Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley
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Book Reviews of Sink Reflections
Book Review: Dissatisfied with Disorder?
Summary: 5 Stars
Marla Cilley used to live in chaos but over the years she developed a plan and turned herself into a very organized person. Her methods work and her writing style is friendly and easy to understand. For most of the book she talks you through her cleaning methods and explains which days she does specific cleaning jobs. While that is helpful I was thinking it would have been nice if there were a few pages to photocopy so you wouldn't have to write everything down. Still if you take notes while reading it is easy to organize all the tasks at hand.
I like Marla's idea about starting with a clean sink. I also use her advice about wiping out the sink after each use to keep it shiny. I had actually just cleaned my sink tonight when my husband came home and decided he was going to wash his hands in the sink. Call me obsessive but I wiped out the sink after he used it because I like waking up to a clean kitchen. Marla is right, it does make your day go better when you start the day with a clean house.
While Marla talks about getting rid of junk mail I found that if I write to the companies sending me mail and I ask them to take me off their mailing list (even stores like Target seem to listen) I don't have so much junk mail to sort through. In the section on how to cook she doesn't give any recipes or cookbook ideas. My solution for that is to go to the library once a week and get new cookbooks. The library has tons of cookbooks so I'm constantly trying new recipes and making a file of recipes that I love and will make again. If you want you can also look for Seasoned with Love: A collection of best-loved recipes inspired by over 40 cultures, a cookbook I wrote in my spare time over the years. It has lots of recipes that are easy to make and taste great. There are also free recipes at my site.
What this book lacks is a good section on how to clean bathrooms (the author uses windex and all-purpose cleaner - what about disinfecting? - she talks about disinfectant spray she uses occasionally). I clean houses for a living and found there wasn't very much information on what cleaners to use. That would have been very helpful. Personally I currently use lemon scented Lysol and Clorox wipes for the bathrooms. If they need more of a scrub (like a ring in the tub) I use Bon Ami, which doesn't scratch. You can also remove calcium, lime and rust by using CLR, which is found in the grocery store. It works great on stainless steel sinks. For a while I used all natural cleaners but haven't found any that can be used as a disinfectant and my clients didn't like the scents of the natural products. Soft Scrub with bleach is also very effective on mold in the bathroom especially around the top of the shower where it seems to grow. If you are looking for all natural cleaners you can look for Seventh Generation and Mrs. Meyers. Both are excellent lines and I use some of their products in my own home, especially the laundry soaps and softeners.
When I'm cleaning my own home I do use a similar system to Marla in that I clean sections of the house on different days. She calls this "zone" cleaning. Basically I only clean what is dirty and do a few jobs a day. The kitchen is the worst because I love to cook so that gets cleaned almost every day.
"Sink Reflections" also has some good advice on how to get your family to help you clean. She describes how you can make a game out of cleaning the kitchen floor. There are some good ideas about how to keep your family organized and some excellent tips on how to get rid of clutter. If you are moving there is a chapter devoted to that topic. If you are going on a vacation you might find the lists of things to take with you helpful.
So for the most part this book is very helpful. It brought back childhood memories of my mother teaching me to clean my room. She put everything in the middle of the floor and then I had to put it all away. Needless to say I think I kept things much more clean after that experience. One of my aunts actually had a small cleaning business and taught me to clean so if after reading this book you still want to learn more about cleaning, hire a housecleaner to teach you how to clean your house professionally. It is worth the extra money and maybe you can spoil yourself by having a housecleaner come in to clean every now and then. To clean a house it normally takes me about 3-4 hours but this book recommends that you do cleaning in 15-minute increments. In my years of housecleaning I've seen some pretty disorganized and dirty homes but with a little effort and a lot of love you can make progress in a short amount of time. So what are you waiting for, buy this book and experience the bliss of a clean organized home!
~The Rebecca Review
Book Review: Flylady was the Answer
Summary: 5 Stars
The writer of this book, Marla Cilley, goes by another name: Flylady. I own this book and have read it. But there is another way to experience Flylady if you have a computer. You can receive all the wisdom contained in the book by joining her e-mail coaching list. I joined her list over a year ago and it has completely changed my life. Bit by bit, I read and absorbed her wisdom and have been transforming my life and my home.Because the Flylady had made such an impact on my life, I bought her book immediately after it was published. As I read it, not much was unfamiliar to me because I had been a member of her e-mail group, and yet having it all in one place was very valuable to me. Despite having received a lot of information contained in the book through the e-mail group, I still wanted to own the book and use it frequently.
This book will especially be helpful to people who have a real problem figuring out how to keep and organize their home. Probably every person will find something to benefit them from the wisdom contained within, however, people who really struggle with issues of getting their act together will be especially helped.
I was at my absolute wits end. I have an extensive collection of self-help books on organization and overcoming clutter. Each and every book has been interesting and hope-inspiring, and has presented helpful techniques and approaches. Yet to my great despair,I was never able to find a way to make it all work for me. At one point I decided, maybe I need outside help and hired a very expensive (and famous)organizing professional to help me. I paid several thousand dollars for an organizing plan, and hired these organizers at $75.00 an hour to try to help me overcome my disorganization problem. They even selected me to have a makeover in a famous magazine after seeing pictures of my disorganized, cluttered home. (The story was killed by new editors who took over the magazine, much to my dismay).
