101 things #89: Flylady Day 6

...which was yesterday, and which I failed utterly. Sadly, it was also the first day of any actual cleaning! I did try to pick up a little, and I would consider it a 'hot spot', but other than that...

I was gone most of yesterday, honestly. I left for class early, ended up staying for both classes, then raced home, walked the dog, went out with my husband to shop, raced home and ate, then went to the belly dancer sewing circle and didn't get home until almost 1 am. So the dishes I'd brought over to bake cookies (I didn't even have time to bake the cookies at my house!) are still sitting on the counter, and the mixing cups are in the sink. I'd thought about just leaving the bowl and cookie sheet and cookie scoop and flipper in my car, but those mixing cups ruined it anyway (plus, that seemed a wee bit too silly). </excuses>

So yesterday we learned about 'hot spots' - places that collect clutter very quickly and can quickly get out of control. I have many. The kitchen counter (the opposite side from the dishes, where the mail gets dropped), my car, my desk, and sometimes the corner of the staircase. But mostly I'd like to focus on my desk. Unfortunately, the 2 minutes allotted to work on our 'hot spots' wouldn't do crap for my desk, because most of the stuff on it needs to be run to another room. But I'll give it a go.

...and, not much of a dent, honestly. But! I will admit my skepticism, coupled with the time limit, made it more interesting. This might be a 'score one for the FlyLady'. I wanna do it again, see what else I can get done in 2 minutes, which is a huge leap forward (since my desk has been a mess for awhile).

I do typically race things in the kitchen (you cannot unload a dishwasher in the time it takes to re-heat a cup of coffee in the microwave, but you can in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee or heat up a burrito), but usually with something more audible as a 'time's up' signal (I was just using the clock on my computer, which was annoying to have to check). So I do think, to make it more of a 'game', you would need an alarm/stopwatch (I know a lot of phones have this function). And knowing it's for a short time, and that you've given yourself permission to stop, does make it easier to conquer mountains of clutter.

And even though I failed yesterday, today is a brand new day. We'll see how well I do.

101 things #89: FlyLady Day 7, or The Day I Was Nearly Eaten By a Spider

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly

Oh, how humorous it is, in a way (once I got past the screaming and running around frantically brushing myself off) that after a week of working on FlyLady tasks, I walk into a spider web. And not just any spider web, one that crackled and snapped when I hit it. Thankfully, the thing I felt on my back was just a small clump of fuzz/thread, and the spider was still in the web.

For those of you that don't know, the distinctive crackle of a web is specific to the Widow spiders (Black and Brown). They have relatives in Australia, I know, and it seems silly of me to freak out over a spider that only kills in 1% of the cases and mostly just causes excruciating pain, but, well...

The spider in the web was definitely not a Black Widow (it wasn't black) but it very much resembles some of the pictures of Brown Widows (apparently, they vary quite a bit). On the up side, while the Brown Widows have a more toxic venom, they are less aggressive and inject less venom when they bite. Um, yay? They also displace Black Widows, so there's another up side.

In the back of my mind I know, of course, that the chances of getting bitten by a spider (other than walking into the web - hey, the garage isn't well lit and it built that web overnight, since it was attached to my car!) are slim, and even a 'non-lethal' spider could kill you (allergic reaction) and I'm much more likely to die in my car, but... but... it's still icky. And for a little while I convinced myself to throw myself even more headfirst into the cleaning program, until laziness and logic intervened and reminded me that there was nothing messy, cluttered, or dirty in that area of the garage (it was between the cars) and it did build it overnight. We don't have stacks of wood outside, and the only other Brown Widow I found is hanging out in the eaves of house above the garage. Weird. On the up side, it looked like it might be eating a wasp, so, yay?

Anyway, we did re-clean the kitchen, and I did my Hot Spot 2 minute declutter.... then I did some sewing and ripped down some drywall and am ready to call it a night. My new task is to lay out clothes for tomorrow. I'm iffy on this one - I've never had much issue picking out clothes in the morning, proven by the fact that from rolling out of bed to leaving the house is usually about 15 minutes, including taking the dog out. Still, I was folding laundry so I mentally picked out what I wanted to wear, but put it away because anywhere I set it, the dog would lay on it, and I like to at least start the day not covered in fur.