My bathroom is clean.

FlyLady has a useful program that has helped motivate me to keep up the housework.  However, sometimes I get frustrated because there is rarely a room in the house that is all the way clean, as her program is to do a little bit every day, rather than doing it all at once.  You see, she is afraid that our perfectionism will inhibit us from getting through a task enough to feel a sense of accomplishment.  She thinks that if I set out to clean a room all at once, I am setting myself up for failure, as there just won't be enough time to get it all done.  She envisions me taking apart my boys' bedroom, getting halfway through it, and, finding myself out of time, hurriedly throwing things into containers, leaving piles all over the floor, and leaving it just as messy - or prone to getting just as messy within the next 24 hours -as it was when I started. 

While that may be true if I try that with the boys' bedroom (okay, yes, that has happened, I'll admit it), I think I can handle it with the bathroom.  My master bathroom has not been thoroughly clean since I started with FlyLady.  If she had her way, I would swish and swipe all four of my bathrooms each morning (that means a quick swish in each toilet with the brush, and wipe all of the counters), and do a quick mop once a week (and I mean really quick - from what I understood before today, she only allows you 15 minutes to mop the entire house once a week - see below).   But cleaning the light fixtures, fans, baseboards, switch plates, front of the vanity, etc. would only get done every few months.  And I have never had a reminder from her to clean the shower stall or bathtub, to my recollection.  

Today was the beginning of the bathroom week.  I couldn't stand it any longer - my shower stall was covered in soap scum and rust.  My bathtub was dusty (I rarely actually take a bath - I'm too tall to be comfortable in my tub, which stinks, because when we moved in I was really excited about a tub with jets).  My floor was really dirty.  I was ready for a deep-cleaning.  

I decided to disregard FlyLady this week and do the bathrooms my way.  I am going to select one bathroom each day, and go at it from top to bottom.  I started with my master bathroom today, and after three hours, it is clean.  Really, really clean.  I mean, I went the extra mile.  I got on the counter and wiped down all the light bulbs and got the dust off of the top ledge of the light fixture.  I wiped down the cupboards.  I wiped the baseboards.  Everything is clean in that room right now, and I feel good.

After I was done in there, I decided to declutter Dallin and Aidan's room.  They have too many toys and junk.  I took my laptop in and listened to an archive of last Friday's blogtalk radio of FlyLady's show on helping your kids have wings.  There was supposed to be some advice about decluttering their rooms, so I thought I'd have a listen.  During it, I found that she mentioned me.  Yes, I really mean me.  Last week I got frustrated with the Home Blessing Hour and emailed her to ask her if she had any tips for people with my family size.  She emailed back some links to her page with helps for large families, and let me know that the Home Blessing Hour is more flexible than I was making it.  Here's what that is, in case you haven't heard of it:

The Weekly Home Blessing hour is the time FlyLady spends blessing her home. No detailed cleaning required; vacuum the middle of the floors only!  The time on this can depend on the size of your home, could take less than an hour or more than an hour but on average about an hour.  Set your timers and have fun - you are blessing your home and family!

FlyLady sets her timer for 10 minutes to work on each of 7 ways to bless your home:
    * Vacuum
    * Dust
    * Quick Mop
    * Polish Mirrors and Doors
    * Purge magazines/catalogs
    * Change Sheets
    * Empty all trash cans


This takes approximately one hour; some tasks take less than 10 minutes.
 "Don't obsess, set your timer for 10 minutes for each task, then QUIT!"

I decided that FlyLady must live in a 2-bedroom apartment in order to be able to do all of that in an hour.  Or even two hours.  But, as I was told by Laura, who responded to my email, these tasks are to be rotated each week to an area that I didn't do the week before.  I didn't really like this answer, but when I listened to the radio show today, she referred to my email, and said that we also should have the kids in on these tasks, and that they can have their own home blessing hours each week (or maybe their own home blessing half-hour, or 10 minutes, depending on their age).  It's not like I don't have them doing this already - I was just stressing out over the idea that she thought I was supposed to do all of this myself each week.  

As for the links that Laura gave me in her email, there are some neat ideas, although there are also some duds.  The families that are as large as mine have some great ideas, but when I read on I find that they have some advantages, like walk-in pantries, large laundry rooms, super-sized front loader laundry machines, etc.  Oh, well.  But I might take one mom's tips.  She has bought her family some new dishes.  Each child gets a different color, and they each have their own cup, bowl, large plate and small plate in their own color.  They have to take care of their own.  They also each have their own towel and washcloth color.  These are some great ideas!  We have been having many discussions lately about "whose cereal bowl is this with soggy Cheerios in it?"  and "who left their plate on the table?" The only downfall to this is, what do we do when there is company and there are only 9 of each dish?  I can always pull out the china and stemware for a nice dinner, but maybe I'll need to make sure we always have a stack of paper plates and bowls handy for when the occasion doesn't call for something quite that fancy.  Maybe I'll keep the old dishes in a box in the basement for backup.

I also seem to wash way too many towels.  Dallin, William and Ben each have a bath towel of their own, so maybe I'll assign a colored one to each of the others, and instead of throwing their towels on the floor each time they get used, they will be held accountable for their own towels.   I'm always looking for ideas like those, so if anyone has more for me, please let me know (Leisa, if you're reading this, please do tell me how you manage with eight)!