FLYing through April: Fledglings Spring into Action

[GoingGoingGoth]

Welcome to the April Fledgling FLYers thread

... where we (loosely) follow the step-by-step Flylady housekeeping system (in our own, unique, relaxed style) with lots of and chatting along the way.

This little-and-often system is designed so that we 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 us 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 we get when we are overwhelmed and everything needs doing all at once.

To avoid being inundated with details, we advise not signing up to the Big Tent

We are in the process of 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.]

Flylady site is here

Don't worry if you are behind; just jump right back in and it will all come around next month again anyway!

All the links for the babysteps and missions will be posted here every day and we'll all be here to cheer each other on.

Thanks to SC, Blue & Silvery for leading us through since January and for the brilliant OP I've just cut and pasted.

ta da
discover the kitchen bench
Cook breakfast
wm on maintenance run (not done any washing in 2 days)
fairy cakes in oven
sort out internet stuff
try to sort plans for nxt wk

Arses, just realised I need a cake box for first thing tomo so I suppose I must drag myself out and go get one. mumbles about hating shopping

To Do
Get breakfast done
Clear breakfast done
Feed cats done done
shower and dress done
swish and swipe done
take out rubbish done
clean litter trays done
bathroom shelves done
mirrors/tv stand/etc done
dust done
change bed sheets done
hoover done
mop done
polish shoes done
ironing done 3 hours! and there's still more
menu plan and shopping list done
food shopping done
clean fridge done
clear bag and purse done
make weeks sandwiches and freeze done
washing machine drawer done
bleach plugs
hoover cat beds done
pluck eyebrows
laundry
cook dinner and wash up
get bags ready for tomorrow
feed cats
make lunch for tomorrow done
hotspots
homework
sort dry clothes
non iron away
defrost for tomorrows dinner
play/tidy
stray items away
boys bath
clean kitchen
layout clothes
check diary done
study
shine sink

Nearly there

Well done to your DD, SC.

Well, today has featured church, cooking, bike riding and blogging.

Finally confident that the work will be finished before the deadline and feeling a lot more cheerful. :)

Today has been quite nice!

done
Get to Mass with three children (dd decided to wind up ds2 on the way
catechism mass supervision (very relaxing compared to my own kids)
bacon and eggs and baked potatoes for lunch
13 year old neighbour round to see kittens and play with the kids in the garden, improvised cricket
watched Moonrise Kingdom with dh and two dcs after
baked beans on toast for tea, and a bit less bickering
homework and music practice vaguely done
persuaded kids to do a few chores (very few
continued to tidy up new playroom area, Dh reconnected the telly on new shelf thingy - much better, and loads of stuff hidden underneath it - all that hideous sawdust carpentry was worth it

And I'm a bit cross with someone who said she wanted a kitten for her two children (9 and 11) five months ago, and now has decided it will be too messy! She has an enormous house and garden and her children want a pet very much. I can only conclude she is not really an animal lover and the kitten is better off somewhere else anyway.

Evening all - quiet weekend for us here chez Shutt so not much flying done, especially as DS thought it a cunning plan to wake us all at 5am on Saturday and 4.30am this morning. Is there an "eyes propped with matchsticks" emoticon?

SC "dreek" (although I spell it dreich) is sort of damp and murky; usually in connection with drab - so a drab, dreich day and which is usually a precusor of "drookit" "Scunnered" means fed up, grumpy and generally out of sorts with the world.

Off to watch a film with DH and have a wee glass of wine to commiserate a new week starting tomorrow...

Right I guess a ta da list is in order...

ta da
discover the kitchen bench
Cook breakfast
wm on maintenance run (not done any washing in 2 days)
fairy cakes in oven
sort out internet stuff
try to sort plans for nxt wk
put wm on to rinse
2x table cloth loads done, one in (quick 30min cycles one table clothe per load due to weight/colour etc issues)
1 load of normal washing
4hrs country drive
sort out plans for tomo
decorate fairy cakes
make banoffee pie
ironing
lay out ds' clothes for tomo
hand washing

Am about to curl up with a craft project and pie.
night

Today there was a general discussion re DCs whining andDHs being bugger all use helping, as if we want solutions, they should either listen or help!

However, Silvery did have a great time at the circus! And then posted a Bitchy List.

SC had a very busy weekend, and managed housework too! Congrats to DD for her solo. Was it her first time?

