The Fly Lady

So, the thing is... this was going to be a different column.

This column was going to be a humorous accounting of my no-doubt spastic attempts to organize my house. It was going to be full of sarcasm and funny stories about cleaning up cat vomit and couscous, all written from a cuttingly Feminist perspective. I was writing it in my head for several days and let me tell you, it was FUNNY. Boy, did you guys miss out.

See, I was telling my good friend Heather how overwhelmed I was feeling. I was complaining how hard it is to get anything done and how disorganized everything is in my house. I was really depressed to realize that, although I view myself as really organized, the truth is, I'm just not. I'm really good at following a system of order as long as it's already in place but terrible at implementing one. And no one else in my house is inclined or qualified to put such a system in place (with the possible exception of the cat but she's too mean to offer to help.)

So anyway, Heather introduced me to a web site at www.flylady.net. FlyLady is an actual person named Marla Cilley who developed a system of housecleaning and getting rid of clutter (or, as she calls it, CHAOS: Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.) It's a way to get your whole house organized, fifteen minutes at a time. Well, you can imagine my reaction, right? Seriously, as I subscribed to the web site and began reading up on the system, in the back of my mind I was thinking, "I bet I can get a really funny column out of this. Heh, heh."

The system begins with the "simple act of shining your kitchen sink and realizing how much pleasure that can bring to you." "Right," I thought, rolling my eyes. But I did it. And the thing is, a weird kind of chemical reaction took place. I shined my sink and then for the rest of the day, I walked through the kitchen and noticed this pristine and empty porcelain sink in the midst of counters piled high with ...STUFF. Gradually, I found myself clearing off counters, almost without realizing it. Had I been brainwashed?? Was there some potent narcotic in the Soft Scrub? What was going on here?

It turns out that the counters in my kitchen have a technical name. The FlyLady calls them "Hot Spots." A hot spot is an area that gradually takes over when left unattended. The premise is that Clutter Attracts Clutter and so, by clearing out these Hot Spots, we eliminate an area where the rest of the family stacks things when they do not want to put them away. "It is our job to nip this in the bud! Get rid of that pile, find the surface underneath and stop this Hot Spot from becoming a raging clutter inferno!" says the FlyLady. More eye rolling on my part. But guess what happened? I cleared off the counter where we keep our keys, phones, mail that needs some sort of action, pre-school artwork, work papers, coupons, lists... and it was so clean that no one else put anything there all day. It was amazing. I didn't clear off the whole counter all at once --just cleaned for a few minutes at a time while I was standing in the kitchen so it didn't feel like work.

Then I learned about the 27 Fling Boogie --which is NOT something disgusting that my children like to do right before being evaluated for the Talented and Gifted Program. You just go through the house and collect twenty-seven things to throw away. And then you go through the house and collect twenty-seven things to GIVE away. (You don't get to go back through and take stuff out again. The FlyLady has seen your kind before.) And you have to do it FAST. The first time I did this, I picked up twenty-five pieces of band-aid wrappers and two used diapers and I gave away twenty-seven magazines from the 1980's. Okay, so it wasn't a stellar first effort but hey, it was a start.

The system goes on and on. FlyLady divides the house into five zones with the goal that, over the course of a month, you've worked in every zone in your house. She is very big on establishing morning, mid-day and evening routines -you can basically be as regimented as feels comfortable. Every time you master one step of the system, there are additional steps to learn and do. You do it at your own pace and you disregard anything that doesn't work for you. Membership is free and entitles you to at least seventeen e-mails a day reminding you what to do. Here's where my natural resistance toward anyone telling me what to do showed up. On the first day, when I received the last e-mail suggesting that I GO TO BED, I was OUTRAGED. I'm thirty-seven years old! I don't need someone to tell me to go to bed!

Oh, wait, I've been PRAYING for someone to tell me to go to bed...

"Oh. Well, still," I thought. "I'm unsubscribing in the morning."

But the next day, I really read through the FlyLady's web site. And what I realized is that the FlyLady is doing through her system what I hope to do through my column: she's dropping breadcrumbs to show the way out of the forest. She's just showing her subscribers what worked for HER and she's trying hard to encourage us into thinking about our LIVES as a series of tiny baby steps, as opposed to Giant Steps For Humans Everywhere. And she's so NICE about it. She keeps telling her subscribers that it's not about Perfection, it's about Progress. (Wow, like raising children.) She laughs at herself and freely admits her mistakes. (But I didn't really get that just from the e-mails, I had to read through her website to really find Marla. Otherwise, I found myself reacting to those e-mails with the same spirit I react to that Dominatrix Nazi on the Abs of Steel videotape. This probably says more about me and my problems with authority than it does about anything else. Ahem.)

Anyway, what I realized is that most of us approach the big jobs in our life like we are waging a CAMPAIGN. We clear our schedules and we put on our grubby clothes and we spend six straight hours cleaning our closet. Or we adopt a new eating plan that causes us to forego all foods except cabbage. Or we begin our exercise program by signing up for a triathlon. Except, of course, it never happens. Show me a parent with six free hours in a row and I'll show you someone whose children are out of town and who has rediscovered the beauty of napping. But fifteen minutes? Well, we can all find fifteen minutes to throw some paper away, or to exercise, or to make a salad.

So, it's been a week. And my house looks so different, you would LAUGH at me! I feel very sheepish sitting here telling you about my Come To Cleanser Conversion. I feel very uncool. I thought about scrapping this column altogether, afraid that you'd think I'd become some Stepford Wife. I'm not sitting here, dust cloth in hand and demented look in my eyes, just aching to clean the blades of my ceiling fan! Really! I promise! I'm just telling you about a breadcrumb I found.

I can't explain how the FlyLady's system works and why it seems to be contagious. But what I CAN tell you is that my husband got a package yesterday and he took the box and wrapping paper it came in and put it in the recycling bin. I mean, on the same day he got the package. That's NEVER happened before. Ana ate her breakfast this morning and put her plate in the dishwasher and went to wash her hands, without me saying a word to her. And Jane SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! Coincidence? Well, who cares? The point is, it happened!

So my column detailing my first day with FlyLady --you know, the day A) my husband came home with a TURTLE he'd rescued from a busy intersection and I couldn't figure out what Zone to put it in, B) the dog shut herself in the downstairs bathroom and had a panic attack that forced her to scrape every last bit of paint off the door, C) while I was figuring out how to organize my spice rack, Jane climbed to the top of the seven-foot slide in our backyard (a feat she couldn't accomplish only five minutes before) and in racing to rescue her, I ran across the newly painted floor of my screened-in porch --won't be coming.

It's too bad, really, because it was pretty funny.

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (4) and Jane (18 months). She lives in Austin, Texas and she's convinced the FlyLady is really her mother.