cleanliness! The surprise and I guess it shouldn't be is that the messiest toilet was in the kids bathroom. I guess it surprised me because Jack doesn't use that bathroom yet since he still needs help and a little potty cover and that toilet doesn't have one so it's only Owen that uses it. However, when he does use it he only flushes it oh every now and then! Ewwww....big time! We'll be working on that little bad habit!

All clean! Yes, I took a picture of the inside of my toilet and put on my blog...you got something to say about it! ;)

So nice and lovely and the mirror is definitely not spotty like it was in the first picture. You'll see I did take down the sticky note reminder and to be honest I'm not sure I'll use the Day 4 principle that much. I hate have sticky notes all over the place and once I have added something to my routine I very rarely forget about it...it just becomes part of my day. Plus I also looked around on the website and read a little about starting a Control Journal so I'm sure I'll be starting one of those soon and it will have lists of everything I need to do each and every day right there.