Fledglings don't makes resolutions in January, they fly through the babysteps.

[BitchytheGreat]

So here it is the dreaded January thread. The thread of resolutions and good intentions for the year that you are lucky if you see through to the end. Welcome to the start of 2014!!

A quick note for newbies, this is a long running thread. We do like new blood around here. However, we do ask you to be respectful that for a lot of us just getting off our arses is not going to help and to avoid suggesting this. We all know life is more complicated then this. So here we do things a little differently. A little bit of flying and a lot of chatter and moral support. Feel free to jump on board and join us in flying.

For those who are new to fly lady she recommends a three step program:

1. Get those babysteps into a habbit
2. Get rid of the clutter.
3. Get that deep cleaning done.

Don't worry if you think you not doing it right but not getting up to it. Some of us have been here for years and we are still decluttering. Because clutter has a nasty way of multiplying if you take you eye off it, especailly if you have kids.

Fly lady ethos tells us a few things that I want you to remember:
No perfectism this is harder then you would imagine
You are never behind just start where you are and anything you do is progress.
It didn't get into a mess overnight, it won't get tidy over night accept it will take time to get on top of things and you will be happier.

So jump on board and lets get started.

Oh and I forgot the proper introductions. "I'm Bitchy and I shall be your guide to the fly lady system for January" better buckle up as things normally get a little crazy when it is my turn to take control. good luck

Afternoon all, well yesterday turned into sexytime saturday so all is right with the world, although I didn't do much flying, I did do some shopping, and wrote a 6 week meal plan, which consists of slimming world meals for me too I've only had to change a few, i.e. kids have pizza, I have philly light carbonara, they have chicken nuggets, I have diet coke chicken, they have kievs, I have philly kievs with brown bread coating. Also I have a lot of salad for lunches which I've actually began to enjoy lately, (I was known as a salad dodger, quite literally) so I'm feeling very positive about losing enough weight to carry a baby, and as its food optimising I can carry on the plan throughout pregnancy, I think you just need to double a and b choices. Tbh I'm just looking forward to losing a bit of boob before they fill up again.

Hope dh gets better for you toffee

Hope you sort out sleeping bitchy

Hope everyone else is ok too. Will post up a tada list later although I'm sure it will be a small one.

HOpe DH'op goes well toffee

Ta da
Long walk through woods with hto chocolate for DS and gluhwein for DH and I at the end of it!

That's it! Just got home and had some lunch. DH back to work tomorrow.

To do today realistically.....
washing up
sort out washing in td
online banking
sort out photos from today and christmas

perhaps cellar this evening when ds is in bed

Hi all,
in the midst of visitor chaos.
Very hungover.

toffee - hope dh is ok and at Mil forgetting her teeth

Wow, bitchy, is there anyone who could make you get up in the morning to try and reset, so you would be exhausted the first day but more likely to be able to sleep earlier? I really feel for you, I've suffered mild insomnia before, but only for a few days at a time.

Toffee - really hope your DH recovers fast, that must be incredibly stressful :( I am impressed about the size of your ta da list despite the stress and no sleep!

NickNacks - that night sounds hideous! It's bad enough being up with your own DC, definitely not good when it's someone else's!

Ok, for those who wanted a look at my routines:
Morning before 10am
-Up, dressed (I know this is an easy one, but it was helpful in the early days to have at least one that I was guaranteed to tick off :o )
-Make beds, open blinds
-Swish and Swipe
-Dishwasher
-Wipe kitchen surfaces and table
-Empty washing machine

Daily if time (weekdays only)
-10 items filing
-drink water
-15 mins in focus zone
-Daily blessing
-Mission

Weekend daily routine is similar, but without the mission

Weekly blessing, I have a list of seven of these which get ticked off through out the week. They are the 10 min slots that flylady recommends, like 10 mins general hoovering, dusting, polish mirrors etc.

Afternoon routine
-Tidy toys
-dishwasher
-Collect clothes for washing
-Put away today's clean laundry

Evening routine
-Check calendar and launch pad (as in, get everything ready for whatever we have going on the next day)
-Dishwasher
-Wipe kitchen surfaces and table
-Put washing machine on timer for tomorrow morning
-Feed cats and change water

There are also the focus lists which are built into the app, they are my detailed cleaning lists for each zone.

It looks like a lot of lists, but i find it a lot less overwhelming to look at each of these lists in turn and satisfying to be able to tick off whole lists quite frequently.

It's probably quite obvious that I am a SAHM, which does make it a lot easier to do things little and often and to keep on top of things throughout the day. I imagine I would have to have a rethink on some things, such as the laundry routine if I were working, although some things would be easier, like the house staying clean and tidy during the day if it was left that way!

