If tidying your home is your New Year's resolution, Flying with us could be the solution

[ToffeeWhirl]

Welcome to the January Fledgling Flyers' thread. A very big thank you to BlueEyeshadow and IceColdBitch for guiding us through the busy Christmas month.

Are you living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)? We know the feeling. We follow Flylady's routines, which aim to help you take control of your home, tidying and decluttering and setting up daily and weekly routines that keep your home looking presentable. We also chat quite a lot and swap tips on coping with housework and mess.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's tips on restoring order to our homes. There are three methods, depending on whether you are new to the system or have been following it for a while:

1. Babysteps
2. Babysteps + 15 mins daily decluttering in current zone
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.

Oh, and don't - really, really ^don't^ - sign up to Flylady's emails.

The first babystep will be posted on 1st January 2012.

Happy New Year.

Ds has been a grumpy velcro baby today ,but i have:

Dressed to my leopard print slippers
Made bed
Swish and swiped bathroom
put away tesco delivery
Cooked soup for lunch tomorrow
spent 2 mins cleaning my hotspot dining room table
Had my parents visit
clothes for tomorrow hanging up
sink...SHONE!
Aaaand relax

hope you are all enjoying the weekend.

Sunday, 8th January - babystep 8 - congratulations, you have been Flying for one whole week! Today's babystep is to start your control journal. Not all of us have a control journal, but many do and I have found mine invaluable, particularly as I was establishing my routines. It is really useful to write your daily routines down.

Sunday is 'Renew Your Spirit' day. The reminders are here. No missions today. Just do your basic routines and then enjoy your day.

Now another Flybaby has sneaked in! . Sorry your baby has been grumpy, but well done on acheiving all those things on your list in spite of his velcro, temporarily (I'm sure) grumpy tendencies.

I'm definitely going now!

Thanks for the mamoth round up

Ok, late to the party today!

Last night I got in from work, we took our shoes off and placed them by the back door, then I put my work stuff in my (clean and tidy study), emptied the dirty nursery clothes into the wash basket and emptied the dw. Threw a slow cooking stew together and sat down to watch extreme house makeover with DH, a cup Of tea and play with DD before bed. And didn't run around trying to work out what we were doing today as the changing bag was left packed from Tuesday and the list for the morning already had all the necessary jobs on.

I felt awful this morning as I've been battling exhaustion this week and as DH took DD out to buy my b'day presents I went back to bed till eleven!!! Usually on Saturday mornings I look around the house after my three very busy days at work and just get angry and stressed about how much of my precious weekend will have to be spent in sorting out cleaning and tidying. Today however I checked my list, saw I had to get rice pudding cooked for DD, and dusted the hall, cleaned the cloakroom, and realised that in fact the house looked pretty damn amazing.

Therefore
Up, showered dressed.
Beds made.
Hall/landing/living room and kitchen dusted
Cloakroom deep cleaned
Toys put away in playroom
Dd' dinner ti have at mil's cooked and put in pots
Emptied dw
Then cooked lunch for us all after DH got home
Loaded dw
Went to mil
Wonderful list reminded me to take sewing kit with me so DD now has name tags in all her nursery outerwear and socks only taken me a year , I sat and sewed while chatting to DH's family, was really nice.
My whiteboard reminded me of the 101 things I kept meaning to return to mil and sil, so pile of clutter removed from living room! :)
Got home and washed up a few bits and shined sink, although I am not sure how to get rid of what look like run marks all down the sides.
DD went to bed, dinner cooked

Spot of date night :o after DD fell asleep and DH and I were left to our own devices......

Now sitting in front of tv and MN while DH settles DD and I have a large glass of

Oh and tomorrow is my birthday! Ta da!

I might make DH do the morning routine!

Happy birthday slowburner it sounds like you've achieved loads!

poeia I hope you're feeling better.

I just came on here to say I'm really really pleased with how my house is coming along. Whilst there is still work to do (decluttering and hotspot bedroom/utility room) I can honestly say I would be happy for friends to drop round unannounced (but not quite ready for MIL to do the same). Does this mean I'm not living in CHAOS!?!? Thank you to all if you for your support and motivation.

Almost forgot, Bitchy thanks for the reply re signing up for emails - I will definitely heed your warning! I have an Amazon voucher which I might spend on the Flylady book. Although a Kindle copy would really help to minimise clutter as I know what you mean about unread books adding to to clutter

Haagendazs it's no longer chaos when it is mil standard

Well down slowburner and happy birthday for tomo.

Lol, I'll never be happy for her to drop round unannounced, no matter what state to house is in

Sorry for typos but you know what I meant. Blooming phone!

There was typos in that . I have so much meds in me right now you could probably hit me with a car and i wouldn't notice. It is rather fabulous nice not to be in pain for a change bastard wisdom tooth

Ooh Bitchy I hope you're better soon, toothache is awful

The lovely people in the hospital are going to knock me out and remove the thing but there is this thing called a waiting list. And it is playing up so will need yet another trip to dentist come monday. But for tonight. I am unable to feel pain or care, or aparently make sense. It is a marvelous feeling.

Ouch Bitchy! Hope the painkillers meant you got some sleep.

Set my clothes out last night and was up, showered and dressed nice and quick. I like these Babysteps easing me in! And thanks toffee for all the help and explanations!

