Happy New Year, January's here, fly with the fledglings to get clutter clear

[ToffeeChristmascake]

Welcome to the January Fledgling Flying thread. A very big thank you to Ellie, our intrepid leader, for guiding us through the frantic Christmas month.

We are not strict followers of the Fat Fairy and take some of the babysteps - such as getting dressed to lace-up shoes - with a pinch of salt. We also strongly advise against signing up for the FlyLady emails.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's tips on restoring order to our homes, using one of the following methods:

1. Babysteps
2. Babysteps + 15 mins daily decluttering
3. Babysteps + daily missions

Following the babysteps helps to establish daily routines and build a weekly plan.

This month's motto is: You can't clean clutter! See here for Flylady's advice on decluttering.

If you are overwhelmed by the mess in your home, start with just one thing: shine your sink.

And if you need to sort out the house after the New Year revelry is over, a crisis clean is what you need.

Back shortly with tomorrow's babystep .

(With apologies to Ellie for plagiarising some of last month's intro')

Link not working. Come on I am intrigued now!!!

Thanks all for your Dyson comments, may look into Miele, my MIL actually has one, may give it a test spin tomoro!! The joys!!

Going to put on a quick load of laundry, then relax for the night!

Goodness me DEM that's quite a list for one day! Hope both you and DS are feeling better tomorrow.

Hello and welcome to whatthedeuce and other new people and welcome back to DWM and Dolanette.

I have to admit that I am by some of your Dyson tales of woe. I have the small version of the Dyson ball and love, love love it! I love my handheld animal one best of all though.

Laminate flooring is down bar a bit of finishing off, which I am hoping DH will do shortly. All girly baby clothes sorted and either chucked or donated to friends. A bit that I won't have another little girl tbh as DD is so fab at the moment, although I'm sure DS will be lovely once I get to know him .

A random assortment of upstairs things done inluding poliching of doors and light switches, but not hoovering or making beds as the choice of task has been very much influenced by the 'help' of DD .

General wave around the thread. I'm off to stack the dishwasher!

crosses fingers link will work this time

Lair no problem, New Year, new start and all that. I've been thinking of changing mine but can't think of anything else.

Wow, 55 posts on the first day of the year/thread, I'll never keep up

Brilliant round-up Toffee - shopping trip sounds like good idea but need to sort out wardrobe first.

Nettie - at cat's protection of tree and at family meal discussions.

Today has consisted of me doing most of my Morning Routine, a little work (monthly invoicing), a bit of ironing and nice dinner at neighbours. That's enough for the first day of the year I think :)

I think i shall post a list for tomo:

shine sink
fold washing
put away folded and ironed clothes
put away christmas decorations
find all stuff for ds' return to school
Update Ds' visual time table.
At least finish January's entries in the calanders so they can go up

Hellooooooooooooooo all

Great round up Toffee

To answer a few questions I saw as I went through

Dysons- wouldnt touch them again, love my Miele tho

Control Journal- dont kill yourself with it yet, and DONT feel the need to
a) but one from there- as it has 3 holes instead of 4 and so you can hole punch anything to go in them
b) put in post in notes telling you to love yourself

But it IS a good idea to make a start on thinking about what is in -or should be in- your before bed routine
(for me it is
empty sink,
spoons, bowls & cereal out
Cup with tea bag in my kettle with water in
Clothes out for both us
Check bag for the boy
Know where the shoes & keys are)
and start to jot it down as that can form a fairly solid part of your CJ

I have just bought my new year Organised Mum Life book- loved last years. I wouldnt buy anything from Flylady only as shipping is verye xpensive IMO

The seven in 2011 thing I think I will be harking on a lot about

I even did 7 things before work the other day, as it only took me 2 or 3 minutes and it is really making an impact.

Oh and if anyone needs timers I bought these from ebay last year and they are really good

They always seem to go for 1p (seller ahs them listed 50 or 60 times), and only took about 10 days to come. I have one at home and 1 at work, but you could keep them upstairs and downstairs?

I havent flown at all today as I only just got home from family & a party, but house is grand, so looking forward to getting going this week

Good morning all, have never heard of this before and am lurking! Can anyone help me with a bit of a 'mumsnet' problem. I'm 'watching' the thread, is there anyway to 'mark' the last post that you've read so that when youj come back to it you can just continue from there? THis one has a lot of posts since I looked yesterday! Thanks

morning everyone! Hangover has gone, a good nights sleep and I am ready and raring to go....... When ive had some coffee .

