FLYLADY IS GREAT

If you haven't found FLYLADY yet, I highly recommend you check her out.

She has a great system for getting control of chaos and organizing your home and life. She gives you step by step directions on how to build your own control journal. She has a shop, lessons, and lots of helpful hints. FlyLady has been a saving grace to me.

You can even do this if you are a working couple. Our reality is as follows:

I get up at 5 am and I am out the door by 6 am. I get home around 3:30 pm, Monday through Friday. I teach at a year round school so I have a strange vacation schedule. I work the same amount of days as a teacher on a traditional schedule, but I get off 3 weeks in March and November, 6 weeks in the summer, two weeks at Christmas and all the Monday holidays.


My husband is a straight commission salesman (meaning if he doesn't sell a car, he doesn't get paid) and his schedule is all over the place. Sometimes he works 8 am to 6 pm. Sometimes he works 10 am to 8 pm, but every month it is different. Also, if he is selling someone a car at 6pm and he's suppose to go home, he can't, so that throws things off too. He has every other Sunday off and one day during the week.

We have little time together and when we do, I don't want to be cleaning. I was feeling guilty, thinking that I wasn't a good wife because my house wasn't spotless. That's when I stumbled upon this site a few months ago. FlyLady is very appealing to my "A" personality, list making, highly organized self. I soon realized that I could adapt her ideas to fit my lifestyle. So, I put together my own control journal. My sections are: PRAYER, FINANCES, CLEANING, FOOD, SCHEDULES, EMERGENCY and HINTS.

In my HINTS section I keep helpful articals that I had found, such as: a list of all the thrift and consignment stores that I like to got to, the fly lady cleaning zone 1-5 list that I found on the bottom of the page and was able to download and use as a reference to design my own and extra copies of a blank monthly calendar that I use for menu planning.

In my EMERGENCY section I keep a list of emergency phone numbers. I plan on adding a list of everyone's email addresses (in case the computer crashes). I am (slowly) getting together a list of all the addresses and phone numbers for family members, doctors, insurance companies (etc.) and other companies that I pay bills too, so that they are all in one place. You have to plan for the future and heaven forbid if something were to happen to me and my family had no idea how to handle our affairs. I wouldn't want to put them in that position, so why not get things in order while you have the chance.

In the PRAYER section I have my daily prayer list. Normally I use a journal as my prayer journal, but I am in a six week Bible study at my church right now called, "When God's People Pray." The study book was written by Jim Cymbala. So, I am writing in this study book instead. I also keep a personnal journal, which I have done since I was twelve years old. I'll talk about keeping a personnal journal in the future.

The next section is FINANCES. First, I want to encourage you to check out my post entitled NOTHINGS SACRED IN SAVING MONEY!.

Second, improve your credit. We only have one credit card, CAPITAL ONE, which we use for everything and we pay it off each month. We use this because we get reward points. I'm going to the east coast this summer and my $580.00 ticket cost us nothing, because of all the points we have. If you carry a balance on any of your cards, STOP SPENDING ON THEM and pay them off as soon as possible. Credit cards are not free money. If there is a big ticket item you want, save for it. Third, get out of debt. You need to know how much you owe and then make a plan to pay it off. My husband and I have NO CREDIT CARD DEBT. You can pay one card off at at time, starting with the card that has the highest interest rate. Lastly, We have a budget and we pay our bills directly. We still get the bill in the mail and see the transaction on our bank statement so I account for it in my checkbook register when I know the bill is due.

The SCHEDULES section comes next. Follow the directions on FLYLADY and she will show you how to set up task lists and routines that keep your house from falling apart and make you feel successful everyday. I made my weekly task list so that a months worth fit on one page.

CLEANING is the next section. Again, follow what FLYLADY tells you and this too will be organized and nonstressful in no time.

In the FOOD section I keep my blank calendar, freezer list and a generic menu list. I plan a weeks menu's on my calendar and I check my freezer list and menu list to help me. I keep all of my recipes in a recipe box, but some people keep them in this section.

So take a break, grab a cup of tea, put your feet up and take one step at a time. I encourage you to visit the sites on my FAVORITE LINKS, especially FLYLADY, and to put together a control journal that fits your life and makes your house feel like a home.

PS. As I was finishing this post I found that FLYLADY site has a special section for working women that she will leave up until June. I haven't gone through the material yet, but I'm sure there will be some great hints. Check it out!