Flylady drop out

I don’t know how many of you have ever heard of Flylady, but for about 2 years or so I was a “faithful” follower. Ok, ok..I hardly ever wore lace up shoes, and didn’t really get to bed on time or get up early, but for the most part I was a good little girl with my routines in place. While browsing blogs the other day, I noticed one lady had listed in her ‘about me’ page that she was a Flylady dropout! I thought that was so funny and something worth writing about because I am in the same boat now. See?!…..

I’ve never really ‘dropped out’ of anything, and I guess I’m probably not a REAL drop out- more like a wannabe dropout- is there such a thing? Maybe I’m somewhere in between because I still follow some of the principles that she teaches, but I just decided that I didn’t need, or want the many emails coming into my box every day reminding me of things I had yet to do.

When you first join flylady you are immediately sucked into the lingo. You are either a S.H.E (sidetracked home executive) or a B.O.(born organized) type of person…it’s all friendly banter of course and you can readily relate to one or the other.

I consider myself a B.O., but I joined flylady after I had my first baby because I was in C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t have anyone over syndrome). From the get-go I was inspired and motivated to do my best. Then somewhere around last christmas I started feeling not so chipper about all the emails. My hubby would tease me in a
friendly way that flylady was telling me to go to bed, or that I couldn’t do such and such a thing because flylady hadn’t sent me an email saying I could do that thing yet. Ha ha!

I think it was one conversation in particular that we had, where I was just stressing out about everything I ‘have to do’ and how imperfect I am. The wonderful hubby that I have reminded me of all the things that I already am doing, and mentioned “you already know how to take care of a house”, “you’re a great mom”, “a great wife”…you know, feel good things like that. After he said that I realized it’s probably why I haven’t had the best attitude about flylady, because I already know how to run a home. It was like an Ah-ha moment. So while I may not be the “Perfect” flylady follower, I have learned what I needed to learn from her and can move on with my life.

FLY stands for ‘Finally Love Yourself’ and I gave myself permission to do that thanks to flylady. She never taught us to be perfect. In fact it is almost a taboo word in the flylady community. “Perfect”…Ahhh!!! the perfection police will hunt you down!

I feel like I have “arrived” at what it means to be a good flybaby. And to prove it to you I am posting these pictures of my house last night. I’m not perfect and I’m OK with that! I think so often we (ok me) beat ourselves up about things we aren’t doing. BF (before flylady) I would have beat myself up about the tiniest mess, but now, if I choose to, I can go to bed with a sink full of dishes and not have a heart attack. There will always be another load of laundry, another sinkful of dishes and another floor to vacuum. I am trying to enjoy my family and if that means a sinkful of dishes versus an afternoon tickling and playing with my children or baking a fresh batch of cookies I think I’ll take the cookies.