Welcome fojo . As far as your mnet problem is concerned I don't know an obvious solution. All I can think of is to maybe remember which page of the thread you are on and then it should be relatively easy to find the last post? Maybe someone cleverer than me will be able to find a better solution. Welcome to the thread, I know we do chat a lot a bit but there is loads of good advice and support here so get stuck in .

I think I will list post today

General tidy up
Washing x lots
Drying xots
Putting away x lots
Decorations down
Buy storage boxes for toys
Visit bf for coffee
Peruse the sales
Buy new uniform for ds

Back later to share my failure to complete all that

thanks elliepac, you look to have a busy day planned - good luck! (Trying to remember to note page!)

Morning everyone.

Instead of listing what I'm going to do today, is it ok if I say what I did yesterday. That way hopefully I'll be being positive rather than setting myself up for a fall.

So yesterday I:
shined my sink
cleaned the bathrooms
made the beds
put away the indoor Christmas decorations
swept the kitchen floor
kept on top of the washing up
made a meal plan for the week (although I forgot yesterday and today - oops)
bought some bathroom wipes so it is easier to swish and swipe

Today I need to focus a bit more on my evening routine.

Although I will do baby steps and I am dressed, we don't wear shoes in the house. I understand what the fat fairy means about being dressed for work, but where I used to work no-one wore shoes anyway and we still got our work done. So I am dressed and ready for the day but my shoes are by the front door.

How do people who don't have dishwashers keep up with the washing up? I always seem to have something to wash up either in the sink or near it.

Fojo you can choose to "flip" the thread which starts it from the last page rather than the first. Less scrolling through. Did bugger all yesterday due to hangover but have big decluttering plans for today starting with dd's room and her mountain of toys!

good morning all, welcome to fojo id just post a list once in a while so i figure if you can find yourself then you know roughky where you got to. alsokeeping up with this thread first few days of the month i find almost impossible so dont worry

im list posting, lots to doand need to focus and stop it going round and round.

stealing lairs point - update January calendar
birthday cards for January
research theme park tickets for holiday
Book car hire for holiday
move all dd clothes onto new hanging rail in her room
get dh to put up the other on in ds room and move his clothes.
get dh to put up blind in playroom
go buy some storage boxes for christmas decoration and take down put away
go get quote for bedroom furniture (the solution to all my woes somewhere to hang clothes instead of pile clothes up!
put away outside decorations before march like last year
put up trampoline that santa kindly delivered when the snow lay and the flu was rife.

i think combined with tidying up that will be enough to keep me occupied in between im going to eat as much christmas stuff as possible before diet starts tomorrow

have lovely days everyone. be back later to see what you all been up to.

Morning all and welcome FoJo

DS was awake coughing for about an hour in the night and I've started sneezing again - nothing like a dust allergy to force me into doing some housework! My parents are going out shopping with DD2 and DS, so I'll have a chance to get on with a few things while DH does some schoolwork with DD1.

List:
Coffee
15 minute room rescue in my bedroom
Dust and hoover my room
15 minutes room rescue in DC's room (my parents dusted and hoovered it while I was still getting up )
15 minutes decluttering

Off to accomplish the first item on my list...

I have a "bookmark" button shown on my screen (just above "report message") which takes me to the last post I read on each thread. I think it's a fairly new thing, but can't remember if I had to do anything special to get it - perhaps have a look at your account settings? See if there's an option you need to enable?

To use the book marks you need to be in mn new. If you have mn new you can also highlight the op which makes it easier to find the babysteps assuming that the person posting the babysteps is the same one.

slow start to the day here.
Breakfast in bed followed by watching how to train a dragon in bed.

Ds is now head in kids brain training on the ds. He has finally figured out what the instructions mean so is happily completing games.

I am about to get up and get going.

Keep smiling all.

LOTD How old is your DS? How is he getting on with the Kids Brain Training. My DD got DS for Xmas and she'd like few games to go with it, she only has Super Mario Bros. Would you recommend BT?

We've done a Family tidy up this morning, all family members involved!!

