Dear FlyLady and FlyCrew,

I think I love you. Thanks to you I know what I’m doing and when I’m supposed to do it. And it all began with a shiny sink…

My mother was a brilliant, hardworking woman who knew loads about everything – everything except housework. I was brought up with the mad-dash-stash panic when anyone came calling, things heaped everywhere, dishes in the sink, warrens of dust bunnies. And the mantras, ‘I haven’t got time to do it properly,’ and that all-time killer, ‘I can clear up all this in five minutes.’ Sure. When you needed a thing, you couldn’t find it, and when you found it, it was broken.

When I married, my DH was the opposite. Dishes had to be washed before the meal was hardly finished, cushions plumped before you got up out of the chair, every tiny job written on its list and NO CHEATING! – the works. I felt I couldn’t meet his standards and didn’t know where to begin. I loved him dearly and wanted so much to please him but I was no wiser as to how to run the house instead of the house running me.

Now both my mother and my DH have passed, I have learned sense and peace from you and I cannot thank you enough. I was skeptical that the shiny sink is the keystone but I tried it and it is true. I do it every night and my sink shines at me every morning. Baby steps, yes; perfection and procrastination, no thank you. My home is still far from perfect because I allow myself to progress slowly and entrench one new habit before I take on the next, but I feel calmer, more in control and more pleased with myself. Would my love were here to see it.

Thank you so much for your help and encouragement. Kindest regards from

Zena Herbert  in England.