The Fledglings' nests will be clean in 2013!

[superfluouscurves]

(With many thanks to Jdub for title inspiration!!)

If your house is a mess and you are strugging with C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome) and S.T.U.F.F. (something that undermines family fun) then this is the thread where we (loosely) follow the step-by-step Flylady housekeeping system (in our own, unique, relaxed style) with lots of chat, support and wine along the way.

This little-and-often system is designed so that you can follow a series of steps and routines each day (which gradually become second nature) in weekly designated zones of the house; defining and minimising housework - which in theory should leave you with more time to do other, more interesting things instead!

At the same time it is intended to reduce that panicky "rabbit in headlights" feeling when you are overwhelmed and everything needs doing all at once. No problem if you miss a day or two; just jump right back in and it will all come around next month again anyway!

We advise not signing up to receive the Flylady e-mails as you will be inundated (although some Fledglings find the compilation e-mails helpful)! All the information you need will be linked here on a daily basis.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's steps and routines using a three-pronged approach (dependent on the stage everyone is at):

• start or repeat baby steps

• repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

• reinforce babysteps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering.

[And if you are really enthusiastic and have finished decluttering - you can go on to detailed deep cleaning in each zone.]

More info here on getting started and Flying lessons. Here's the launch pad for more experienced fledglings. Don't be put off by the barf-tastic language of the site - the underlying system is sound (and you may discover a few of our subversions of the vocabulary along the way).

Huge thanks to Lauren for being our incredibly reliable and organised shining star in the East and leading us throughout the very busy month of December!!

Happy New Year Fledglings!!

All welcome!!

Lilleth sorry you are worrying about your parents.
Trazzles hope toddy went okay with ds.
Silvery You are you SURE you AREN'T Flylady posing as a mumsnet fledgling?! Please stay around either way - you are very motivating! :-)

Still at my parents house. Got some Christmas shopping returns exchanged/refunded. Delighted with my new acquisitions :-)

Round-up Part II ...

...Now where was I? Oh yes ...

Hope your dad (and your mum) are OK Lilleth

Re: doing things "properly" here are some articles on banishing perfectionism!! Wise words from Silvery too.

Makenoresolutions Silvery and Ellie and others who are holding down demanding jobs whilst Flying, you probably have read these loads of times before but here are some (admittedly somewhat barftastic) testimonials for what Flylady calls "Payroll shes" here Don't know if any good or not. at the one who gets up at 4.30 am - that seems a bit grim, and rather contrary to the Flylady philosophy, to put it mildly!

More tips here

Ellie ouch - sorry about your ds's ankle. Hope he is OK. Good luck with marking!

And good luck with your marking too Engels and well done: re lists!

I'm with re: the new year's resolution to get out more Engels it's so built up around here that I don't really enjoy walking in the local vicinity. Must drive to park more often!! (Which means facing scary Belgian drivers.)

Loris here is an example of Flylady's morning (and other) routines here

and more info here

Whoknows I'm having difficulty with finding places to put the presents too. House looks awful without decorations too - lack of decorations reveals pealing paintwork here (I always try and buy myself a big bunch of flowers at this point in the year to cheer myself up)

Blue hope your ma had a lovely birthday today! Safe travelling tomorrow.

So sorry your dp and dd have succumbed to the lurgy as well Bakerofcakes

Silverywell done with your lists and with applying Flying strategy (little and often) to driving!!

Oh noooooooo about your clothes Madwoman!!! (that is maddening to say the least) What a disappointment (esp. when you were up and raring to go and feeling good...)

Right, I'm going to post links for tomorrow and then head down and start tackling kitchen (dh cooked dinner tonight and it was lovely; Roux brothers Mere Blanc pancakes, steak, kale etc etc but I could have just done with something simple tonight following on from all the catering from the visitors [sigh]. He has absolutely destroyed the kitchen and left all the dirty pots and dishes all over the place. Dining table a mess too. DD has destroyed the play room by building another tent from bedclothes - just when I am trying to get a handle on the place [sigh] They have buggered off to bed of course ...

[Swoops on to Castle's Pinot Grigio]

Arf at Silvery embedded as Flylady mole in our thread

Thanks for the Lakeland Flatmate tip - I want one of those! I can just imagine if I'd ask DH to get me one for xmas though.
My sink is not shiny and has a dirty pan in it but I'm really tired and going to bed. I promise it will not discourage me in the morning, honest guvnor.