Toffee went out last night luckily DH & DD went to the beach so she had a peaceful day with kitten cuddles.

Bitchy did a lot of cooking and had to go shopping for a cake box. And finished the day with a craft project and pie. Mmm pie

Blue's day featured church, cooking, bike riding and blogging. Not all at the same time I hope! On a really positive note it looks like she will meet her deadline-huzzah!

Swan had a nice day with the DCs, sounds idyllic.

Doris had a quiet weekend, weird description of being woken at stupid o'clock.

I was at work again today, avoiding the rain. I actually took my wellies for putting the flags out on the pitch and putt. There's so much moss and water, I think peat is forming!

LINKS FOR MONDAY 29TH APRIL

Babystep 29 is to read the weekly pamper mission

Daily focus for Monday is the Weekly Bleugh.

We're in Zone 5 the Living Room on Monday & Tuesday, detailed cleaning list

Today's Mission is to do a detailed vacuum in the Living Room.

Flight plan for our routines, should update automatically

NEARLY DONE!!!

Well done Goth - you're nearly there!

I have started the thread for May and have checked that the link actually works!

Have been desperately hungover today . We were quite literally hammered in our football match, and I am sporting the biggest bruises I've ever had! (and I have a colourful history of bruising!) Needless to say the team had to drown their sorrows last night never again!

Ta Da:
Have started link for the May thread
Car MOT (thanks to DH)
Spent most of the day hovering between the toilet and the bed
Redemption in the form of some garden digging this evening...

SC Well done to your DD! That is a great achievement .
Swan Our new build is a cottage-style bungalow on DH's farm (4 bedrooms, large kitchen/diner, small sunroom, sitting room, tiny utility room, tiny laundry room - would make lots of changes if we could start again ).
We are living within a national park (The Burren) so there are tons of restrictions when it comes to building! We have the roof on, windows in, electricity connected, plastered inside and out....and have run out of money! We did that much without a mortgage, but the banks are very slow to lend us enough to finish the house. We are just jumping through hoops at the moment; but hopefully we will be 'mortgage-ready' by October. In the meanwhile we are renting.

Waves to everyone else

Despite a terrible night's sleep I am up early! Adding a morning run into my morning routine, beginning this week! Wedding season is almost upon us (we have 5 between June and September) and some of the body clutter has got to go!

Morning, Castle for starting May's thread. You'll do great.

Massive admiration for anyone who runs in the morning or at any time my excuse is that my boobs are too big never found a sports brain my size (not looked that hard either)

Also had a bad night sleep, DH ended up on the sofa, after being prodded repeatedly. So he'll be grumpy today.

Just about to head off to work, hopefully today I get my rota, 5 weeks in & don't know what work pattern is yet

Done
Beds
DD's lunch, uniform & school bag ready.
Laundry on

Morning everyone - thanks to Goth for the updates and to Castle for the new thread. What's the etiquette? Do we still post here today and tomorrow or shift to the new thread?

Anyway, my list today isn't huge so I'll just post it here meantime.

To Do
Work
3 loads of washing
Tidy up living room, dining room and hall for guests tomorrow
Sort out dinner

Oh yeah, and do sod all apart from catch up on TV

Out of curiosity, I was reading a few older threads, and I see a Home Routines app for the iPhone mentioned - anyone got it and is it worth it?

goth @ sports brain

doris standard etiquette is typically a pleasant bookmarking kinda post and continue to hang out here until tomo but it is all a bit hit and miss. some post on both it depends really. personally as I can't actually see a link to the new thread am going to be stubborn and hang out here

it is all going terribly wrong this morning.

NEW FRED HERE

for leading us this month goth!!!

Morning all! Hope everyone is feeling chipper this morning!

Five weddings Castle - crikey - there must be something in the water ! Well done re: early run (sounds like you are surrounded by fabulously lovely countryside in which to exercise) and hope you are feeling a bit less fragile this morning/bruises are receding etc! (I need to diet/exercise this week - all that eating with friends over the w/e has added to my waistline again :( )

Huge thanks for setting up new thread, and huge thanks to Goth for guiding us through April!! Arf at peat forming (it is "dreich" here today too) Hope work schedule gets sorted.

Doris I love "scunnered" - so much better than English equivalents!! [Will be using often I think] We move to new thread (officially) on 1st May and start with baby-step one all over again - but you can mark your place now if you want to... . Sorry - can't help with app - someone more technologically clued-up than me should be able to help!

