Part 2 of: If tidying your house is your New Year's resolution, Flying with us could be the solution

[ToffeeWhirl]

Welcome to Part 2 of the January Fledgling Flyers' thread. There are a lot of newly dedicated Flyers on Part 1 of the thread - I hope they all find their way over here to Part 2. We are following Flylady's system to get our houses in order, whilst ignoring her twee language.

Flylady's routines 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. On this thread, we motivate each other, chat quite a lot and swap tips on coping with housework and mess.

There are three methods of following Flylady's system, 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: your sink. It seems crazy when the mess is piling up everywhere else, but it works.

Saturday, 20th January - babystep 20 - check out Ask Flylady. Keep practising your first 19 babysteps. Remember that brilliant motivational quote: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit", (with thanks to whichever Flylady quoted that on the previous thread). To which we can add, "Victory comes to the most persevering", (Napoleon Bonaparte).

There are no 'missions' (Flylady's daily housekeeping tasks) on Saturday: it is 'Family Fun Day', so just do your basic routines and then go out and have fun with your family. (Well, that's the objective anyway ). Today's routine reminders are here.

It was PerishStorm who quoted Aristotle. It is very apt. I'm going to try it on DS1 when he won't do his homework. That's bound to work, isn't it?

Hi Toffee, Thanks for the new thread.
Just signing in for now.

Hi, BlackCat. Glad you found the new thread.

Anyone else?

Hi - I've been lurking since the beginning! Flylady scares me but you guys inspire me so bit by bit I am reclaiming my house! There are 3 of us - me, DH and 12 week DD - and a dog. My main problems are the world's messiest husband and a constantly shedding dog. Every day is a battle against chaos

Hi lucidlady. You can do it just one step at a time.

I have been trying to do Flylady since last year. some days I do good and other days everything is a struggle. I think there are some good habits you can pick up from it though. You just have to start where you are and do it a bit at a time.

You can do this. One step at a time. Lucidlady. Dont think about the bigger picture concentrate on little steps. then when you sit back and look up you will discover that you have achieved far more then you realise.

You ok Blackcat?

Sleep fail here. Not sure whether to try to grab a few hours so i can cope with the inevitable stress of later on or to just get up and try to sort something. seriously been lacking motivation this week.

Morning, Thanks IceColdBitchy, yes I'm fine, just had a rough night with DD (3 yr old).
She has had a cold so hasn't been sleeping well (Why I was up at 4.30am).
I did manage to get a couple more hours sleep though and DD is still asleep now.

Yay... I found you! Just marking my place. Had a successful flying day yesterday and will try and do basics today in order to avoid chaos on Monday! I'll check back in later. Hope everyone has more exciting plans than mine over the weekend!!!

Sorry for the sleep-deprived Flyers . Hope you can both catch up, BlackCat and Bitchy.

Katy - great to hear you had a successful Flying day yesterday .

lucidlady - welcome to the thread . I second what Bitchy and BlackCat said - one step at a time. The good thing about following the Flylady routines is that you lose that panicky, overwhelmed feeling because you know that everything will be dealt with in time. Living with other people who add to the chaos is always difficult, but they might gradually improve if they see the improvements made with Flylady . The trick is to ask for one new habit at a time, eg. please could you put your socks in the laundry bin at night rather than on the bedroom floor (still waiting for that to become a habit with my DH ). There are tips for dealing with dog hairs here.

I have been joined by a little person (DS2), so I think my MN time has come to an end...

(so far today)
Ta da:
Breakfast
get dressed
made beds
1 x washing done.

To do:
hot spots
decluttering
hang wet washing and put away dry washing
room rescue kitchen (wash up etc).
keep DC entertained.

Gaaaah! Wrote a huge post 3 times without success before realising the last thread was closed!

Found you now

toffee sorry that you plan to bore ds into school didn't work. such hard work emotionally for you. What do you plan next?

Dh working yet again . Downside to running your own business. So is just me and the girls today.

Need to drop the sleepover girls home then dd3 and dd4 are having their hair cut.

Have decided to buy a big shelving unit and put it in the utiity room in an effort to organise it. Dh is taking out the broken tumble drier and dropping it at the tip, which will make more space in the utility room as we are not replacing it

Ta da

Up and dressed to shoes
Swished upstairs bathroom
Made bed
Emptied and refilled dw
Shined sink and worktops
Hoovered
Wiped floors

That's me done I think. Have a lovely day fellow flyers!

Sorry you lost your posts, Lughole .

What am I going to do with DS next? Well, I'm sticking to the tough love stuff and didn't give in to him and his DF begging me to let them have a sleepover last night (he has to go back to school first), so he announced that he would go to school next week . Whether he actually can is another matter, but having that incentive might propel him over the threshold!

He is also getting support from his CBT counsellor and I'm planning to bring forward a meeting with his psychiatrist to see if he needs new meds as he's now refusing fluoxetine because it makes him feel queasy.

We will get there in the end. I think he knows we are not going to give in easily, even though we are very, very sympathetic to his genuine anxieties (he has OCD, which makes life hard for him).

Have had a good cleaning/clearing-up session in the kitchen and shined my sink, all ready to impress MIL when she comes round to babysit later. Off to have lunch with DS2 now, then will tackle more mess. And, maybe, laundry. Am not doing any more washing until I've sorted out the piles of clean laundry I already have.

Logged on for my daily Babysteps and found you
Have not really managed anything yet as have been out at DS1s swimming lessons and then we all went for our passport photos to be taken. The children's ones are fine but mine is AWFUL!
Should be getting on with something now but instead I'm holed up in my bedroom with a cuppa and MN while DS3 has his nap....

