The Kitchen
When I first launched this blog I had to make three attempts before finding a url that wasn't taken, which is why my address doesn't match the blog name. What I did come up with, dothedishesfirst, might not have been my first choice but it has profound meaning for my life.
Very little starts me up like a clean kitchen. It's the first thing I see. I stumble out in the dark to turn on the kitchen light (a signal to my neighbor that I'm up and ready to go work out). When light fills the kitchen and I am greeted by cleared surfaces and an empty sink I am the happiest girl in the whole USA. Oh, I know what you're thinking. How can a woman of such obvious depth and insight be motivated to her highest good by something as pedestrian as a clean kitchen?Well, I'll tell you.
First of all, this is the room where I spend most of my time. Besides the obvious, this is where my desk lives, tucked into a corner by a big window. So all my record-keeping, communicating and writing happens in the kitchen. When I'm at my desk my back is to the kitchen proper but I know if it is out of order. And nothing squelches creative impulse (or distracts me when I got nothin') like a counter that needs to be cleared or a sink of dishes. So I like to make sure the kitchen is clean before I go to bed because then I don't have any excuses.
For the last two years since I've been doing FLYlady I have done a good job at maintaining the Prime Directive (if you will) of Flying, which is to shine your sink. The theory, and its a good one, is that if your sink is clean the order will spread to your counters and eventually to the rest of the house. And it's absolutely true for me. Now, this sets into motion a whole host of other little tasks, such as unloading the dishwasher so there is something to put dirty dishes into, but it all works together and the end result is that the kitchen is always clean during the day.
If the kitchen is clean, I can focus. If I do the dishes first, I can relax. If all that is required for me to be in such a state is an empty dishwasher (3 minutes, max), wiping down counters (20 seconds) and cleaning up as I cook (next to no time if I've got my garbage bowl and soapy sink) then it is an exteremly small price to pay for admission to Blissville.
But I've also noticed lately that I'm not the only one maintaining order. Perhaps some sort of unconscious reprogramming is taking place. But the kitchen has been really clean for weeks now and it's not just me. The clean kitchen seems to be speaking the same message to the rest of the household. It looks good and they don't want to mess it up either. So the coffee cup goes into the dishwasher instead of on the counter. The smoothie spills get wiped up. Whatever is going on, I'm not complaining.
We had a supremely lazy weekend, with occassional flurries of activity. Mostly we hung out, ate and watched movies. I got a nice "casual winter" coat from the fam for my birthday. My birthday pizza was most excellent. The season premiere of "West Wing" rocked and now here we are at the start of another jam-packed, fun filled week. I'm glad we rested up.
Very little starts me up like a clean kitchen. It's the first thing I see. I stumble out in the dark to turn on the kitchen light (a signal to my neighbor that I'm up and ready to go work out). When light fills the kitchen and I am greeted by cleared surfaces and an empty sink I am the happiest girl in the whole USA. Oh, I know what you're thinking. How can a woman of such obvious depth and insight be motivated to her highest good by something as pedestrian as a clean kitchen?Well, I'll tell you.
First of all, this is the room where I spend most of my time. Besides the obvious, this is where my desk lives, tucked into a corner by a big window. So all my record-keeping, communicating and writing happens in the kitchen. When I'm at my desk my back is to the kitchen proper but I know if it is out of order. And nothing squelches creative impulse (or distracts me when I got nothin') like a counter that needs to be cleared or a sink of dishes. So I like to make sure the kitchen is clean before I go to bed because then I don't have any excuses.
For the last two years since I've been doing FLYlady I have done a good job at maintaining the Prime Directive (if you will) of Flying, which is to shine your sink. The theory, and its a good one, is that if your sink is clean the order will spread to your counters and eventually to the rest of the house. And it's absolutely true for me. Now, this sets into motion a whole host of other little tasks, such as unloading the dishwasher so there is something to put dirty dishes into, but it all works together and the end result is that the kitchen is always clean during the day.
If the kitchen is clean, I can focus. If I do the dishes first, I can relax. If all that is required for me to be in such a state is an empty dishwasher (3 minutes, max), wiping down counters (20 seconds) and cleaning up as I cook (next to no time if I've got my garbage bowl and soapy sink) then it is an exteremly small price to pay for admission to Blissville.
But I've also noticed lately that I'm not the only one maintaining order. Perhaps some sort of unconscious reprogramming is taking place. But the kitchen has been really clean for weeks now and it's not just me. The clean kitchen seems to be speaking the same message to the rest of the household. It looks good and they don't want to mess it up either. So the coffee cup goes into the dishwasher instead of on the counter. The smoothie spills get wiped up. Whatever is going on, I'm not complaining.
We had a supremely lazy weekend, with occassional flurries of activity. Mostly we hung out, ate and watched movies. I got a nice "casual winter" coat from the fam for my birthday. My birthday pizza was most excellent. The season premiere of "West Wing" rocked and now here we are at the start of another jam-packed, fun filled week. I'm glad we rested up.
Labels: Flylady
cobbled together by Moi at 8:36 AM
1 Comments:
wow I have a flurry of comments. I like the exersice or the mental note of keeping the sink clean and all else will fall in line. I adhere to something I do which is starting in a corner and working my way out. I find a corner start cleaning and dont stop until its perfect and then just work my way out into the rest of the house. * My other comment was an exersice I did when I was first married. The Bible mentions we are one flesh so I decided to test this out and began doing the dishes gleefully with no intention of getting my better half to do them I finally trained myself not to mind doing them forgot about the test then remembered it one day when we were both sharing KP duty with no fighting. HA HA one flesh. She fell into my sinister trap.
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