Morning

I hope the drugs helped enough so you got some sleep Bitchy

Happy birthday slowburner

Can't scroll back to look who asked about home blessing hour - I split the tasks. Beds take me longer than 10 mins, but I have no mags and mirrors are a two minute job, plus I hoover every day, so mine are now spread over the week.

Today I will do the morning routine,then I am going out with dd2....we are visiting a friendwho hasasked me to help her declutter herhouse!

Yesterday I did everything on my list except the fridge. DD1s room is now empty and dp says he will paint today. I will believe it when I see it.....

Morning all. Bitchy ouch- hope you slept well.
Yesterday- I went all out. Upstairs is now hotel standard (until tonight anyway) and some rooms downstairs look ok too .
To do today: iron and lay out school uniforms, tackle ironing bedclothes that were stripped, washed and dried yesterday. 15 minsX2 on kitchen to get it ready for the week (but my sink is shiny). 5 glasses of water (to offset incipient hag-dom). Food shop (not done yesterday).

Hey toffee thanks for the run through of everything!

Dd2 has awful diarrhoea so laundry in overdrive mode

Will look at the control journal stuff today and still putting routines into the HomeRoutines app

bitchy poor you with the teeth! So sore. I had mine out one at a time are you getting yours out in a one-er.

House looking so much better. Thank you, for the motivation.

Today I am going to start scrapbook of family things. Got a huge album I was given for our wedding (7 years ago!) that I am going to start. I'll stick stuff in - photos, cards, momentous, drawings and writings from the girls - and write stuff with a silver pen. Giving it a shot anyway. Hopefully means I keep the 'good' stuff in a place where we can appreciate it and let go of the things I don't know what to do with! Tip comes from lequeen on organised thread. She points out you can't be sentimental about everything!

Ie. You need to edit all the kids stuff and keep the stuff that really means something to you, not just everything that means a bit...

Am I making sense?!

Happy Birthday, Slowburner! I note you are one of the finer zodiac signs . We are a hard-working lot apparently, us Capricorns. Well done on your Flying achievements. I'm really glad they are having such a positive effect already.

Bitchy - sorry to hear those teeth are playing up again. I hope you get to the top of that list asap and that, in the meantime, the meds work. Toothache is just miserable .

Haagendazs - so happy to hear you are not living in CHAOS - and that is after just one week of Flying. Just think how organised your house will be after a month!

Libby - well done on sticking to those babysteps. Glad my explanations are making sense so far.

Jas - you hoover every day ? Now I feel like such a slattern. It's good of you to help your friend with decluttering.

Wannabe - I'm very of your hotel-standard upstairs!

Cristiane - sorry your DD2 is ill. Hope she gets better soon. I would love to get started on a scrapbook. I was really good at keeping up with my photo albums until DS2 came along. Now I have a six-year backlog. I must check out that organised thread...

I'm 'renewing my spirit' with a lie in this morning whilst DH looks after the DC downstairs. Am feeling much better for the break too.

Hope you all have a good day. Just stick to the basics today, remember, and try to do something nice for yourselves.

toffee its more of a 2-3 star than anywhere posh . I meant more that my ensuite was gleaming this morning and I thought to myself 'this is like when you stay in a hotel and the bathroom is always gleaming'.

Tada list...
All morning routine
Washer on once
Tumble drier on
Christmas decs in loft

To do

Go to tip with old telly
Re-ra-arrange furniture
Get ready for work tomorrow

Thanks for the well wishes. It's just really annoying in the evening when i am trying to sleep. So the new pain meds helped, after i got over the fact that they made me all floaty and carefree took the 2nd dose I slept and have not long been up. But this is normal sleep pattern for a child free weekend. Can't remember who asked and daren't scroll as my lappy is being tempermental this morning but yep they are going to take all the ones i actually have out in one go. Probably for the best. Poor specialist looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown when he got the answer to the "do you have any allergies question"

To do list:
get up
collect ds from his dad
petrol in car
ds home and into bed at reasonable time
sort out uniform for monday
check ds' school bag
sleep.

Poor bitchy I do hope you can get the teeth fixed up soon. The new meds sound a bit like gas and air - floaty and carefree sounds a not bad place to be on a Sunday afternoon. And Poeia are you better now? And Cristiane, how's your poor DD2?

I think the flying might be working a bit. This weekend you can see the difference. The house is pretty presentable (just don't open any cupboards ) and the washing is up to date and put away. The entire Nonny clan has been up and out by 9 both mornings, so we've fitted in much more family fun. We've even made it to our allotment for the first time in months. I had a very jolly hour there yesterday afternoon with IPOD and a spade, digging, grooving and singing away to myself and the starlings. I try to apply the fly principles to my allotment too, but it always gets left til last...

No time to post list since both DCs asleep and I'm off to do a bit more digging. Hurray!

bitchy I am sending you sympathy vibes, I had an impacted wisdom tooth which caused me to collapse at work because of the pain, after it's removal under GA (along with two others) I woke up in recovery and told the nurse the pain was gone. All gone. I asked to be informed of any cancellations and was in fact seen really quite quickly for the NHS

Thanks for the birthday well wishes, we have a very tired toddler causing mayhem today, dd is currently stuck in the cycle of too tired to eat, too hungry to sleep. Suffice to say that going out for lunch was not the usual easy experience.

I have done a spot of flying today, just to keep things ticking over. Hoovered downstairs, s&s the en suite, went and bought some anti bac wipes for the en suite and will be showing DH how to use t hem . Thai meal tonight and hopefully an afternoon nap. I am so so tired!