Done
Laundry
Put on Washing Machine
Cleaned Bathroom
Changed Bed Linen in our bedroom
DC's tidied their bedroom - must go up and do finishing touches

To do
Hoover all upstairs with our wonky hoover!!!

He is 6 in a feb. It takes a fair bit of getting used to. I think it depends on the child ds is an academic and excels at school type stuff. I think whether dd would like it would depend on how determined she is and how her academic skills are. Although that said ds is a complete perfectionist and that is a problem so if he cant do it he wont. So it will be partly personality too, iywsim.

Ds got a number of games but it was a second hand ds and a lot of the games are preowned (i think) his father got it for him. he spends most of his time on the bakugan game his aunt gave him.

Not up yet but ds has decluttered his bookcase i now have a small pile of books to be got rid of, and there is now room on his bookcase for his new non fiction books. A good start to the new year.

Welcome, fojo.

Dreamteam - I love the Organised Mum stuff too. I have their calendar and have just got their budget book. My mum - who is coming down tomorrow - says she has bought me a couple of their books for Xmas. Maybe I will have a life book too! Thanks for the tips about cheap timers.

Ellie - you have a busy day ahead! Glad to see it's not all work though and you are enjoying a break with your bf.

Camdancer - that is very interesting about you not wearing shoes at work and still getting your work done. We don't wear shoes in the house either, so I ignore the getting dressed to shoes dictum. As far as getting washing up done, I'm afraid our year without a d/w was hell. I worked out that I was spending at least an hour a day at the kitchen sink. In the end, I bought a d/w on my credit card - I couldn't really afford it, but it was worth it. Flylady says you should put dirty dishes in a bowl under the sink to keep them out of sight.

Sweetandtender - glad you are feeling better today! Good luck with the decluttering.

Nettie - another one with a busy day ahead. (You are all shaming me into decluttering).

Linzer - oh, the misery of dust allergy. I do sympathise. Btw, you were meant to be having a break from flying - sounds as if you are doing plenty.

Bessie26 - How come you have a bookmark thingy? I don't have one! And I'm on MN new, so it should work, shouldn't it?

Lair - Why won't my bookmark thingy work? . DS has been watching 'How to Train Your Dragon' this weekend too - he loves it.

Dolanette - that looks like a very busy morning!

I have had my Sunday lie-in today. I'm not going to say what time I woke up, because you have all been incredibly busy and I feel embarrassed. Am going to be very busy this afternoon to make up for it, but first have to go and sort out DS1, who has just stormed upstairs. DH recorded ET as a treat for the boys to watch, but DS1 can't relax and watch the film because everyone else is annoying him, particularly his little brother, who only has to breathe or cough to get shouted at . It's like walking on eggshells with him when he's in this mood. Think I'll try to get him to help me tidy up his room and we can chat as we work (too optimistic, maybe, but I can try, and at least I'll get some decluttering done).

Oh, I've lost the special highlighter thing because I changed my name back. Humph. Will have to stick with the Christmas name all January now.

Like this.

Afternoon everyone.

Not doing too bad today.

Washing doing
drying doing
putting away
Buy storage boxes done
bf for coffee done
decorations down and away done
Ensuing tidying and putting all Xmas presents away done
ds uniform cba
shine sink done
dress to lace up shoes never

Dh is going out for a drink with his brother and nephew tonight so am looking forward to peace Nd quiet!

Afternoon. Quick update for motivation only.

shine sink
fold washing up to date
put away folded and ironed clothes
put away christmas decorations hlaf done others awaiting putting into loft
find all stuff for ds' return to schoolonly spelling book left to find
Update Ds' visual time table New calander up
Calanders - January sorted and ds' up
Put nail in wall for my calander
Wash ds' bedding done and remade
Wash my bedding drying
15mins in my room done x6

Also cleared up after ds finished digging his dinosaur out.

Have finished the dusting and hoovered both bedrooms, which are also looking slightly tidier. And that, I suspect, will remain the extent of my flying today. I may see if I can fit in some decluttering later, though - it's a never-ending task.

We had our second Christmas dinner today (my mum made another one for our visit), which was followed by a brisk walk along the seafront; the sea is always quite a novelty for the DC, and they enjoyed collecting pebbles on the beach.

Must go and investigate the bookmark feature; I think I still have the MN Classic view, although the OP's posts are highlighted.

Apologies for the lack of personal messages - my Internet time is a bit restricted at the moment...