Fledgling flyers - it's the month of May: if your house is a mess, try the Flylady way

[ToffeeWhirl]

Welcome to the May Fledgling Flyers' thread. A very big thank you to WhoKnows for guiding us through last month.

Are you living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)? 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 do our best to follow these routines (although we also chat quite a lot and sometimes forget why we're here ).

There are three methods of the Flylady system, depending on whether you are new to it 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.

Today's babystep is to shine your sink.

Happy birthday nicknacks!!

Carpe yes please to the recipe!!

Not a bad day today (bearing in mind it's Sunday and Dh is away). Have done some more washing as that seems to comprise most of the clutter - now have a monster pile of ironing to do but I am really trying to finish jobs as I do them. Can already see a difference downstairs and getting DS1 off to squash training at 7.15 this am was pretty stress free for once, due to being organised the night before

Went to Mum's for lunch with DS2 and cleaned and washed the car - now home and Mumsnetting/eating cadbury's choc eclairs!

Happy birthday Nicknacks!

Evening,

Hope you've had a lovely day NickNacks, we've had a lot of thread birthdays in the last couple of weeks .

Lauren - here, have some , you deserve it.

Actually, for everyone, why not.

Reasonably productive day here, DS did his homework quite happily having moaned and put it off for as long as he could. He had a party in the next town this afternoon, so I dropped him off and did a bit of shopping, bought one of those mops with the squirter in the head (I lead an exciting life). I have also ordered one of those lightweight rechargeable vacuum cleaners as I really can't cope with our big bulky one very well at the moment. So my floors should be immaculate!

Lots of general tidying, all bed sheets taken off, washed, line dried and put straight back on again. Just need to have a bite to eat and make packed lunches for tomorrow. Night all.

Right, popping by while working

Recipe for Coffee Buns...
8oz Self Raising Flour
4oz Butter
2oz Demerara Sugar
2oz Dark Soft Brown Sugar
2oz Currants
1 tsp (or a good glug!) Camp Coffee (liquid coffee with chicory) OR 5 drops coffee flavouring
1 egg

Preheat oven to 190C
Grease baking sheet

Bung flour, sugar, butter into food processor and mix (or rub in butter to sugar and then add flour) until you have breadcrumb texture.

Beat egg, and add coffee/flavouring to this.

Now add this mixture to the breadcrumb mixture BUT RETAIN A LITTLE OF THE MIXTURE TO GLAZE THE BUNS and stir until you end up with a dryish gloop (think consistency of buttercream icing).

Stir currants through this mixture.

Take about a dessert spoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball. Place onto the baking sheet and flatten slightly (I have balls that are about 4-5cm wide and just under 1cm deep). Leave space as the buns expand!

Brush the flattened balls with a bit of the egg/coffee mixture.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

(They should come out slightly hard on the outside, but a soft crumb when bitten).

Serve with a and enjoy.

Oh, and they freeze

Defrost either in an airtight box, or they microwave defrost reasonably well too.

They keep for about a week in an airtight box.

Oooh, thank you - can't wait for next Sunday now!!

Hmm, still not doing very well at the 'going to bed at decent time' babystep , so I'm going to post and run - sorry.

Babystep for Monday is to include laundry in your routines.

Monday is the day to do your weekly 'home blessing' (more commonly known on this thread as 'bleugh'). We are in the master bedroom this week and the first mission is to spend 15 minutes sorting out stuff under the bed. Last time we did this, someone discovered a bottle of champagne . Let's hope we are all as lucky this time. Links are here.

Night all.

Just checking in after the weekend!
Had a lovely time at home with my mammy! Even did 15 minutes of decluttering while I was there (well....I removed a heap of stuff that had been cluttering her house, it now needs to be sorted/rehomed/dumped! Going to do this every time I go home until I've cleared out all my stuff...)
Think I might have harped on a little bit too much about Flylady while I was there, think she was wondering where her procrastinating daughter has gone to....!
Came home to find that dh had done the dishes and the sink was as near as he will ever get it to shining! Impressed!

Welcome to the thread Magnolia - I've joined this month too!
Thanks for the recipe Carpe :)
Wishing all other fledglings a lovely week! :)

Oh dear I am not mastering that line through the words thing!

