Keeping House - Zone 1 (Entry, Porch & Dining Room) - August 2011

These are the dates for the Zones in August.  Add them to your calendar, to remind yourself where we are.  I use stickers to record the zones on my calendar (read more here).

• Zone 1: The Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room (August 1 - 5)
• Zone 2: The Kitchen (August 8 - 12)
• Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room (August 15 - 19)
• Zone 4: The Master Bedroom (August 23 - 27)
• Zone 5: The Living Room (August 29 - 31)

Day One
The first thing we must do before we start our detailed cleaning is declutter the area. So today you need to put away any homeless items that have made their way into the entrance of your home. Things like shoes, hats and bags need to be put away. That pile of junk mail needs to be read or simply thrown out.
If you have nothing to put away - yay for you!! You can give your doormats a shake out and the porch/patio area a quick sweep.  Day one in Zone one is done!

Day Two
My plan for day two is to clean the front entrance window glass. I use Windex wipes, they are so quick and easy, and don't leave any streaks. I have a floor to ceiling window in my entry, and to wipe over both the inside and the outside takes less than 5 minutes! This is all I am doing here today - it makes the world of difference to the front of my home.

Day Three
I noticed the other day my front door is really dirty. So, for my third day in zone one I am going to clean the front of my wooden door. It has lots of grooves and detail in the wood, so this one takes a little time. I will use a rag and a bucket of soapy water to clean the door, and then I will wipe it down with an old towel.

Day Four
Today we move into the dining room. Just like in the entrance, the first thing we must do is declutter.  Put away anything that doesn't belong here.  Paperwork that is on the table, shoes that are hiding under the table on the floor, projects that were being done on the table, but have sat idle for the past week...  Whatever it is, put it away.  If you have nothing to put away, then your job is to rotate your chairs.  This ensures that your chairs wear evenly.  The sun can cause wear and tear on your furniture, and so can different people's weight.  Rotate the chairs to ensure that your chairs wear at a similar rate.

Day Five
The job in here is to shine your Dining Table.  I use Mr Sheen and a microfibre rag when doing detailed cleaning of my wooden furniture.  Clear everything off the table and clean that table until it shines! And then put a vase or ornament in the middle of the table when you are done - something that makes you smile :)

I hope that you can see how easy this system is - the jobs are few and simple. Next month we will do some different jobs and before you know it, your entry way and dining room will be permanently spring cleaned!

Keeping House with Flylady's Zones

For those of you who don't know the 'Flylady Zones', I am going to explain it in my own words for you today.  I have lots of friends and family that I have referred to Flylady over the years, but many of them have come back to me more confused than enlightened.

I will admit that the website is somewhat difficult to follow, and the best place to start is with reading her book 'Sink Reflections'.  It is a great read, and once you read it, it puts all of the pieces of the puzzle together.  It is available as a hard copy or an audio book - I love audio books!  They are great to listen to while you are cleaning or driving or straightening your hair ;)  I find them really inspiring, and a great use of time, as I struggle to find time to read generally.

So, Flylady breaks the house into five 'Zones'.  She then breaks each month into weeks, so that approximately 1 week is spent in each zone (some zones are smaller than others and hence have less time allocated to them).  By focussing on one zone for a week, the idea is that you will do detailed cleaning, organising and decluttering in one area of your house, and not feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the entire house - it is just one or two rooms at a time. This makes sense to me!  If we break things down into manageable chunks, we are much more likely to succeed :)

Cleaning Make Up Brushes

I have been addicted to Napoleon make-up ever since my sister-in-law's wedding.  Her gorgeous friend Tracey did an amazing job on our make-up, and I was inspired to spend more time learning how to apply my make-up properly.

A few months later, my sisters and I booked in for the Napoleon 'Paparrazi Ready' Make Up Course.  It was six hours of girly fun, playing with make-up and learning lots of tricks of the trade...

One of the most important things that I learnt, was to use brushes to apply make-up.  Not only do you get a more even/precise coverage, it is much more hygenic than using your fingertips.  And the best part is, that you use less product, because it not soaking into your fingertips or a sponge - and this ultimately saves you money!  It is surprising the amount of liquid foundation that I used to use, compared to now that I have my brush.  It is much, much less.

Alarm Clock

So we all struggle to get out of bed some mornings!  And for many different reasons... my reason most recently is that I have been staying up late reading my favourite blogs and updating my blog!  This makes it much harder to get out of bed in the morning - especially if you have to go to work..

So, aside from the obvious strategy of going to bed earlier (which I highly recommend), I thought I might share a few ideas that help me to get up and moving in the mornings....

I use my iPhone alarm.  I choose an alarm tune that is a little uplifting.  I have tried the blaring BEEP BEEP tactic, and all I do is get cranky that I have been woken up with such a startle!  I have also tried a nice relaxing melody, which usually sends me back to sleep!  So, I have settled with a nice tune that has a bit of beat to it, to get my spirits up, but is not so harsh for first thing in the morning.

I write myself a nice label for the alarm.  Currently, my weekday alarm says 'Its a beautiful day!'.  The first thing that I see in the morning is this lovely message, which gets me in the right frame of mind for the day ahead.  And my weekend alarm says 'Yay!  Its the weekend!'.  (Yes, I set my alarm on the weekends - I hate sleeping in!  I love to get up and get moving so that I can make the most of the day.  When I had my six weeks holiday recently, I still got up every single day at 5.30 - I just feel like I have wasted my day if I sleep in.)

Baking Tip - Grating Butter

Just recently, I have discovered the wonder of grating butter!  Yep, that's right - I get out my block of butter and grate it!

Why??  I have no idea what inspired me to do this, maybe an instruction in a recipe??  I can't remember....  But it is such a wonderful trick :)