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24
Mar
A nice person who commented on my last post left a link to a site called Fly Lady, where you can follow their daily cleaning and organizational suggestions and get your life in order. So that sounded good — my god, you should see my desk — so I went on over and read the first Fly Lady tip, which was to polish your sink. Even though the Fly Lady site looks like it was designed about fifteen years ago with a box of crayons and a copy of Pong, polishing your sink is not a bad tip. It forces you to actually get all the dishes out of there, though where you put them is your business — if you’re like me, your oven is already full of old newspapers, but the bathtub. . . .
So I busted out the Comet and took about 60 seconds to get almost four years of whatever, coffee stains off the so-called “stainless” steel in our kitchen sink. Hey! According to the Fly Lady philosophy, smiling into your shining sink “. . . is how I get to hug you each day! That shiny sink is a reflection of the love that you have for yourself. ” Fly Lady wants to keep distracting me with small successes in order to keep me from speculating about the carnage she may or may not have inflicted to earn her Butcher of Lyons-ish nickname, and the distinct shaming vibe I’m starting to feel every time I look at her tutu, her concerned expression, and her index finger, poised to shun me back to my cluttered web 2.0 hell.
Fortunately, the second day tip stopped me cold. Much like the time a grammatically impenetrable translation of The Communist Manifesto kept me from further enjoying the works of Karl Marx and Co., Fly Lady’s tip #2 made me realize that she is in desperate need of a copyeditor.
Day Two: “Get dressed to lace up shoes.”
Here are some possible interpretations I have come up with for this mysterious phrase:
- Get dressed and then put on some lace-up shoes.
- Put on your finery and then sit down and put some new shoelaces in your shoes that have old, broken shoelaces in them so that you can enjoy wearing them again.
- While you’re getting dressed, put the song “Lace Up Shoes” on your Victrola and gaily prance about, delighting in the possibilities of gleaming small appliances.
- Get dressed up, all the way down to your lace-up shoes.
- God help me, I keep picturing Judy Garland in “Meet Me in St. Louis.”
Fly Lady herself offers no further illumination, she just says, “Today I want you get up and get dressed to lace up shoes when you first get up in the morning. This means fix your hair and face too.”
Needless to say, our kitchen sink is developing a familiar patina of neglect and the clothes in the washer smell like compost.
- Published by Eden M. Kennedy in: Main
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53 Responses to “Parse This, Batman”
The clean, shiny sink was the only good thing I took away from that damn website.
Is she holding a fishing pole or a riding crop? Which would be less disturbing?
I tried Fly Lady several years ago. I didn’t make it a week because the emails were so GD obnoxious. The lace-up shoes thing, the inspirational messages that read like an off-brand Chicken Soup for the Fifties Housewife…I couldn’t take it anymore.
I do think the basic premise is probably really good, though: empty and clean your sink every day, focus on one room at a time rather than let the whole house overwhelm you, purge on a regular basis.
Honestly I tried to follow her for a long time and the actual tips and routines are helpful but you really do have to blur your eyes and pretend you can’t see a bunch of stuff that’s weird, silly or down right offensive.
It’s a fishing pole. She used to teach fly fishing. If that helps the disturb-o-meter.
I regularly see people talking about how the fly lady saved their life. I go to the website hoping for some type of cleaning routine, but I can’t even make it past the first page. I stare. I scroll. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do there! Can someone make a website to offer html cleaning help to the fly lady?
I’m a little concerned about waxing my sink with a toxic substance. That doesn’t seem like a good plan. I also suddenly feel the need to go out and buy lace up shoes and then re-lace them.
I’m actually IN St. Louis for the first time ever doing a research/school thing and the entire time I’ve been here that stupid song “meet me in st. louis, louis” has been in my head. If that is indeed what the tip is referring to, I want absolutely no part in it, thankyouverymuch.
LOL, I’m so with Loonytick. Very funny.
You’re hilarious. I had the exact same reaction.
wow. now i feel the need to go polish my kitchen sink. it’s been a while since it mirrored anything. i wonder if my eco-products will do the trick…
I agree on the sink, it does make a difference to see it shining, but it lasts all of five minutes here so usually I don’t bother.
