|
Ask FlyLady Archive!
This is our archive of the previous weeks Ask FlyLady questions and answers. If you missed a question from last week, this is the place to find it.
Ask FlyLady is one of our favorite parts of FlyLady.net. We get so many questions sent to us everyday, that we have decided to share some of these questions and FlyLady's answers with you. You may be surprised by what she has to say! Enjoy.
Friday, May 2, 2008
What does a woman do...
Dear FlyLady,
I need some wise advice, from some wise women. I have two daughters four years apart. Although I'd love to keep all my older daughter's clothes for the baby, something inside me is nagging that I should take them to the second hand store (or charity), except for the really nice stuff. My hubby would be more supportive of packing it all away for the baby. Additionally, I'm not so sure if I should pack all that baby clothes away *just in case* we decide to have a third. What does a woman do????
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Sue
PS. I am fluttering, learning to fly and I feel like I am losing clutter and gaining my life! I actually have time to spend with the kids, and a presentable home. Thank You!!!
Dear Friend,
You answered your own question there is something nagging at you. A woman should bless someone else with her abundance of clothes. The new baby should have her own new clothes. Kids don't need much. You are robbing your children of space by saving these clothes for a child that is not even conceived yet. Four years worth of clothes is a lot of space. Hoarding the clothes will keep you from being blessed. Living in fear that you might need it one day is going to keep you from FLYing and blessing others with your abundance! If you can't afford to buy a few clothes for a new baby then you probably should not be thinking about this because it takes more than clothes to raise a child, but you know this. This ole poor me attitude is going to rob you and them and sentence you to a life of clutter. The longer you hold on to them for whatever reason the worse it is going to get. Let go and watch the blessings fill your life! Beside this is why second children always feel as if they are not loved as much as the first child; they have to wear hand me downs.
Here is an essay I wrote on children's clothes
Now for your children's clothes.
Think about this as you would your own clothes. 7 outfits and 2 nice dress-up outfits for church.
Underwear for a week.
Socks for a week, all the same color. Get each child a different style, so you have no problems matching them at laundry time. You can also use colored permanent markers to give each child a different colored stripe on the toe or their initials.
3 pair of jeans
5 pair of shorts
2 jumpers or everyday dresses for girls
7 T-shirts or long sleeved shirts for winter.
2 sweat shirts
2 dress up out fits for church
1 casual outfit for going out to dinner, party etc.
Optional a sweater for cooler evenings.
1 winter coat
They will also need a couple of outfits for yard work or hard play time. Get them used to changing out of their good clothes when they get home from church or school.
All of this can go in one suitcase or one dresser drawer. LOL! If you have more clothes than this in your child's room, you are asking for stuff to be continually pulled out and messed up. Then clothes you wish to hand down need to be removed and put into size/age specific boxes and inventoried so you know what is there. If there are way too many clothes, bless other children with our excess. The more you have the more laundry is going to pile up. With less clothing you will be
forced to adhere to a regular laundry schedule. No more waiting till all the clothes are dirty and the piles of laundry overwhelm you. When you hoard things, you are not blessing people and you are just plain being selfish!
Let go of this and save yourself a lot of headaches and laundry.
- FlyLady
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Line drying...
Dear FlyLady,
I think it's great that you're tackling Mount Washmore - I've been doing some mountaineering myself lately and things are looking better. Most days I can now see my laundry floor! LOL.
One difference in laundry practice in Australia is that we tend to line dry our clothes rather than use the tumble dryer as our climate is generally milder than in the US and most of us live in houses rather than apartments.
I have lines strung up under my back verandah so that even on wet days I can still get my washing dry eventually. In summer a load will dry in a couple of hours but in winter it may take a day or two.
Is there some way to incorporate this slower line drying into the laundry routine? I fold my clothes from the line into the basket and stretch shirts into shape while drying them on hangers so ironing is minimal.
