Serenity Now

Anyone familiar with FlyLady.Net is aware that it is a website to help you organize your life. Primarily, FlyLady helps you tackle the chaos in your home, day by day, taking "baby steps" to make a long-term difference in your quality of life.

I signed up for daily emails from this website. Not that I follow all the advice, but I do run across helpful hints from time to time. Like yesterday.

Each day there is a "Morning Musing". This one was titled The Final Frontier, and it dealt with the issue of UFOs in your car. To clarify, UFOs in this case are Un-tethered Flying Objects.

FlyLady went on to address the problems of a cluttered car. A bottle can roll out from under your front seat and get under your feet or the brake. Sometimes in the event of a sudden stop, things can actually fly through the air and hit you.

It reminded me of this picture a friend sent me recently. You probably never want to drive with a can of paint on your backseat, or this could happen.



So, confession time. I can definitely use a little improvement in this area of my life. Things tend to accumulate in my little Scion. Books, shoes, cans of Pringles, books, empty soft drink cans, yoga mats, books, audio tapes, sunglasses, and more books.

When Steve and I were dating 25 years ago I lived in a one bedroom apartment. Not much storage space. When December rolled around I put up my Christmas decorations (undoubtedly retrieved from my parents house - I really don't remember). After I decorated, I somehow had a small tree left over and no place to put it. No problem. I figured that was why God invented the backseats of cars.

Years later Steve commented on how astonished he had been to see me driving around for a month with the top of a Christmas tree bobbing around my back window. Had I known it bothered him, I could have stuck a star on top, claimed I was honoring the birth of Christ, and asked if he had a problem with that.

So...skip ahead 25 years. I don't usually store things long-term in my car these days, but on a day to day basis, stuff does accumulate. Even before the FlyLady thing, my car chaos was nudging at my serenity. Yes, I like to feel serene in my car. Goodness knows I spend enough time there.

So I decided to buy a cute box or something to put on the front seat with me and contain the clutter. Not clutter...treasure. I meant to say treasure.

Unwisely, I shopped for this item while hanging out with my 19 year old son. Being a typical male, he was full of helpful advice, such as, "Don't spend $19 on a pink basket. Go to Goodwill, buy a basket for $1 and spray paint it pink." He had a point, but still...

I ended up buying a darling black and white container that even Andy deemed worth the price. Now my front seat looks like this.

This is an improvement. Trust me.

My favorite thing from FlyLady's Morning Musing was her idea of "blessing your car." She suggested having a set day of the week for this. Fill it up, Clean it out and Shine it up!

I don't know if I'll actually do this on a regular basis, but I did it today! Well, sortof. I went to Mr. Sparkle and drove through the $3 car wash.

Once, when I was there, the hydraulic system broke down. I had to drive my car out manually and the people there washed it by hand, refusing to charge me. I gave them the $3 anyway and asked them to put it in their tip jar. It was still a great bargain.

Today nothing broke down, so I got the normal, machine kind of sudsing. It still looks good tho.

As a final grand gesture, I brought an airfreshner (in a nice spice fragrance for fall). Then I drove my nice clean, good smelling car to the gas station and filled it up.

I'm thinking that next week I might buy a zen garden for the floorboard.