Wow sc well done for that round up!

***

Baby-step no. 6 for Sun 6th Jan is here Keeping going with the previous baby-steps you have chosen to do PLUS an important new step - tackling hot-spots for 2 mins a day!!

Definition of a hot-spot here!

No zones or missions because it is the weekend.

Sunday is renew your spirit day

Tomorrow's flight plan which will update automatically.

G'night all

*

Thanks Lauren!!
Now just need to put my endless wittering in to action!!

Yep, better to get an early night Doublemum!

Speaking of which ...I'm now torn between my bed and the kitchen clearing ..; (an hr ahead here) and drinking wine

Oh dear, pressed dreaded 'active' button and am now crying with laughter at this thread

Goodness SC, that's quite a round up! Very much appreciated as I'm struggling to keep up a bit at the moment. I've been laughing at that thread today as well as BIL (who is only in his 40s is the worst culprit in our house. He keeps his router in a drawer and takes moist toilet paper with him everywhere (and wonders why he's single...)

Some (minimal) flying done here. I have bought a bissell carpet cleaner thingy, which was too expensive (don't know what came over me), but tbf is fab andmeans I now no longer need a new rug. It is massive though, don't know where it's going to live!

I still need to clear up the kitchen and am posting on my phone so apologies for lack of personals, but waves, wing-flaps and distributed liberally around th thread

Hi gang, just catching up.

I must admit, I always thought "shine your sink" was short hand for "wash up, dry the pots, and put them away, then shine your sink." For me, it spoils the sight of a nice gleaming sink if there is a pile of pots next to it, so I use it as a motivator to keep on top of the washing up.

I think dirty pots is one of those big visual horrors that makes things look ten times as bad as they actually are, and yet really it's one of the easiest jobs in the kitchen (compared to say, mopping the floor or cleaning the oven - even with the grill pan taken care of in the dishwasher!). Once the pots are done, the whole kitchen looks better to me.

Anyway, I have just baked some scones, and am going to sit down with a brew and have a look at that thread SC just linked :)

Ta Da

• Christmas Decorations down & packed away
• Laundry load washed and hung to dry
• D/W emptied
• Kitchen floor swept
• RR playroom
• Kitchen bin emptied

Need to clean bathrooms and hoover around before out-laws arrive tomorrow for lunch and get DD to write Thank You card

SC - thanks for that mammoth round up. I saw that hilarious thread this morning - am going to catch up with it now. Reminds me of my PILs too.

Managed to get my nap. Cooked dinner for the boys, then argued with DS1 about which film he and his friend could watch. Put my foot down about them watching an 18 film (they are both 13). I embarrassed him hugely, I know, and he stormed off. However, I did win some Smartie points beforehand for doing the cinnamon test (you have to try and eat a teaspoonful of cinnamon), which I failed spectacularly, much to the boys' mirth.

I have to say that I thought 'shine your sink' meant do the washing up first too. I always do that when I shine it, otherwise there is no way of getting to the sink to shine it anyway .

Not much Flying done today, I'm afraid.

Lilleth - just spotted your post. Sorry about your dad. Hope all goes well tomorrow.

SC that was one heck of a round up!

We didn't take the Christmas decs down today as DH didn't go into the loft for the boxes- he's trained in confined spaces so its his job so instead I gutted the understairs cupboards, two huge bags of bags are being either freecycled or recycled!

I also:

Swish &swipe
Cooked dinner
Loaded and unloaded dishwasher
Evening routine
Shined sink
Another load of washing
Added DS1's important dates to his calendar

Tomorrow I've set myself an impossibly long list but I'm happy to just get the flipping decs down!

To do:
Morning routine
Wash towels
Wash clothes
Tumble and stuff nappies
Swish and swipe
Pack school bags
Put dinner in slow cooler (chili)
Take down decs and make a list (!) of what's in eachbox
Clutter hotspot
Load DW
Put out recycling and empty bins
Put holdalls in u/s cupboard
Put clean clothes away
Evening routine
Ironing.

I'm knackered writing this so I should go to bed and hope DS2 sleeps...

Not read whole thread but Lilleth hope parents are ok.

Thanks for good wishes. Chemo went fine. DS still acting like the world's cutest lunatic.

Washing up done. Sink shiny.