Just read the babystep for tomorrow and was wondering about Flylady's 5 steps for laundry routine: sort, wash, dry, fold, and put away.

Where does she put the ironing step?

What do the rest of you do?

I grew up in a house where everything (and I mean everything including socks and tea towels) was ironed and then put away.
Until I started laying out my clothes at night I had fallen into a habit of only ironing with my little travel iron on the bedwhat I was just about to put on if I had time and only if I couldn't get away without ironing it

So what system works best for you all?

Nicknacks Happy birthday!!!
Ok I'm off to sleep!

Morning all.

Had a 10k race yesterday so only minimal flying. Though did manage to blitz downstairs so it was respectable. DM&DF have just arrived for a week (staying nearby, not with us!) so they're coming over shortly to take over babysitting duties while I'm at work.

Happy flying

Don't iron, is what works best for me Castle. Or as little as possible anyway, I have an ironing basket but only put things in there if it is absolutely impossible not to iron them. Fold or hang and put straight away is fine for 99% of our clothes. I have never ironed a sock, tea towel, item of bed linen in my life and neither has my mother, who worked full time. When the basket is full, which takes about a month, then I will spend an hour doing it in front of the telly and actually quite enjoy it.

Good morning, and love the coffee buns Carpe

Ds1 has been away on his outward bound residential trip (maybe not so outward) from Friday morning, so we have just had two 10 year olds in the house...moderately restful not to have to deal with ds1's homework at w/end

However, despite this reprieve the weekend has ended up exhausting as usual

done
kids swimming, twice
dd to friend's house and party
I visited friend's mum and walked the dog with two little girls
dh did some more earthshifting/gardening

House now bombsite
and Ds2 had a tantrum first thing about stepping in an enemy catmess whilst he was trying to bowl with his plastic cricket set at 7.45 this morning in garden - so it was seriously difficult getting him to school/cleaning his horrid shoes. But I did, just 10 mins late.

Today as usual is full of challenges, cleaning lady; I think I'm meant to be counting money at the church too...Dh still worriting about work. And patio still covered in mud

I iron at the end of the load of washing or whilst waiting for a kettle to boil etc. I don't collect a big ironing pile anymore as it just doesn't work.

Soooo glad we are in the master bedroom this week. it needs dealing with.

Happy birthday to nicknacks for yesterday.

Ta da:
Early training
ds' lunch box
ds up and out
Shower
physio Session 1.
sort out ds' swimming lessons for this term
buy ds new trousers and top
sort out new training partner.
discover need to go clothes shopping. Arses.

Right to do:
crisis clean and tidy lounge
crisis clean hall and porch

I have just been into the front room; it was so bad I just ran out again.
This may be one of those days I have to put everything in a bin liner just to steady my nerves and unpack it later.
Also have conveniently LOST my mobile, tried ringing it but no answer Probably in the car

Sink is just awful too

will report back later when feel less powerless

Morning!
I dont iron here either castle in fact, in a year I have ironed twice but I do have a tumble dryer so it's not really needed!

To do:
Morning walk done
Hoover my house
Home Bleugh mine
Home Bleugh mums
Afternoon walk
Whats for dinner...fish pie
Shred DVD

That'll do!

BBL

Waves to swan and coos - I saw you sneak in there!

Happy birthday for yesterday NickNacks! -

Castle - I'm a minimal ironer - I used to do none, but now I have a lighter ironing board, I do the essentials on Wed. lunchtimes watching Bargain Hunt! (Boys at CM so it's my house bleugh day).

I'm off to put the kettle on and think about What's For Dinner... ?

Many happy returns (albeit belated ones) to Nicknacks yesterday. Hope you had a lovely day and were spoilt rotten.

Morning all - hope everyone having productive Monday mornings.

Had bit of a hectic morning - succumbed to some sort of wierd bloaty stomach complaint yesterday and spent last night completely without sleep running to bathroom and back - but have felt better as the morning has gone on. Mad rush around though as had lady here to measure sitting room curtains (birthday treat for myself - completely out of sequence in terms of house renovation - but meant to inspire and motivate) and house was in pitiful state from weekend, particularly as dh and dd were left pretty much to themselves to create chaos yesterday. So ground floor home blessing has been done in double quick time and I can now have a Mnsnet get some proper work done. Upstairs is a bombsite though as are cellars which I decluttered for 3 hours on Saturday but are in the "has to get worse before it gets better" phase

Um, did I mention that we have acquired rabbits? Two, gorgeous lolloping fluffy things - one black and one with beige and grey stripes. I spent hours on Saturday staring at them - they are so funny and beautiful. They sort of 'rest' on one another in a very amusing way so they just look like one multi-coloured fur ball. They require a lot more looking after (and grooming) than gps but they are worth every minute of attention.