Bitchy craft project and pie sounds like the perfect combination

Ya! at meeting your deadline Blue!!

Glad the end result of carpentry worth the disruption Swan

Big waves to Toffee, Silvery and everyone else!

Well dd's cold worsened over weekend and she is off school today with temp/throat infection. This is a bit of a blow to the schedule because she will be having 2 more days off this week on Wed and Thurs for May public holiday but it can't be helped. Dh travelling so basically I can't leave the house, but at least this means I have done the following:

Ta da:
morning routine inc dw, wm, load of washing hung up, rabbits etc
quick clean of kitchen
quick general tidy ground floor
made flap-jacks
peeled potatoes for cottage pie tonight
made mince/veg sauce for cottage pie (1 lot for freezer, 1 lot for tonight)
made 2 vats soups (one for now - one for freezer)

To do:
so much I daren't write it down but mainly involves first floor landing/bathroom and boudoir!

Have a productive start to the week everyone!!

That was meant to be a "yay! not a sloane ranger "ya" Blue btw

Morning all,

Seeing the new thread has spurred me back to this one! I mainly MN on the Ipad but it hasn't been able to load this thread for the last week or so since it got long I suppose (I think this Ipad is past it's best, it was one of the first ones and performance is deteriorating a bit, never used to have problems with long threads, maybe need to see if it's software is up to date). Anyway, I mainly only come on the proper computer to actually do things IYSWIM, but here I am this morning as I have been missing you all.

SC - well done to your DD for the singing, hope she feels better soon.

Swan - I allow sofa play (less so since we got our new one admittedly) but have found it is one of the areas where the DCs don't seem to be able to differentiate between what is allowed at home and what is allowed in other people's houses, and I do quite frequently have to bawl them out for climbing at other people's houses

Doris - hello and welcome. I have tried the Home Routines app a few times but find the main problem is that if I pick up my phone I am always tempted to MN or FB. I am about to give it another go, but I think I am going to move away from the Flylady weekly zones as they really don't work for me (taken me three years to realise this) and set it up with daily zones instead.

Having said that I am still going to stick with Flylady routines and the daily focus things, as those do work for me.

What have I been doing? We've had 5 lots of overnight visitors in the last 4 weeks, so I have been mainly changing beds, washing sheets and buying food. However no more in prospect for the time being so back to normal for a bit, although we are going away this weekend so will need to pack for that. Other than that, plenty of gardening (at last), work and OU study mainly. I have been keeping my routines going but the detailed cleaning has fallen by the wayside and it is starting to show.

Whoknows it is great to see you! Crikey, FIVE lots of visitors in 4 weeks is tough going!

Oi you horrible lot there is an extra day left of april. Don't be going debunking off the new thread until the first

*off to the new thread

Bitchy sports brain should have been sports bra, stupid autocorrect (my excuse & I'm sticking to it)

Only 1 more night to go!!!! and tomorrow is a day off work! Yippee

BBL with links and roundup.

Why not Bitchy? we usually do

Well done Goth!

[Leaves out celebratory case of ]

Leaves out case of for Engels tomorrow too ... hope you enjoy the festivities ...

Evening.
Thanks for starting new thread for May Castle (can?t believe it?s May already!) Jeez @ running in the morning, good for you though
And thanks to Goth for doing such a great job through April
SC hope dd?s ok
WhoKnows I have done that too in my FLY breaks, trying to do a section of a room a day rather than a whole room a week. As you know, I have altered zone 1 to include the bathroom and I?m thinking of swapping zones 4 and 5 around so I get a whole week in the living room and just a couple of days in the bedroom. Would make more sense to spend the more time in the room that gets used the most, and would mean that I do detailed clean instead of missions which suits me fine tbh.
Bitchy had to at you telling everyone off and making a typo

Bit unmotivated today.
List
up and make beds done
Get breakfast done
shower and dress done
swish and swipe done
Rubbish out nope
boys to childminder done
go to work done
tesco run done
collect boys from after school club done
laundry done
feed cats done
check school bags done
make packed lunch for tomorrow done
homework done
lay out clothes done
sort dry washing done
non iron away done
play/tidy done
stray items away done
cook dinner for me and dp done boys to have left overs tomorrow
another load of washing up
Clean kitchen
Ironing
Mission/detail
Shine sink

Urgh. The things I haven't done are not looking likely actually.