Busselton
Western Australia
Dear Friend,
We may all want to do some line drying to save a little energy. When I first married in the mid-seventies; my mother-in-law did not have a dryer. She taught me how to use a clothesline to dry our clothes. As newly-weds, we didn't have a washer or a dryer. I loved the smell of line dried clothes and linens. Tuesday was our laundry day. I learned to wipe down the clothesline with a paper towel before starting and how to shake out the clothes to release some of the wrinkles from the washer entanglement. I also learned how to stretch the clothes and hand smooth out the wrinkles as I hung them out to dry. One those days when it was raining; she taught me how to use a clothes drying rack that you could set in the bathtub. You would be surprised at how many items will fit on a clothes rack.
The secret to drying clothes outside or on a drying rack is not to overwhelm yourself with too many loads in one day. But isn't that the secret to laundry in general. If we will just do one or two loads a day we can stay on top of Mount Washmore. In the winter time using the drying rack inside or even just hanging your clothes on coat hangers adds much needed humidity to our indoor atmosphere. This helps to make us feel warmer and our skin not dry out so much with our force air heating systems.
Believe it or not it only takes a few minutes to hang out a load of laundry and a few minutes to take them in. I always got a real sense of accomplishment when doing laundry this way. I lovingly held and smelled of each piece as I folded it and placed it in our family laundry basket. I got to enjoy the birds singing and the beautiful morning and evening. My dear sweet mother-in-law was a hard working waitress for over thirty years. She adapted her laundry routines to her daily routine and her weekly days off on Tuesday and Wednesday. She would do a load and hang it out in the morning or hang it up in the house if it was rainy and when she got home in the afternoon for her two hour break; she would put them away.
We can do this too. One BabyStep at a time! Hanging your laundry on a clothes line only adds a few minutes to your laundry routine. I have a rod above my washer to hang items on. Some of our good clothing and our 100% cotton clothing will last longer if we will not dry it.
So this week let's not use our dryer at least for one load.
- FlyLady
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The FlyLady way...
Dear FlyLady,
I'm sorry to bother you, but I've recently started 'training' to be a 'fly' and just wanted to know when you recommend ironing the clothes as I notice in the 'where's your laundry' reminder there is no mention of ironing. Much as I'd love to wriggle out of it completely it does need doing! What is the 'flylady way'?
Thank you for your time,
FlyBaby K.
Ps. My shiny sink looks wonderful in the middle of my messy kitchen! Thank you!
Dear Friend,
No one hates to iron quite as much as I do. So here is what I have found out. If my laundry is caught up. I don't mind ironing as much. The beauty of this is if you are on top of your laundry it does not need as much ironing. Let's face it, our SHE ways cause us a lot of extra work and ironing is one of those things. When you take clothes out of the dryer before they are dried to a crisp then the wrinkles are not as hard to get out. You can even do it with your hand as you hang the item up to finish drying. When we don't have big loads we don't feel overwhelmed and we will do the little extra things to take care of our clothes. This includes folding them and putting them away in a drawer. My sister hangs up all of her clothes so she does not have to fold them. Everything goes in her closet. I hang pants on a wooden pants hanger from the bottom of the pants. The weight of the pants helps keep the wrinkles out.
When I buy clothes, I look at the use and care tags. This also helps keep ironing at a minimum. Now if you hate to iron then do it on Anti-procrastination Day. Iron 5 items; it won't take long. Spend 15 minutes and it will be done. We spend more time dreading ironing and it is not really bad unless we allow ourselves to procrastinate doing it.
I have found that I love to iron my tablecloths and napkins. I don't wait to do it right before my guest arrive. I do after I have a special occasion so I am ready for a special meal without having to do anything. I guess it is like putting a clean swiffer cloth on my swiffer when I am finished going over my floor. It is ready to swiffer without having to do a couple of steps. The same is true in my bathroom. I keep a bottle of Windex in each bathroom. It is my favorite cleaning product for just about any surface; Mirror, sink, counter tops and even a little spill on the floor. It is my all purpose cleaner. I have it on hand in each room with a sink. For SHEs if it take too many steps to do something we will just skip it. My sweetie calls it the hassle factor!