It was Flylady's way of teaching and coaching that was my salvation. Her method is so doable. You start with baby steps, and you never do more than you are ready for. She starts you off with one task, and one task only. To shine your kitchen sink. It is so easy to comply with this first step. Even if you never do anything else, it is so simple and easy there really isn't a reason to try.
When you become really comfortable with shining your sink every day, she has you add another step: developing a simple evening and morning routine. Lay out your clothes for the next day in the evening, and get dressed to your shoes every morning. You can practice and stay on these beginning steps for as long as you like, until you feel comfortable to move to the next step. She likes to say that you are never behind and don't need to get caught up. She tells you to take everything in baby steps. You can go as fast or as slow as you like.
Later she add her brilliant strategy of decluttering to your steps. For only 15 minutes a day, you work in various zones in your house decluttering. It is so simple. Anyone can work 15 minutes a day. And, miraculously, you discover the power of what 15 minutes can accomplish.
Things seem to get more complicated later on, but you don't even notice, as she leads you through adding simple daily routines, making a weekly plan, putting together a control journal, learning meal planning, holiday organizing. Because everything is given to you in little pieces, you never realize how much you're doing because you only add each new technique one layer at a time. You build on what has come before and you never feel like you're doing very much more.
A year after I have been putting her methods into practice, I have a completely different mindset regarding keeping my home. I have experienced a year now of chaos-free, much reduced stress holidays. I have done many projects that I've always felt bad about never getting around to. My family and friends all comment on the difference in my home. My counter (which had been for years a source of despair for me, as it had been covered with piles of junk that I would spend hours cleaning, only to have it reappear a couple of days later) is now always clean and clear. The problem of my counter which had been impossible for me to solve, has been so easily and elegantly solved by Flylady. I have learned from her that my counter is a "hot spot", and that nothing can be on it because "clutter begets clutter. By looking at this "hot spot" and putting out fires that erupt in it during the day, I have been able to effortlessly keep it clear.
I still have a way to go. I'm still building on my layers of knowledge with Flylady's system. I have every confidence that her methods will prove to be an answer for me. If you are in despair and don't know where to turn, please give her a try.
Book Review: FlyLady Gave Me a PEACEFUL Home!
Summary: 5 Stars
I suppose I don't fall into the sterotypical FlyBaby category. My husband & I don't have any children. I spend most of my week in the office, shuttling from one meeting to the next. I am not a stay at home wife or mother.
Yet, although FlyLady's tips and routines may seem obvious to some, they weren't obvious to ME. I am not depressed. I am a very confident, intellegent, successful professional. But when it came to my home, it was totally out of control. And I kept falling into the trap of thinking that the CHAOS of our home must be due to some complex, time management problem.
I've never been much of a pack-rat, neither has my husband. So, the amount of clutter in our home was minimal (though there was SOME...especially in our attic, laundry room and garage). Our problem has always been trying to find a way to keep up w/ the daily chores of life. My husband & I both spend our mornings & evenings fighting grid-lock traffic in the city. We spend the majority of day running from meeting to meeting in our respective careers. We get home at night, exhausted most of the time. Nobody wants to cook. Nobody wants to clean. Nobody wants to pick up and put stuff away, or throw out the stuff we don't need.
Then the weekend rolls around & we're playing "catch up." No time for us or our marriage. Nope. On Saturday morning its time for grocery shopping, errands, household chores, laundry, you get the point. A year into our marriage & we realized how much we MISSED each other. And honestly, we REFUSED to hire a cleaning service. IMO, there is NO REASON why we need to PAY for someone to clean up after 2 people. No reason at all. But we both agreed that we HAD to do something. We didn't enjoy coming home after a long day at work anymore. The place was a MESS by mid-week, every week.
Then, I found FlyLady. My husband thought I was crazy at first. I think he was waiting for me to start wearing pearls around the house & acting like Martha Stewart (which I imagine frightened him because he did NOT marry a Martha Stewart-type woman). But in a matter of 2 weeks, I was amazed at the results and my hubbie was singing a new tune.
FlyLady's system, though obvious to some, was an enormous help to us! Through her suggestion, we signed up for the Weekly Menu Mailer. No guess-work on dinner anymore! We're saving money on groceries. Regardless of which one of us get's home from work first, "what's for dinner?" is always simple answer. Just whip out the recipe and get cooking! Usually w/in 20 minutes, we're sitting down to a great meal...every single night. No more staring at the pantry dumb-founded. And you'd be amazed at what a good cook my husband has become! GOODBYE, MCDONALD'S!
The weekly routines have been amazing, as well. We keep our Control Journal (listing all our routines) on the kitchen counter. If I get delayed at work, I come home to find that hubbie just needed to look up the day and he knew what tasks needed to be done. We both pitch in, with an ORGANIZED PLAN OF ATTACK, every single day.
