A Shiny Sink

I have found myself to be extremely overwhelmed this week  which typically leads me to being discouraged.  These two things always go hand in hand with me, like peanut butter and sticky stuff.  One of my biggest causes of overwhelment (is that a word?)  is with housework.  I actually do less of it since I lost my job. Although the addition of a child has something to do with it, the main reason is because when I'm not busy with the kids I feel like I need to be working to try to bring in some type of income.  Plus I'm always picking up toys, doing the dishes and tiding things, so finding time for major scrubbing, dusting or mopping just doesn't happen.

Yesterday I was on the phone with my sister who I might add is the Queen of household management.  Her organizational skills could be in the Guinness book of records.  If I could just do 1/5 of what she does I would be so happy, so when ever she gives me insight into her world I always listen with open ears.  She told me about a website called Fly Lady.  I decided to check it out, the premise is that she encourages you through baby steps and not conquering everything at once.  So I went to the intro page and she said to go shine your sink.  I thought "huh" and well "how shiny can my sink get."  Because we live in an older home most of our things have not been updated, with this being said cleaning can be very unrewarding when your hardwood floors don't shine and your bathroom caulk is stained.  But nonetheless, I took that little purple fairy's advice and when I woke up this morning I set out to shine my sink.  I followed her directions and filled both sides with bleach water to soak for an hour.  After my hour soak was done I began the scrubbing and shining process.  I even broke out the old toothbrush and scrubbed.  Now one thing the Fly Lady didn't address was the possible mayhem that may take place in your other rooms while you are shining your sink.  As I was elbow deep in soft scrub with my ipod blaring I realized that monkey 1 and monkey 2 were being awfully quiet.  I walked into the living room to find that Aug had gotten the craft bag out of the closet and all of the markers, crayons, paint and playdoh were strewn across the floor everywhere.  Fortunately I caught it before a major disaster happened.  After my quick pickup  I went back to shining.  Aug ran into the kitchen swiftly grabbed the tape from the junk drawer and was off.  I quickly put down my towel to see what he was up to and I found he had wrapped Addie up in a spool of ribbon and was taping it around her like a present.

Once I got them settled at the table for lunch, I did my last bit of shining and just like the purple fairy had said I felt great,  I had accomplished something!