Shining My Sink

July 1, 2011

Yesterday, while reading Amanda’s blog post at “This Side of Reason,” I found a link to a site called "FlyLady."  It’s a place where one goes to get inspired to de-clutter and simplify one’s life.  I found it a little touchy-feely for my taste.  Really, I don’t think that woman loves everyone in the world.

Anyway, she has come up with a system that is composed of a series steps to manage stress and just get happy as shit.  The first step is to shine your sink.  Really.  If you want to read more, just click your way over there.

I thought about the sink-shining idea, slept on it, and when I got up this morning, I decided to shine my sink.  Understand that I planned to shine my sink after I had drunk several cups of coffee, written in my journal, written a blog post, and helped Christy, my Domestic Engineer, work around the house.

So, it was 11 o’clock before I got around to the task I had set for myself.  I took everything out of my sink, put the dirty dishes in the washer and put away a bunch of stuff that was in the drain.  Then I went in search of the stainless steel cleaner I bought one time, a long time ago.  Don’t ask me why.  Maybe way back then, I was already thinking about shining my sick.

Cleaner in hand, I used an old rag to, well, shine my sink.  It didn’t get very shiny.  I think it is about 30 years old.  But I did the best I could and stood, rag in hand, and admired my handiwork. It looked pretty good.  

The thing about shining my sink was, well, that once it was shiny and empty, it was impossible to ignore the little (or not so little) piles of shit all over the rest of the kitchen - papers that were stacked up and needed to be filed, two ceramic bowls that had been sitting next to the coffeemaker for months and needed to be put away, receipts that were scattered about on every counter and that should have been put in the purple plastic envelope with dividers in it I use to store them for a year.  Wait, there’s more - junk mail culled out of the real mail but never thrown away, a couple of wine corks (really),a sink stopper that had never worked but which I had never thrown away, just parked it in the spoon rest I use as a sponge caddy.

Before I knew it, I was de-cluttering like a pluperfect fool, de-cluttering my ass off.  I took all the clean clothes that had been folded and left on top of the dryer for about a week, and I put them away.  I have left clothes in the kitchen so long that I once had to go in there to find a clean pair of panties.  I took the Christmas cards that had been in the basket where I keep my little coffee pods and culled out the ones I really wanted to keep and threw away the ones that had pictures on them of people I hardly know.  I put the three I wanted to keep in my desk in a photo file.  

But I was not finished, and my 1 o’clock nail appointment hung over my head whispering, “Your nails are a mess.”  I took a few minutes to go through my completely jammed pencil and pen caddy and threw away all the ones that didn’t work.  Now there are exactly two pencils and three pens in it.

I forced myself to dress and drive to the nail salon, but all the while I was there, I was thinking of what else in my kitchen I could dispense with.  The minute I got home, nails, toenails and brows groomed to perfection, I donned some gloves and completed the job - even straightened out the pantry - which has no door.

So, there you have it.  Me being me.  I’m fighting the urge to go back to FlyLady and tackle Step 2, of which I have no idea because I only read as far as Step 1.

Do you suppose there is a 12-Step program for de-clutterers?  God, I hope so.  I may already addicted.  

(Please, Sweet Jesus, say it ain’t so). 

© cj Schlottman

Friday, July 1, 2011