However, one day a friend called and said, ‘I’m stopping over and am right up the street,’ and I looked around at my piles of dirty dishes (in my defense, I was cleaning the rest of the house, sadly I couldn’t get her to enter the house through my 1st floor bathroom) and quickly threw them in the oven. Where I forgot about them. Till I started making dinner. And the smell of burning plastic made me remember I had put dirty dishes in the oven, and when my husband later asked why our pampered chef measuring cup was melted, I told him it fell into the bottom rack of the dishwasher.
(In addition to being the Queen of Clean, I am also the Queen of Run-on Sentences. And Lies.)
That was the most confusing sentence I’ve ever read! “Get dressed to the lace up shoes.” What. Huh?
So I did a Google search (like ya do…) to find out if that’s some sort of 50′s housewife/over-achieving homemaker slang (is there such a thing?)
Found this explanation from Sra. Fly Lady,
http://www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Shoes.asp
It clears up a lot of things (yes, lace up shoes are harder to take off, etc.) but was not linked to in her Beginner Tip.
Annoying? Definitely. Enough to stop me from going back there? Probably. But thanks for mentioning it. That is one bizarre lady!
After spending nearly a week (dressed to lace up shoes, of course) scowling and muttering things like, “I’d rather die than clean the fucking sink right now” I donated my copy of that ridiculous book to my mother-in-law. The last I checked, her sink was a disaster, too. And we LIVE in St. Louis.
I think you’re closest with #4. See here: http://www.flylady.net/pages/focus_mar.asp. Also, the wikipedia page for FlyLady is fascinating.
Ok, Poppy posted the same content before me. But the wiki page is still fascinating.
Crayons and Pong!!! LOL!!!!!
(LOL seems so trite, isn’t there something trendier I can say? Will you ask your son?)
I could have told you anything called Fly Lady was dangerous. “Help Meeeeeee, Help Meeeeee!” Ok now you have Jeff Goldblum in a tutu, right?
interesting/crazy!
I tried Fly Lady about 4 years ago while on Mat leave. Her and her damn shoes. Not to mention that we were living in Europe and I would get emails at weird times. I think she’s certifiable.
Now I need to check out Wikipedia for her page – instead of putting my children to bed. She wouldn’t approve.
I looked at Fly Lady months ago and glazed over. That website is not for me. Our house gets tidy often enough to function and keep people happy 80% of the time.
At the risk of being boring, this is what works for us: small, ten-minute tidy-ups. Even when we can’t be arsed and would rather stare at the Internet. Ten minutes’ putting-away, or washing-up, a couple of times a day, and then stop. It keeps the house remarkably okay.
My desk used to look like a landfill site no matter how hard I tried, so I just got rid of it and it hasn’t really been a problem since.
Ok, so here’s the deal. Yes, I recommended FlyLady and yes, the website is atrocious (and it is actually a relatively recent redesign-I know, I know, horrible) and yes the emails used to be overwhelming.
HOWEVER, here is why you should squint and just sign up for the emails (which is all you really need to do, you can ignore the website after you sign up):
1. per Antonia’s comment, FlyLady’s deal is that you only clean 15 minutes at a time and you set up routines so you never have that mad scramble again. The house is always company ready or 15 minutes away from it.
2. the philosophy of wearing shoes all day is that it keeps you in action mode and you are less liable to go back to bed or the couch and god forbid there’s an emergency or you break glass, you’re safer.
3. if you are born organized, flylady makes no sense and is totally obnoxious. i get it. ignore her. don’t sweat it.
4. if you hang with her for a month and just do what she says without judging it, you will see the method in the madness and a difference in your house.
5. there are a lot of people who had really bad (no) parenting and need to learn all the stuff she teaches b/c we didn’t get it anywhere else. “easy” stuff like “pick up after yourself,” or “you deserve to live in a clean, decluttered place,” or “wiping the bathroom sink out every morning means you never have to clean crusted toothpaste scum again.”