Congrats on the race Engelmeijse
Great that you had an evening out together Morecats and hope your cat recovers soon
Good going on mega-baking session Bitchy
Thanks for keeping us linked-in Toffee
Yay! Great to see you ¨Nettie! How's tricks?
Castlelough I am lucky enough to have a fortnightly ironing lady who in reality comes every 4 to 4 weeks. In between times, I have allocated a 'to iron' panier for each of us, and we rummage about in those and iron things as and when. (Although I usually do a big school uniform iron over weekend) Don't iron socks or pants or towels though.
I hear you re: the hwk Swan. DD was doing much better but now seems to have reverted to old ways [sigh] She had four days over the holidays to get shot of it, and I was still nagging her from my sick bed at 5 o'clock yesterday evening .
Thanks for recipe Carpe

Must go and supervise bunnies on terrace. They are in a large cage but want to survey the area for cats.

Huge wing flats to eveyrone I've missed!

Quick list dump and run as i have to go off to a funeral at 1....

To do:

Hoover lounge, stairs, landing and bedrooms
Clear bottom stair of stuff on it's way up
Empty DW
Ironing
Sweep hard floors

Dog has been walked already and todays load of washing is drying in the sun

Back later!

Sorry to hear aobut funeral Maggie Hope it goes as well as these things ever can.

Forgot to say earlier - hope you and your dd are feeling much better now thewaffler

Also, great that 'Flyfever' is spreading to those around you Castlelough (I'm always waiting for that to happen !!)

Things sound impressively under control at your place Whoknows well done on wardrobe blitz

Waves to Blue Flying Foad Ellie Linzer PA et al

Right, WAH job done. Job meeting done (held here!) so crisis clean also done.

Awaiting text back from friend with similar aged DS to see if they want to come and play this afternoon.

Have no clue about dinner think it'll maybe be a tortilla bake... see how it goes, but I'm supposed to be swimming tonight so that's a bit of a nightmare to do... Argh!!!

Must go rummage in freezer!

Lunchtime!

Not feeling so bad about the ironing now after comments from sanguinechompa , whoknows , bitchy , lauren and blue !
Thanks everyone!

I still think I'd wear more of my clothes more often if I got into a bit of a better habit, so I think I'm going to try to iron a few things each day (and only the 'must-iron' things!)

Ta-da:

Morning routine
Jog/walk 30mins

To-do:
Weekly Home Blessing Hour (first attempt at this............)
15 minute declutter (boxed stuff - we are renting while we build and most of the boxed stuff is mine.........and a lot of it is NOT coming to the new house!)
Dinner - spaghetti bolognese.
Practise piano - exam in 9 days! (Grade 3)

Off to my lunch!

Ta da:
Early training
ds' lunch box
ds up and out
Shower
physio Sessions 1 and 2.
sort out ds' swimming lessons for this term
buy ds new trousers and top
sort out new training partner.
discover need to go clothes shopping. Arses.
Evict anything that isn't clothes and shouldn't be in wardrobe
put clothes away
look at mountain of freshly displaced stuff in despair
tidy porch
sweep porch
plant up hanging basket and tub
water both containers
tidy lounge
recycling out
tidy hall
hoover hall
hoover lounge
move furniture
Lift, turn and relay rug
rehoover lounge
return furniture.

am just going to sit for half an hour with a craft project and hotwater bottle because my back hates me for moving the furniture and lifting rug. bbl.

I don't iron either castle!

Ta da:
20 mins walk/jog - day 1 of C25k
Dishwasher unloaded
Washing on line

To do:
15 min declutter
Look at master bedroom
quick tidy of DD2's room - she's back from PGL today
find supper (what again?)
keep moving otherwise I'll seize up...

Hope you had a great bday NickNacks
carpe thanks for the idea for supper - tortilla bake it is