- FlyLady
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Dealing with laundry...
Dear FlyLady,
If you suggest only going grocery shopping once a week (an excellent suggestion), why don't you also recommend only doing laundry once a week? I do this, and it is great to say that my washer and dryer are only running one day a week. When the laundry is folded and put away, it is DONE until seven more days. Six out of seven days, I can actually say my laundry is done. So, my question is, why do you think it's more desirable to constantly be dealing with laundry and never being done with it? Thanks!
Isn't it better to do a little laundry every day with a routine than to it is to spend a whole day doing laundry. I think weekends are for having fun with our family; not doing laundry
Dear Friend,
Routines keep laundry from becoming Mount WashMore! Laundry has five parts; sort, wash, dry fold and put away.
Not having laundry done keeps us from getting dressed in the morning and makes us yell at our babies when they ask us for clean socks and underwear. This guilt hurts us! Let's focus on our laundry. Set up our routines and get it done.
Here is a testimonial about the connection between our homes and our laundry.
Dear FlyLady,
WOW!!! I can't believe this!!! My house is getting clean because I am doing the laundry. It is amazing.
Let me explain. My washer went out about 3 weeks ago. We went without for about 1 1/2 weeks. I have 4 ds's and a dh, so that makes 6. That is a lot of laundry. The next day, the entire family got the stomach flu. That is A LOT MORE laundry. I had fallen into a slight depression and I was really finding it hard to keep up with anything, let alone that mountain of laundry that was growing in my laundry room.
I got the mission this morning and it was like a lightbulb went off. "It's time" I said and off I went to do my marathon of
laundry. I have done 8 loads today and probably have another 5-8 more to do. But here is the amazing thing. As I rebooted, folded and put away laundry ALL DAY, I found that it was contagious. I went to put my basket of clothes away, and found that I didn't want to put it away until I cleaned out my closet. So I blessed someone else with 2 bags of clothes. Then I didn't want to leave without straightening my room, so I made the bed, vacuumed the floor and cleaned to bathroom and put fresh flowers in there to brighten my day. When I took the towel/linen basket to the bathroom to put towels away, I straighten both linen closets and both drawers that kitchen towels go in. When I went to put baby clothes away, I cleaned out their closets and boxed 2 more boxes to bless 2 other babies with and organized them so that I could put everything away. I brought the jackets that I had washed up and found myself cleaning out the hall closet so that it would look nice when I hung up all the coats and all the while, I am smelling the wonderful home cooked dinner simmering in the kitchen.
Thank you for helping me to remember that clean laundry blesses my family and the clean underwear says "I love you" without a doubt!
Fluttering in Washington
- FlyLady
Monday, April 28, 2008
War on clothes...
Dear FlyLady,
It seems that the more my business takes off & the increasing activities with my children take place, it seems like the war on clothes are taking over! Can you give me any advice on how to get a better control on clothes? How many clothes are enough? How much is too much? Do you have any simple rules to follow for keeping control over the clutter of clothes in our house? I try to do as much as I can with my children right now when they are small (ages 4 & 7; a Preschooler and 1st grader), since I will have back surgery this next year. How can I get a better balance? Thank You for your kind words (or maybe motivational words)!
Frustrated in Missouri!
Dear Friend,
Take a load off!!!
Here is an essay I wrote on clothes.
Dear Friends,
Clothes are invading your sanity!
Too much laundry to do!
Not enough places to put them away!
They are on the floor and any surface or hook in your home.
The closets are packed full.
When is enough, ENOUGH????
Are you sick of dealing with this problem?
Your skinny clothes keep you fat and your fat clothes are enticing you
to get fat again!