So while there are certainly things not to like, the essentials are fundamentally sound and very good tips.
Lace up shoes? That’s what velcro is for! Better yet, I don’t actually wear shoes until I’ve run out of other options…
Thank you, SE, I’m sure if I were less of a jerk I’d actually be able to see the value in what she’s doing, rather than just make fun of her web design.
The thing I took away from reading the Fly Lady years ago was the concept of cleaning with a timer–as in: clean for 15 minutes and when that bell goes off, move on to something else. Chip away in small increments.
When I’m staring in awe at Mount Washmore, I typically want to walk away, but I’ll actually start the timer and chip away for 15 minutes. I’m always surprised how much I can get done in 15 minutes.
I’m a Fly Lady dropout – for all the reasons posted above – but I can’t be smug about it – right now the cleaning method that keeps me sane we all learned from a clown doll on the Big Comfy Couch.
Seriously.
It’s a ten-minute Tidy, and even the kids will do it cheerfully.
I have issues with the shoes too. Also fixing my face and hair. My face and hair are not broken. The thing that really got me was something I read in her book (which I got from the library and didn’t spend money on, thank goodness). She says that you have to start with YOU with all of your decluttering because your husband and child(ren) can’t clean up until you’ve gotten your shit together (my words) and made a system, or something.
Screw that, Fly Lady.
Aw, I love FlyLady. She’s like a next door neighbor who wears a lot of purple and likes commemorative plates, but will watch your kids for you if you’re in a jam, and send them home with chocolate chip cookies they made with her. I got on a graphic-less once-a-day newsletter feed, and it really helps a lot, both with the cleaning and with my attitude towards it.
I like fly lady too, although I think I’m generally pretty organised I’m a shocking procrastinator. I had the emails for a while, but what works best for me, and a few others in the comments is the 15 minute timer. Set the timer to 15 minutes and do something. It’s pretty amazing what can be achieved in 15 minutes. I still use it when I really need to GTD. I have 3 lots of 15 minutes in different rooms and then 15 mins on the PC, I have to admit though once I’m at the PC the timer gets knocked after 15 minutes and remembered about 3-7 hours later.
I’ve just remembered, when we came to your house last summer, I saw the supper dishes in the sink in the morning and I actually thought I LOVE YOU PEOPLE. So there.
Ian’s mother keeps a spotlessly tidy house, and going to stay there terrifies the life out of me. Don’t go changing.
I love flylady – but she is barking mad. I recommend her system to friends – because underneath the weirdness it is a good system – and then say: ‘God, I’m sorry about her’. It’s like introducign someone to your mother and her turning up wearing her most embarrassing hat.
Every so long I email flylady and moan about her feminism (or lack of it). I get back a chirpy email that makes me even madder.
Fussy–oh, no, you are not a jerk. As someone who is a web content writer/user experience designer for a living, her site makes me want to redesign it for FREE. Now. Yesterday. Last week.
Oh, that part about starting with yourself and not the kids/hubby? Annoying, but if you have intransigent, resistant people who don’t see the value in cleaning, they will only change when they see change already. Which means sucking it up for a while and proving to them that doing things your way works and then they start doing it without thinking about it eventually. I just divorced my husband instead of learning to pick up after myself. It was easier. Now I pick up. Mostly.
Every time I just give in and do what she says without getting all pissy, it works.
But don’t worry, Antonia, it doesn’t turn you into mindless cleaning robots. My home is no where near perfect.
Ok. I’ll stop dribbling now.
Gah. FlyLady was one of the contributing factors to my postpartum freakout. I can’t hold myself to those standards AND work outside the home.
My house is still a mess. But by god I’M sane now.
I agree with the idea that the system is sound even if the trappings are weird. I followed FlyLady for about a year when I was seriously depressed and it saved me. I was self-employed, on call, chronically sleep deprived, and basically falling apart.
It’s basically cognitive therapy–and it works.
She’s exactly like someone’s loving and lovable sweet mother/aunt/neighbor. Not a role model for my version of feminism, but someone who will unconditionally support me when all I really want is clean underwear and something for breakfast.
