Open letter to The Fly Lady

Dear Fly Lady,

     I have considered myself a "fly baby" since 2004. I've never set your routines and zones into place.  To me, making a cleaning routine and sticking to it is perfection and I am a perfectionist who is easily overwhelmed.  So overwhelmed that I give up and decide that it's to hard to do it right, might as well not do it at all.  I know, I need to learn baby steps. . .  But that doesn't mean that I haven't felt the effects of your cleaning missions and email reminders.
     Today is July 21, we are in zone 4: Master bedroom.  Today's mission was simple; get everything out from under your bed and only put back what belongs.  Here's what happened:

1. Sheets needed to be washed anyway, so the bed got stripped and everything is washing now.
2. Only two storage boxes go under my bed, a winter clothes box (mostly my husbands stuff) and a box with gift tags, bows, and wrapping paper.  After moving those, I decided to move the bed away from the wall, knowing that a few things had fallen from the night stands onto the floor.
3. What else did I find: 2 pens, 9 hair clips, 4 hair bands, a pair of winter boots, a pair of slippers, two socks that were not mates, two hair balls (a lovely gift from my cat), and enough cat hair to support a litter of kittens among the dust bunnies.  The carpet is suppose to be a coffee brown, this carpet was gray.
4. Picked up everything, and everything that I was keeping was put in its proper home.  Then a major vacuuming was needed.  

     I have no idea when the last time the floor was cleaned under my bed.  But after this experience I felt a bit confused but happy. . Confused because no one but my husband or I will ever actually LOOK under our bed, so I can't feel embarrassed by that mess if people come over.  Your original task was just to get rid of stuff that doesn't belong, not a deep cleaning.  But, under the bed is where my cat likes to hide/hang out when people he doesn't know come to the house.  It's where he likes to hide when things get scary or when we go out of town over night.  It is where he would develop an upper respiratory infection if it wasn't kept clean.  You just saved me a few hundred dollars in vet bills.  So thank you!

Love,
Sarah the "fly baby"
P.S.  It only took me about 20 minuets to do all of this.

If you are reading this most and are not the Fly Lady and want to know more about who she is, please visit her website http://www.flylady.net/