Your children's clothes are everywhere; you don't even know what they
can wear or what is to be handed down to the next child.
People give you clothes and you can't tell them no, because you don't
know what you have.
So I am going to give you some guidelines for clothing.
FOR YOU! Keep it very simple. Mix and match. We are going for 7
outfits and couple of nice dress outfits.
7 pair of underwear dark colors and 7 light colors.
7 pair of socks assorted colors and 4 white pair
3 bras; one white, one black and one flesh tone.
1 black slip and one white slip.
2 pair of jeans Pants
1 pair of khakis Pants
1 pair of black or dark pants
2 skirts black, khaki, or print
3 nice blouses, white/cream, red, and black you get to pick your
favorite colors
5 T-shirts. Jewel tone colors and one white one.
3 pair of shorts, denim, khaki, black what ever you like
1 nice dress Black
1 jumper denim
1 summer fun dress.
1 summer weight blazer. I like red or yellow. You can dress up any
outfit with a smart blazer.
1 winter wool blazer I like heather gray or navy
If you have to dress in suits for work you will need 4 skirts or
dresses and a couple of sweater sets. Choose the items that make you
feel good to work in and remember to mix and match. Then if you are
like me, you need one power suit. Pick your favorite color and strut
your stuff.
Then you will need one outfit for workout clothes cute and sassy and
then one for yard work.
Just think about what you like to wear, and make sure you have enough
for one full week. Add enough accents by the color in the T-shirts and
blouses. I know this probably sounds really boring to you, but basis
items of clothing never go out of style. So keep it SHE Simple.
Keep your shoes simple too. Tennis shoes, casual sandals and one dress
pair of shoes. In the winter I wear dress boots, hiking boots and
black pumps, navy pumps and slip on loafer type shoes.
This will take up very little room at all in your closet. You can do
this if you will just release all of those clothes you will never wear
again. Adapt this outline to fit your lifestyle. If you don't wear
pants, then concentrate on Dresses, same with shorts. This is not
rocket science. Have a friend come over and help you mix and match.
With these basic items of clothing, you can come up with several
outfits. Let's face it, we find what we love to wear and we wear it a
lot. If you will look in your closet and get rid of all of those
things you don't wear, you will be surprised at the room you will have
for adding to your wardrobe these simple things. Let go of them and
bless some one that is in need and you will never be wanting. As a
fortune cookie I got a few weeks ago said. If you continually give,
you will continually have. Think about this wise adage.
Now for your children's clothes.
Think about this the very same way. 7 outfits and 2 nice dress-up
outfits for church.
Underwear for a week.
Socks for a week, all the same color. Get each child a different
style, so you have no problems matching them at laundry time. You can
also use colored permanent markers to give each child a different
colored stripe on the toe or their initials.
3 pair of jeans
5 pair of shorts
2 jumpers or everyday dresses for girls
7 T-shirts or long sleeved shirts for winter.
2 sweat shirts
2 dress up out fits for church
1 casual outfit for going out to dinner, party etc.
Optional a sweater for cooler evenings.
1 winter coat
They will also need a couple of outfits for yard work or hard play
time. Get them used to changing out of their good clothes when they
get home from church or school.
All of this can go in one suitcase or one dresser drawer. LOL! If you
have more clothes than this in your child's room, you are asking for
stuff to be continually pulled out and messed up. Then clothes you
wish to hand down need to be removed and put into size/age specific
boxes and inventoried so you know what is there. If there are way too
many clothes, bless other children with our excess. The more you have
the more laundry is going to pile up. With less clothing you will be
forced to adhere to a regular laundry schedule. No more waiting till
all the clothes are dirty and the piles of laundry overwhelm you. When
you hoard things, you are not blessing people and you are just plain
being selfish!
Let go of this and save yourself a lot of headaches and laundry.
Are you ready to FLY with lighter baggage?
- FlyLady
Back
|
