I Started by Shining My Sink
I started getting my physical house in order on the homestead last week by shining my sink.
A few years ago, I shared how my way of life evolved into something rather unique over a decade and a half. And I revealed a valuable guide that helped me manage it all along the way: The FLYLady.
One of My Favorite Guides
Marla Cilley, aka the FLYLady, published a book in 2002 called Sink Reflections, where she revealed her home management system.
Discovering her work nearly 25 years ago and implementing what she taught helped me to overcome the CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) in my previous home and played a huge role in my navigating a whole new lifestyle in my current one.
Needless to say, in my absence over the past two years, what I had established for my home and maintained before then went awry.
Now that I’m back to primarily living on the homestead again, I’m rebooting that whole process. And I’m tweaking it to meet our current needs & near empty nest situation.
For many years I relied heavily on Marla’s website at Flylady.net, but now I see that the site has changed tremendously in recent years. It has become more mobile-device-friendly. However, I don’t have a cell phone, and I’m avoiding getting one for as long as possible.
Furthermore, what used to be freely available online apparently now comes at a financial cost.
But that’s okay. I still have the book, which lays out the basic system. Plus, of course, I still have my years of personal experience & ever-evolving control journals to draw upon.
The First Baby Step: Shine Your Sink
The “FLY” in the FLYLady name represents Marla’s love of fly-fishing and stands for “Finally Loving Yourself”. And her philosophy is all about taking baby steps.
The first chapter teaches her first baby step is to shine your sink. So, naturally, that is where I began, yet again.
The basic idea is to thoroughly disinfect and clean the kitchen sink until it shines. And then keep it shining — all the time. And you’ll never have to deep clean it again.
I must say, a shiny sink continually does wonders for my attitude. It’s a marvelous greeting in the morning, and it is actually an enjoyable task to maintain its sparkle.
Also, I think the idea is to keep the sink empty so that its shine can continually be seen.
The above picture featured in this post is of the sink in my main kitchen after I just wiped down the sink/faucet. (There is obviously some food scraps left in the sink, which I cleaned out after taking the pic.)
I have not yet done a thorough disinfection and final “wax job” as the book recommends, but that sink is cleaner than it has been in a while. And I’m making a habit of keeping it empty & clean. So far, so good. 🙂
What about you? Have you used the FLYLady system? Do you have a shiny sink? Tell me about it.
If not, I recommend giving it a shot. Here’s The FLYLady herself, telling you how to do it…
(Video from October, 2011)