Enjoy your cuppa, libby. Flylady insists that we have regular breaks, you know .

Sympathy for the awful passport photo libby I cringe everytime I have to show mine.

Today (so far):
DS/DD swimming
Been to the bank
DD ballet
Laundrette!!

To do:
collect dd
encourage homework
reboot dryer
quick swizz of the bathroom (have not been doing my swish +swipe )
read the paper .

Phew, found you all :)
Welcome lucidlady I normally only ever lurk on mn however I really, really wanted to get my place sorted and actually properly going on a thread for once has really helped my motivation, hope it does for you too.
Hardly any flying done today so off to sort out clothes in a sec before flopping on the sofa, DS had his MMR yesterday and has been in a bit of a funny one all day, we are properly sponsored by calpol...
Big hugs and more importantly to everyone that is feeling tired and stressed with their DCs today Toffee and Blackcat are the ones on the top of my mind but sadly I think there's quite a few of us out there at the mo

Hey, I found you! Thanks for the new thread Toffee. Glad your sleepover bribe strategy seems to be working, it must be hard trying to find the balance between sympathy/tough love.

Haven't been brilliant with the babysteps but have managed most of them on most days - determined to keep going, even the small improvements are really helping the house stay vaguely presentable. And I am inspired by the great long tada lists of experienced flyers - will get there one day (probably once all children have started at school!)

Can I ask a really dull question? I have ecloths that i've never used (I think I've been saving them for when the house looked nice enough to use them ) and I don't know how to use them properly. Do you use them for everything? Do you wash them after each use?

Can I also ask what is an ecloth? I had a look for one last time I was out shopping but didn't notice one.

I am pretty tired now after my lack of sleep last night so having a large coffee and a sit down before bed time.

Hellooooooooo! Found you all once again :-)

Horrid weather today wasn't it? I had a fab snazzy haircut first thing which ok is mumsy and short and neat but after nearly twenty years of was it length hair it is a dream to look after. Then went for lunch which was a bit rubbish and DD refused to eat and screamed non stop instead so we left in a hurry :(

Got home and did an hours housework, DH and DD joined in and we;
Hit upstairs first -
Put away dry washing
Changed the sheets on our bed
Flipped the mattress
Collected up the various laundry baskets
Swished and swiped the en suite
Folded clothes In wardrobes, although we ut our clothes away every night they have a tendency to be thrown in a heap!

Then downstairs -
Dw loaded
Washing on
Casseroles on
Cleaned sink and washed up
dinner served
Rest of batch cooking put in the freezer
Playroom tidied
Pjs on for all three of us!

List for tomorrow;
Mop the kitchen floor
Wipe down the kitchen cupboards (these are both zone 2 tasks but couldn't do them last week)
Decide on a cake to bake for next week
(as well as a full days work)

Sunday, 22nd January - babystep 22 :work on your control journal.

Sunday is a day to 'renew your spirit and surround yourself with peace' according to today's Flylady homepage. (Hmm, she doesn't have young children, does she?)

There are no missions today. The day's routine reminders are here. Flylady suggests that tonight is a good time to gather up library books and other things that need to be returned this week.

If you do nothing else from the routines today, at least make sure you do your before-bed routine as this will start you off on the right foot on Monday.

Hi
I will fly, I will fly, I will fly!
Am feeling sleepy still, but am determined to get my house on track. Spent a lot of yesterday sorting out old kids clothes and getting stuff down from the loft etc etc My deadline for being a fully flying fledgling is the end of May when DC3 is due and I will have no time to myself (ever again it feels like!)

Lucidlady ? if I can do it, you can ? I?ll hold your hand!
Blackcat ? it?s nice to hear that you too have good days and bad days, it makes me feel more normal
Bitchy ? hope you managed to catch up on sleep, everything seems so much worse when you?ve had no sleep.
BLackcat ? as above! ? how we love our children!
Toffee ? nice to see you, thanks for keeping us all motivated/explaining what to do ? still not sure I do it as it?s meant, but my house looks a lot better and My DH is now on board and helping ? whoop whoop!
Hope your DS's CBT is working well and he goes to school (if only in part) next week. Well done you, doesn?t sound easy and amongst all this, you are flying
Lugholes ?it?s grim when you keep losing it isn?t it nevermind, we appreciate the thought! Hope you had a nice day with your girls and my condolences re the tumble dryer.
Libby ? hope the cuppa was good (I know I should be doing something now, but DS & DH in bed and ?Tinkerbell? on for DD cue MN and cuppa, sometimes it just has to be done!)
Scatty ? impressed with your list
Valium ? hope the calpol works and normality resumes shortly!
Lalou ? I?m sure people will be along shortly as everyone on here raves about ecloths.. I on the otherhand use disposable antibacterial wipes (in all bathrooms) for quick S&S?s but think I might be scorned on here for that as I know I am not saving the world.
Slowburner ? haircut AND lunch AND you flew - are you superwoman???? jealous!

Right, I?m off to renew my spirit :)
See you later

There you all are!

Tings going ok, but struggling during week

Did buy an ecloth mop yesterday - wow! House already transformed

Hope everyone well

Found you! I thought the old thread was quiet....

Just marking my place so I can find you later.

Morning all, I got a better nights sleep last night although we were still woken at 5.00am by DD. Managed to get a couple more hours sleep after that.

Not sure if I will get much done today as I have an achey back. (ongoing problem) Also the DC are being very noisy and fighting over toys again .