Mondays

I secretly love Mondays. I say “secret” because nobody really likes getting back to the beginning of a work week. But for me, it gets back to the “order” of the week and I definitely like things in place.

I have always been organized. You can thank the Girl Scouts for that. I remember being in grade school when I read the Girl Scout Handbook. Somewhere in there was the phrase, “A place for everything and everything in it’s place.” I took to that phrase like a duck to water. I started cleaning and organizing everyone, even if they didn’t want too.

My sister wasn’t too thrilled with this. Apparently, she can recall in vivid detail, my perfectionism as we were growing up. This is from the same person, who tended to wash more of her money because she "forgot" it was in her pocket; this is not however to be confused with the term “money laundering” as it is used today. I however, would have no such thing. My money, if I kept it, would be lined up with the heads straight up and in order. My sister can also recall, with precise detail, the order of the items in my dresser drawers or the order of my nail polish. She is especially fond of remembering these wonderful memories at really large gatherings.

Our bedroom though would be perfect for today’s organization shows because we could save them a lot of time. We had a before and after in one room. They could just take a picture of the left side of the room and call it the “before” picture and then take a picture of the right side of the room and call it the “after”. It used to infuriate me when she would come over to my side of the room, because hers was such a disaster. I secretly prayed for my own room someday.

My mother was not fond of my superior organizational skills either. At issue, was the time I organized her entire kitchen while she slept. I have always been a night person and happened upon an organizational self help book. This was back in the late seventies, way before organization shows took over. I read this book cover to cover one night. It was that night that I discovered my mother’s kitchen was all wrong. She did not have any zones. Her cooking zone wasn’t near her prep zone and you can imagine what would happen. Total chaos! I decided my mother should have the best so I took everything out of her 44 cabinets and drawers and reorganized them into the “proper” zones. I alphabetized her spice rack and had the kitchen sparkling before I went to bed. Martha Stewart would have been proud. But she is not my mother.

My mother had a fit. She yelled out to me at 5 a.m. and ordered me to come down and put her kitchen back in order. ASAP. I tried to reason with her and explain the zone thing but she didn’t care. She said her kitchen was working just fine and that when I got my own home, I could do whatever I wanted. That pretty much ended my organization.

So, it wasn’t too long ago that I was looking for something to do. I had organized and de-cluttered everything with the exception of one area, my desk. I like to think of myself as a creative type and didn’t like that it was a mess. I mean, what if there was a fire and my apartment was on the news with a messy desk? I went on-line to look for some tips and discovered the flylady (www.flylady.net).

The flylady is not an organized person however she helps other people get organized. She’ll be the first to tell you that she is not organized however she started putting things together and now has a website. I know she is not organized because the first time I went to her website, I was like, “what the xxxx?” Everything was all over the place. But, what the flylady does well is this cleaning system or schedule. We have the Weekly Home Blessing, which consists of six chores you do every week. Then there is the Zone Cleaning. She divides your home into zones and then each week of the month you do deep cleaning in the zone. By the end of the month, you have done all of the zones and your home is what I call, “spring clean ready”. You have daily chores too for each room and also your morning and evening routines. It sounds like a lot but it’s easier than it sounds. The best part about this whole system is that you have your weekends free. That means, no cleaning. She says Friday is Date Night; Saturday is Family Fun Day where you spend your entire day with your family. Sunday is Renew Your Spirit Day. She says that you need to get rid of your clutter or “stuff” which she likes to refer to as “SomeThing Undermining Family Fun”. She says that when you clean, you bless your family. Apparently, my dear son is really blessed!

So you can imagine, being an organized person, how much I enjoy the flylady. She also has you break down your week into a Basic Weekly Plan and each day of the week has a different focus. For example, Monday is my Home Blessing Day, Tuesday is my Medical Day, Wednesday is Errand Day (groceries, gas and such), Thursday is Zone Clean and Partial Desk Time and Friday is Paperwork Day. This is all of course, on top of working outside the home. She has a lot of other things too but that’s the gist of it.

So the reason I love Mondays is because I get to start this process all over. Please don’t tell my mother though, it will drive her crazy.