Try the digest version of the emails and/or whatever it takes to set up basic routines. I still have basic routines, but I’ve pulled the rest of my life together enough that I don’t have to have a checklist to remember if I fed the dog.
Wearing shoes in the house is unhygienic! So there. And I agree that I love to go into a house where the counters are cluttered and the sink is full. It makes me feel right at home
I was in a cult once, and FlyLady brings back too many of those cult-vibes. BabySteps. *shudder*
I honestly tried “flying,” but all it got me was a couple of dusters and an electronic timer…
I used to get Fly Lady e-mails, but they seemed so unbalanced in a way that I couldn’t put my finger on. I’m just happy if I remember to wash my sheets regularly.
She’s a little kooky, that Fly Lady. Like as in a little obsessive, 50′s era housewife type crazy. I’ve kept one of her suggestions, though.
“you can do anything for 15 minutes” I promise myself 15 minutes of cleaning and then I am good to go.
All the other stuff is a bit anal retentive for me…
About Fly Lady — totally. I directed all her e-mails to spam for a long, long time. Part of keeping my Inbox tidy. And I don’t need to see my reflection in my sink, ever.
She lost me at shoes, too. I was not ready to fly.
Hey Moxey, I can’t hold myself to those standards and work only at home (and both of my sons’ schools…) So, you are not alone!
I tried the Flylady too but she just sent way to many emails. It was like a cult. I also have problems with her lack of concern for the environment and the overuse of toxic cleaners. I emailed her about this and received a scathing reply. That was the end of that and her e mails!
The only thing I’ve ever really took from FlyLady was that once every six months or so my sink is freaking brilliant.
And we must be on the same growth pattern, my washer smells like compost as well!
I would splat the Fly Lady if I could find my flyswatter. I think it’s at the bottom of my sink because I was going to wash it, but then the kids threw a bunch of milk-filled cereal bowls in there and…dang, I could just use some of this junk mail from the counter instead.
Everyone does what works for them.
“a box of crayons and a copy of Pong”. You slay me.
Ahhhh! I shouldn’t have clicked on that link!
I am unashamed of my messy house. I just tell people “yeah were slobs”. If they have a problem with it they don’t need to come over.
I mean I do clean occasionally but there are so many more interesting things I could be doing.
Oh crap, I should go check the washing machine.
oooooh, Something Shiny…..
Perhaps she meant something about simply wearing actual shoes as opposed to slippers or something which, while comfortable, may not encourage us to be productive.
But I’ll go with insane if you want to.
that’s her whole point–life is more interesting and if you follow the routines, you are never cleaning for more than an hour at a time and usually just 15 minutes.
and yes, she means wear regular shoes so you are more productive instead of crawling back into bed–as i am wont to do.
My Victrola is on the fritz, which, I assume, means I should just stay in bed. Thanks, Fly Lady!
Darn. Bossy loves lacing shoes in the nude. Jesus, is there any fun left?
I’m too lazy to google the meaning (or use the handy non-links in the comments here) – but I’ll take a guess. Maybe it’s like “dressed to the nines” or “with bells on”. Things that make no sense but apparently mean “dress up nice”. While those have some kind of cultural reference, that no one knows anymore, I’m going to go all out and guess that she just made hers up. : )
“familiar patina of neglect”
That right there is why I keep comin’ ’round to Fussy.
Oh thank you, THANK YOU, for your review of that site! Someone sent me that link, or I happened on it, a year or two ago and I was similarly horrified. If I am working at home, or (as I am presently) NOT working, what on EARTH am I going to get up and do my hair and makeup for?!
And, sorry, but I get ZERO pleasure or satisfaction from seeing my gleaming sink before me. Nope, just doesn’t do it for me. Empty? Sure! I LOVE that. But scrubbed shiny clean? Eh, whatever!
I felt like most of the inspirational-yet-dripping-with-sentimentality-ness of the messages within the site were just not my bag. Like those really annoying mass e-mails that contain pictures of kittens that you get from the admin friend at work. They make me want to stab my eyes out.
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