Slow and Steady Gets Results or The Flylady is Always Right

I'm sure most of you out there in InternetLand are familiar with the Flylady. If not, here's a quick overview. The Flylay, real name Marla Cilley, is a taking-care-of-your-home evangelist. Her focus is on loving yourself, taking things bit by bit, and not beating yourself up over perceived failures. She's really more of a coach than anything else. Her website is www.flylady.net; check out the Baby Steps and Routines as well as the Ask Flylady column.

I've griped silently about the grease spots that won't come off on my range for a while. I tried scrubbing every once in a while and not much came off. I tried ignoring it, but the look of neglect always nagged at me. So, the past couple of weeks, I've tried a new approach. I spritz the areas with my nice-smelling Cucumber cleaner. I give them a swipe, but just a swipe, not a scrub not a lot of time. And I do it at least once a day. Here's the thing: thanks to these two weeks or so of once a day swiping, those stubborn spots are gone or going.

One of the Flylady's main points is that we should aim to do a little each day, rather than a big amount once a week. Think about it. For those of us who have trouble keeping up with the house (or anything for that matter, you could apply her techniques to writing your book, doing your taxes, running your business), we can become addicted to the rush, the high of seeing extreme results. I mean, if you neglect your bathroom for a month and then clean it, wow, it's going to look great! If you clean it once a week though, it'll *always* look great. But you won't get that high that comes from seeing or being the creator of an extreme transformation. Why do you think makeover shows, for body or home, are so popular? There's a rush to seeing that huge change happen so quickly.

I've started doing the same thing I do with the range with the bathtub. It's grimy and gross. We have a refinished tub and it's quite hard to clean. I've tried many cleaners, scrubbing and scrubbing and no luck. So (finally), I took the Flylady's advice and put a small surface-friendly scrubbie in the tub. Each time I shower, I put a little shampoo on it and scrub the tub surface for about a minute. That's all. I anticipate a shiny, no grime tub within a week or two. And that will be good enough.