Dear FlyLady,

Happy Anniversary to us! Yes, I mean YOU and ME! This week marks a full year since I discovered you, fell in love, and made a commitment to share my life with you.

My CHAOS situation was bad. I am a freelance writer and wedding photographer with a limited budget, and always chasing the money to pay the bills. Being so busy, I didn’t have time to keep the house in order so I could host client meetings at my home, so I was forced to schedule meetings at the local coffee shop. This did not allow me to show my work in the best professional manner. So I decided to scrounge up some cash to hire a cleaning service to come in a couple times a month to help me out. I found a reasonably priced service, and invited them in for an inspection.

They turned me down! They told me my house was too cluttered and messy, and they wouldn’t take the job at any price. I was floored! Yes, there was clutter, and since my husband and I have two dogs and a cat, there was pet hair and dust. But, the kitchen was ok, and the bathrooms were passable. I realized after asking around my small town that the company was not hungry for work—they were taking only new construction and easy jobs where they could just do some weekly tidying up.  So it wasn’t really that I was an abject failure as a housekeeper – what a relief. But I still needed a solution.

That very day I received their “rejection letter” I saw a FlyLady ad on Facebook. One look and I knew we were a match made in heaven. I started immediately with my 15 minute daily assignments, while I awaited delivery of your fabulous purple rags and  feather duster. Now my kitchen is spotless, my bathrooms look and smell clean, and there is not a single dust bunny in sight. My seasonal clothes are all in one place – my closet – and I don’t have to schlepp the off-season tubs of clothes from the basement twice a year.

And the best part? Removing the clutter in my home has also removed the clutter in my mind. I love to get up every morning and face the new exciting adventures that await me.

Thank you FlyLady, for giving me the tools to change my life. I look forward to many more anniversaries to come.