If your nest is cluttered and getting you down, join February's Fledgling Flyers and turn it around

[pushmepullyou]

Welcome to the February Fledgling Flyers' thread. A very big thankyou to ToffeeChristmasCake (who will presumably return under her non-Christmas name ) for seeing us through the thick and thin of January decluttering.

All flyers and fledgings old and new are very welcome - we have a fairly relaxed attitude to flying 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.

If you are overwhelmed by the mess in your home, start with just one thing: shine your sink. It's amazing what you can achieve by just doing a bit at a time!

Pleased be warned that my month's leadership comes with a bit of a caveat as I am due to have DC2 at the beginning of March so there is a chance I may disappear mid month! Thankfully Toffee has very kindly offered to deputise in the event of the unexpected appearance of DS .

Apologies to Toffee (and by extension Ellie) for blatant intro plagarising and thankyou to Nettie for the thread title

See you all in February!

Oh my - DH is doing the washing up! Without being asked!

Score! toffee

Funny how we see it as them helping us .......

Good evening ladies I see you have all been ably taken care of by SC and have had a very productive few days.

Busy here - drove 550 miles yesterday and won't be home until Monday night. All a bit eventful as well as BIL has been taken in to hospital with an infection (he's on chemo for those that don't know), which is obviously worrying, but also very tiring as he seems to have decided that I am the only person who can calm him down (he has some panic and other issues), so he is now ringing several times a day (and night) to update me on the state of his bodily functions .

Unfortunately my dongle isn't working so I am posting from my phone so I hope you will forgive me if I don't manage a proper round up for the next couple of nights (although I will have a bash at posting baby steps in a minute). I don't think my thumbs or memory are up to rounding up by blackberry

Sorry to see that Linzer is not well and the toothache is still dragging on.

Glad toffee had a good chat with her GP. My sister was home educated for a while and did very well with it.

I see everyone is round at PA's this evening eating curry and drinking wine . Yum wine. Sooo looking forward to not being pregnant, it does not suit me either physically or temprementally .

Right am going to have a go at linking to the flylady site. Wish me luck - this may not go well!

As it's a Sunday tomorrow there are no missions (Hooray!), but tomorrows baby step is one of the ones that I find the most useful. It is learning about hotspots

Hotspots are basically those areas of you house where clutter tends to accumulate is if by magic (the kitchen table and piano stool are two of mine). Todays baby step takes the flylady principle of doing a bit at a time to help make sure these areas don't take over!

Following on from the exhaustion that is family fun day (or is that just my house ), sunday is time to renew your spirit with a hot bath/good book/enormous glass of wine or whatever takes your fancy!

I can't preview very effectively on my phone, but hopefully the links have worked. Lets see....

Yey

OOOO I def have some hot spots! My entire bedroom for one! Everything gets dumped in there!

Thanks for the links PMPY . Sorry to hear about your BIL.

Thanks for steps Pushme

Crikey though, just returned from PA's party (great curry btw) to check in before bed and that all sounds rather punishing in addition to being in advanced stage of pregnancy. So sorry to hear your bil is back in hospital too. Didn't realise you weren't back until Monday and driving such distances either. (Respect to you - I spent months 5 to 9 lying on a sofa in a darkened room.) I'm happy to "look after" thread until you get back if that would help. Everyone else is willing to chip in and help I'm certain. (I won't be around during day tomorrow as it happens.)

Take care and hope you can get some rest x

Thanks SC. I thought I would have laptop internet access from this morning, but apparently not

I should be OK for tomorrow, but will be travelling again on Monday, so a hand with Monday night's links and round up would be very much appreciated.

Am a bit that 5 days in I have already missed so many days! Hopefully work will calm down a bit for the rest of the month and I will be a bit more reliable!

Well, I just popped on to have a nosy but swan is shaking big muddy socks at me so I'm going to run in the general direction of AIBU. They stink . will also help out pmpy you have enough on your plate. Will do round-up for you if you want and sc can maybe do links ( she's so much more professional sounding than me,). Team fledgling to the rescue. Hope you bil is doing ok.

Am off before the socks get me.

Do you want me to do babysteps for Sunday, PMPM and Still? Am happy to.

Nicknacks - yes, it's funny how we see them helping us. Ridiculous, actually. Especially as I cooked dinner, so why should I do the washing up too? We have a long way to go for domestic equality in this household. At least Flyboy will learn some domestic skills whilst he's being home educated .

X-posted, Ellie .

X-posts. Don't worry about it, rl can be rather unpredictable and it has to come first because it's ,well, real . take care of your very pregnant self too.

Bloody hell, x-posts again, this time with toffee.

Evening people :)

I'm sorry I've been awol for a couple of days - I need to make this thread part of my routine!

Today has been a great day for decluttering - took a wardrobe, 2 chests of drawers, tv unit and some other random rubbish to the tip. It feels fantastic to be rid of this stuff!

Most things on my list were done and I have a few hours child-free tomorrow to finish re-arranging my front room.

