Summer De-Cluttering on the FLY

Topping my summer agenda is de-cluttering and cleaning my house and developing a system to keep it almost that way.

Here’s a tip that a friend told me about, the FLY Lady website:

http://www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Decluttertips.asp

The FLY Lady’s suggestions are to spend 15 minutes each day doing a little extra housework in the designated “zone” of the week. The “zones” shift each week, but you’ll eventually come back to the same zone. Add a whole hour of concentrated cleaning each week and I figure I’ll stop living in CHAOS. The FLY Lady loves acronyms. CHAOS stands for Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. That definitely describes our house. FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself, I think. Anyway, these suggestions appeal to me and I’m going to give it a try.

Happy summer everyone!

Save $, energy, and time and make your clothes last longer!

If you’ve ever lived abroad, you know that electric / gas clothes driers are mostly an American phenomenon. I really don’t understand why we use them so much. It’s so much cheaper (on your energy bills) and nearly as simple to use drying racks or lines.

It’s hard to find a good drying rack in the U.S. I’ve looked long and hard for ones like I used in Austria, metal ones with wings that folded out on either side and that had a large space in the middle. When not in use, they fold up to store quite easily against a wall in a corner.

My family and I almost never use our dryer. We don’t miss it either. It’s so simple to air dry our laundry. We do it indoors on our 3 folding drying racks.

Here are some links to some drying racks I’ve found on the internet. (I haven’t been able to find any in any store in the area, though I’m sure somewhere in L.A. they must be available.)
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http://www.mrspeggshandyline.com
I don’t own a Mrs. Peg Handyline, but I think that if I had to replace the ones I have (European-style ones that are breaking and aren’t available anymore in the U.S.), I’d probably buy this one. Not cheap, but your savings on energy are quite a lot! I imagine this dryer would pay for itself in several months.

http://www.joyfulspincycle.com/#ss%20clothes%20drying%20racks
I do own a Butterfly Drying Rack made by the Joyful Spin Cycle company. It’s sturdy, though it doesn’t have as large of a volume as Mrs. Pegg’s model.

http://store.laundrylist.org/SearchResults.asp
Here’s another website selling other clothes line models. Some look really good. The site also provides a more thorough list of reasons why air drying is a great idea - lower risk of starting a fire as well as saving $ and the environment. How could you go wrong?
http://www.laundrylist.org/