Wonderful DH took tree and huge box of card to the tip. Is all battered from fighting the tree, poor lamb. He also rearranged the front room(!) and took the bins out for bin day tomorrow. Lovely man.

Really gladthe chemo went OK Trazzle. My DH is also sporting Christmas tree injuries!

Thanks for the info about routines. I think I need more than 5 minutes on the computer before bed to make a really good plan. My new years resolution is to go to bed earlier!

Just wanted to say silverymoon I am very impressed by your morning routine. I find my three DSs need a fair amount of supervising for breakfast and dressing so struggle to get out the house for 8.30am. 7.15am is amazing - what time to you get up!!

That's one heavyweight round-up, sc!

Well, I have decluttering the large majority of my bedroom. (The 'outside of the cupboards' bits anyway - the insides of the cupboards will live to fight another day.)

It must be quite impressive, because dh has just got in from skiing with the kids, gone upstairs to change, and said 'oh my god, where have you put everything?'

'Away'.

Well, two large bags for the charity shop, and a black sack full of trash, and a small box full of new cleaning rags. The rest of it got put away.

So, good start, good end, but I still have the work clothes issue to process once the ironing is done and the damage gauged... I may make dh iron tonight... It was his mother, after all...

Dang. Didn't do it right.

Ta da!!!!

Decluttered bedroom.

Yay Well done on the bedroom!!!!

Tomorrow i shall be crisis cleaning first thing and out just before lunch to spend a whole load of money that hasn't been budgeted for but is suddenly required or risk massive injury. Arses. Days like this when i wish I lived somewhere like Madwoman!

Right now sleep and beware the scary lists tomo. . .

Morning. I have woken up early this morning so Im making the most of it and mnetting with a before dc and dp get up.

I haven't caught up with all the posts from yesterday - there are so many!

Yesterday when I got up dp had been decluttering the kitchen and conservatory, which puts me slightly ahead for next week

Todays to do:
Morning routine
Finish taking down and putting away last of xmas decs.
Fold and put away laundry
Change beds
Read with dc
Print off and help stick photos in dcs homework books to show what they have done over the holidays
Make dcs packed lunches ready for tomorrow

Off to see friends this afternoon, which will be great

Have a lovely day everybody

Have now caught up on the posts from yesterday.

I hope your parents are ok and your dad makes a good recovery Lilleth and Im glad ds was ok trazzle

Im off to put the kettle on again. I will deposit some s and hot buttered crumpets in the naughty corner. Big wing flaps to all.

The house is still sleeping (I can hear DH snoring upstairs) and I am sitting here in my running gear wondering if I can be arsed to get outside but it?s not very appealing (still pretty dark out there). A short list for today.
To do
Put away washing from yesterday
One last dark wash (and then the basket is empty)
Get outside for 30 minutes(run/walk/anything) ? 5 mins run to park here sc. Do you have a bicycle (or would that be just as scary as driving?!). Which reminds me, I ened to get my biccle fixed (haven?t used it for 2 years!)
Do the marking and planning I?ve been putting off for 2 weeks (I?m as bad as my students?last day of the holidays).

Marking is actually why I?m up so early (8am is not early engels ? this may be a problem next week when I have to go back to work), woke up thinking about school and couldn?t get back to sleep.

madwoman Oh no to shrunken clothes. I put a beautiful alpaca wrap around cardigan that I bought in Bolivia when I met DH in the washing machine by mistake instead of handwashing and ruined it. I cried. May your fine wool tops rest in peace.

And well done on the bedroom!

Good luck on crisis clean Bitchy

silverymoon what a lovely ticked off to do list. You deserve that

lilleth hope your dad is doing okay

Goth At the end of the summer holidays I found my lunchbox from the previous school year complete with decomposed cherries and a colony of thousands of fruit flies trapped inside. I was not pretty.

sc An awesome round up. You are most welcome to come and help me declutter

The longer I live here the less I miss UK stuff. We go back 3 or 4 times a year anyway, tend to gorge ourselves on my mum?s roasts, pub meals, bacon sandwiches and then come back groaning that we never want to eat again (until the next time we go to England that is!). Weighing was surprisingly unscary ? I weigh the same as I did 2 months ago (not sure how that happened) but my hips and thighs are a few cm bigger. Scared me into doing shred yesterday (for the first time in months). Sorry to hear about DH?s parents and dealing with your own losses. Sterkte