I've managed a huge wardrobe overhaul for me and my 2 DC over the last 2 days. I brought us all a 4 drawer plastic storage tower. I have thoroughly culled all the clothes we don't wear and I'm shocked that I've managed to condense it so much! I have 11 bin bags to go to the charity shop

I have a small rail which I'll hang up special dresses / outfits. DS (21 m) has 4 small drawers plus 2 under his cot for his washable nappies and clothes to grow into. DD(10) has 4 small drawers plus one under her bed for her uniform. I have 4 small drawers plus one under my bed for underwear / pjs. Hopefully this will mean keeping on top of the washing. We certainly didn't need all of those clothes!

I'm off to bed now but I will catch up with how everyones doing tomorrow :)

Morning!

I'm starting bright and early today - considering it's sunday!
Todays list:

Clean old table and chairs
put in new table
move boxes of books
clean window sill
2 loads of washing
put out photo frames
tidy toy tubs
sweep and wash floors
put kids stuff in rooms
washing up from breakfast
sort through bathroom baskets

The DC are off out with my SIL - the first time I've been childfree this year :o I'll have to fight the temptation to sit down with a paper!

Hope everyone has good days. I'll be back to update the list tonight - don't want to put the laptop back on until I'm finished in case I get sucked in!

morning everyone PMPY I hope you BIL recovers soon.

I have a hectic day today nned to make the house presentable and cook dinner for 5 extra people coming over for dinner.

Today's list

Breakfast done
Homework
sort out uniforms
dust surfaces
once over in the cloakroom
kitchen
dining room
find extra cutlary
cook dinner
Oh and clean patio doors have just noticed sitting here that the lower halves are full of smudgy little hand prints I bet NOBODY did it though!

Plan to send off DC's to the park with DH so I can get on with it.

Ffs, how can I spend all day yesterday cleaning and tidying and get up to a hovel this morning. Grrrrrrr.

Have cleared up from whatever bomb went off yesterday and not much else planned today. Am going to bf's with dc's for coffee this morning and it is mil's birthday so have family meal out later. Other than that I shall be washing and that's about it !

Have a good day everyone

Morning! Skip, go back to bed you crazy lady - no children? Sleeeeeep!

Today:

Change cat litter
Fold yesterday's washing
Put away folded washing (has to wait 'til later as DP in bed)
Sink and dishes
Make a cake with DS
Prepare eBay items for postage

That should keep me going for now.

I'm not managing the decluttering very well - although I don't think I'm meant to, as a newbie. It doesn't seem a lot though, I feel I should manage it, but I'm floundering a bit. So going to leave off for now. I am sure that I can fnd 2 minutes to attend to the hotspot on the kitchen table though! And renewing my spirit will have to take the form of a glass of wine before bed :)

Good morning everyone!!!

I have shortened my list today from what i had originally planned. I feel much better when i complete a list and sometimes to a bit more than when i fail miserably (sp?).

Sunday:

Online shop
Washing
Pack swim kits
Pack PE kits
Lay out uniforms
Kids Homework
Hoover stairs
Wash bannister
Bath/hair/nails etc kids
Bath for me
15 mins declutter
2 mins hotspot

In reality i will probably spend too much time on t'internet!

I'm with Ellie this morning
Skip I need to train my SIL. Dh will only take children away if I'm cracking up, not for mere organisational purposes.
Have now had three hagridden nights - I was sleeping but for some reason not refreshing sleep??

Dh has taken the children to church as a kindness (because he could see I was cracking up), and we are going out to lunch to meet B and SIL (tho' I know that is going to go pearshaped in one way or another

Feel extreme knot of tension in stomach.
Don't know which problem to deal with first in messy house.

Think I will put washing on
Then try again with tile panel arrangement - why didn't I do Art O'level?
wash one of many saucepans
put Radio 2 on to cheer me up.

Hi everyone, I'm a bit late for Feb but do you mind if I join in? I've been trying to do Flylady for a couple of weeks now, and feel so much more motivated to do housework :) Today I:
cleared out the hallway hotspot
got rid of lots of old shoes, carrier bags and paper
mopped the kitchen floor and hallway (which hasn't been done in ages
and DH hoovered and put a load of washing on!

The kitchen floor is glowing! It's black slate so gets dirty looking very quickly, but if i can do a quick wipe every day then it won't need much work. I got the ecover mop/dusting thing from Lakeland and it is fantastic - really quick and no bucket to lug around.

after reading about hotspots i think my whole house is one . rainy day here so no excuse.

have almost finished quick tidy of kitchen and washed one saucepan
dw on
washer on
table wiped
floor sweeping
decluttered buldery stuff
food compost in bucket outside
shining sink now!

hello Ballinderry and Silver

ok so far so good DH is at the supermarket picking up 3 items I forgot yesterday but need for dinner tonight.

The kitchen looks like a tip but chicken is marinated, the jelly is ready and the custard is cooling in the fridge for the trifle.
I am still in my dressing gown so need to get dressed. Am waiting for my little wooden skewers for the chicken now then the kitchen/ diner needs to be blitzed.