And the best part? On the weekends we have time for US. We bought a sailboat earlier in the year. We had taken it out all of 2 times when we started FlyLady. Well, if this past weekend is any indication of how well her system works, we spent a solid FIVE HOURS on our boat on Saturday....with no worries that we were neglecting any household obligations.
Thank you, FlyLady. Sometimes a busy executive can't see the trees for the forest. Your simple little system has made such a difference in our home!
Book Review: A true mentor for those of us who need one....
Summary: 5 Stars
I cannot say enough good about Marla Cilley, aka "FlyLady". Her methods have completely transformed my home, and I'm still just baby-stepping along. But the transformation that has occurred in my home (and the lives of my family) because of Marla's very simple routines around the house (and her "coaching) are nothing short of a miracle. The first 19 years of my marriage were spent wondering why I simply couldn't keep a "perfect" home like my mother did, my sister did, my aunt did, my grandma did -- it just seemed to be second-nature to them to keep an orderly home..... I felt like something was wrong with ME because my house seemed to always be a mess.
FlyLady, first of all, wants us to lose those goals of perfectionism and unrealistic expectations we place upon ourselves. I love one of her mottos, "housework done imperfectly still blesses our family". The fact is, many of us grew up in homes where "imperfect" cleaning wasn't allowed. My mom demanded that I clean HER way, and redo it until it was done to HER satisfaction. FlyLady's gentle encouragement and reminders that "we're not behind... just jump in where ever we are" are much more effective than the beating up I used to do to myself.
What's remarkable is that in the nearly 2 years that I've been following FlyLady's methods, I clean WAY less than I did when my house was messy, cluttered, and rarely "company ready" without much preparation. Yet, due to her simple methods of creating quick and simple routines (i.e. I can now daily wipe the bathrooms down in 2 minutes or less which amazingly enough keeps them clean enough so that I NEVER have to spend the 1 hour that my mom insisted was required...), my house almost always looks "company ready". No more late-night crisis cleaning for visitors or hiding behind the front door pretending to not be home so that I didn't have to let my house be seen... The clutter is gone, routines are in place, and suddenly I have guilt-free TIME to do other things that I enjoy.
The book is a great way to get started on the FlyLady methods and to get an overall picture. But, I would recommend using the book in conjunction with her FREE website: www.flylady.net While the book is a great starting point, the website is a constant motivator with reminders, testimonials from others who struggle with these same issues. Not all of us are "born organized". Some of us need a mentor or a "coach" to "teach" us, and keep reminding us -- not "how" to clean -- but how to create basic routines in our lives for keeping a clean home, menu planning, removing the clutter from our homes, financial matters, exercise, etc. that we so often neglect.
The book isn't for those who are just looking for tips on getting organized, methods of "how to" clean -- there are plenty other books out there for that kind of stuff.
Book Review: This book will save you money
Summary: 5 Stars
I was convinced that I needed to buy a new (bigger) house, but once I realized I was living in CHAOS (and that somebody knew what that was and had been there too) and that before I rushed right out to buy that new place I had some decluttering to do -- I got right to it. 15 minutes at a time over only about a month (long enough to establish a habit) I discovered that my house was plenty big enough -- I just needed to stop housing all that clutter and instead decide that the rooms needed only to hold essentials -- and that the only true essentials were my family and me. Now, the effects of the book are reaching into every area of my life -- my Christmas present selection (I don't want to give something that will just be clutter in the hands of the recipient), my purse, my budget, my exercise, my diet, my LIFE.
It is absolutely amazing. Yes, there is a certain amount of "religious" content. I just substitute the word epiphany for God Breeze -- and keep on reading.
The website (and the daily flow of emails and testimonials) are amazingly wonderful. The best part of the book and of the system is -- we clutter-maniacs are not alone and just knowing that someone else has suffered the pain of being so messy that you are afraid to have anyone see your house is comforting -- and inspires us FlyBabies to get moving for the next 15 minutes to make one little spot just that much better.
Also, I would like to reply to the "irreducible chore and it MUST take a certain amount of time" comment: If when I get up in the morning and in using the bathroom sink while brushing my teeth just happen spend time wiping the sink and counter (time I would be standing there anyway) -- is that time spent cleaning or time spent brushing my teeth? I realize that it is both, but that is just one tiny example of how that "certain irreducible amount of time" can be handled.
If in cooking dinner you clean up along the way, is that cooking or cleaning?
If in clearing the table nothing gets stacked in the sink (where it pauses for a week before it makes it to the dishwasher) but just goes straight into the dishwasher, is that clearing or cleaning?
If you know what you are going to wear tomorrow because you have laid it out the night before (and have noticed if the skirt needs hemming or the blouse needs to be ironed -- and so handled it in a few minutes that night), is that just being prepared or is that cleaning?
Above all -- I have discovered that I have too much (and don't need to buy or receive any more) -- and I have discovered the blessings that come to me from giving my too much away to people who have too little.
And all from this little bitty book. BUY IT or go to flylady.net!