Talking of assistance from DHs, mine doesn't do much in the house and is also incredibly messy. If he had his way, he would be knee deep in stuff in the living room so he could reach it, just in case he needs it :(
It has taken a long time to get him to accept that I can't have piles of shit lying around the house all the time, although I do still get the complaints that he can't find anything. I just do the broken record reply of 'if you put it away yourself, you would be able to find it'. Having DC actually helped with this, as for quite a while I went with the 'all of this must go away because it could hurt the DC/be damaged by the DC', and somehow he found that easier to accept. I am mostly happy to do the bulk of the housework, as I like it done the way I like to do it, and he would never be able to get his head round doing a little bit every day rather than leave everything until it was awful in a month's time and then doing a big clean!
Also, he does do a lot of other stuff, he works full time (actually a bit more, closer to 45 hours a week), he is responsible for cars, finances, garden, garage, DIY, etc. He also cooks nearly every night.

Phew, that's a mammoth post! I'm currently sat on the sofa watching Monsters Inc for about the hundredth time with DH and the DC. Am having an easy day today, so not done anything above the basic routines.

That's an impressive list, Whispers.

My list is very much a work in progress, and it's more 'things to do throughout the day' rather than a morning/evening routine. DD has nursery Monday and Thursday mornings, so I tend to do more cleaning on those days.

I try to be up at 7.30, get totally dressed straightaway (except for shoes), have a coffee, sort DD's breakfast unless she's at nursery or unless she's up before me and DH is still around, in which case he does it.

Daily Tasks

• Start washing machine - Give bed a little time to air, then make it.
• Open curtains, sometimes open windows to air rooms depending on whether DD is around (she's a climber, but also a horrendous cabbage bum farter, so her room often needs to be aired).
• Gather up all clothes from the floor/around the house and put away, either in laundry basket or away in drawers
• Stack dishwasher, tidy kitchen, wipe down surfaces. Bit of a bugbear of mine. We tend to eat quite late (7.30 to 8ish), and by that time the last thing I want to do is tidy up the kitchen, so inevitably come down to it messy in the morning. DH cooks a lot, but is incapable of putting anything away, so juice/oil/salt/pepper on the side, nothing thrown or put in recycling etc.) Honestly, though, it wouldn't take me more than 5 minutes to have a quick sweep through, so that's a habit to change going forward.
• Tidy living room, and hoover if necessary
• 15 minute declutter (this is a new addition to the routine, not quite settled in yet)
• Make bread (Usually not from start to finish, but usually just one stage, such as mixing the ingredients together, shaping after a rise, or baking. I'm experimenting with leaving the bread to prove slowly in the fridge so I can bake it in the morning)
• Put away clean laundry (in practice done every couple of days)
• Zone cleaning (usually dusting, window cleaning, whatever needs to be done)

My zones

Monday - Hall, stairs and downstairs toilet
Tuesday - Kitchen and understairs office and general junk area
Wednesday - Bathroom and Laundry
Thursday - All bedrooms
Friday - Living & dining room
Saturday - Decluttering day

That is a good list, Aliama :)

Apart from making my bed in the morning, the bit that really helps me is the making sure the kitchen is sorted the night before, it's definitely worth trying to get into the habit for that. It really sets the tone for the day to come down to a reasonably clean kitchen in the morning.

I like your list too Alima

I work full time out of the home Mon - Fri so all the good routines I manage to get established in holiday time are really difficult to sustain once I'm back at work. I find staying on top of the laundry most challenging, especially this time of year when I can't hang it outside. The house doesn't get too untidy during the week but we make up for that at the weekends!

I have had a fantastic cleaner once a fortnight for many years but she is suffering from on going ill health and hasn't been able to come for a few months. This is making things even more difficult but I am hoping the new year will see her recovered. In the meantime we are cleaning floors, hanging up washing and dusting surfaces at all kinds of weird times of the day...

my ta da today is

Children up by 9.30 How are we going to get up tomorrow???
Took two to Mass, including the Macavity like ds2, who gets out of mass whenever he can. He behaved beautifully this time [proud]
Dd looks beautiful, but did not behave so, as she refused to come
Ds1 went to the earlier mass, I met him 10 mins afterwards and questioned him about the service. He told me they were singing carols and the sermon was about lunchboxes, so I assumed this was a nonsense story tissue of lies and he hadn't gone but had spent the last hour in the computer game shop opposite, only to find that indeed he was right, we were singing Nowell Nowell and We Three Kings, and the the Mass sheet had indeed a story about lunchboxes. (4 masses on Sunday here)
Made everyone have a walk, chips for lunch at gastropub.

Dh went to a BookFair in the morning, which turned out not to be on, but I think it did us good managing without him this morning and certainly ds2 was slightly less of a tyrant. However, I failed to cook lunch, hence chips.

Mindmap on Energy with Ds2 which nearly destroyed me, and I'm now recovering by going on the computer on more meaningful topics. How can someone spell ENERGY wrong so many times ?? How can someone spell FUEL as FULE so many times? How can someone spell non-renewable as none-renewable?

I'm absolutely hating the thought of school tomorrow, but I have volunteer work first thing. I think Tues will be the first day I can catch my breath and think about reorganising/sorting.

Toffee I have pm ed you.

Regarding drying laundry I honestly don't know what I'd do without a washer-drier. In our last place (flat with only communal outside space) we had a real problem with mould.

Turned out when we replaced the bathroom whoever installed it hadn't bothered doing anything as complicated as WELDING THE FUCKING PIPES TOGETHER, so for all that time (and I think it was done in the sixties or seventies) the bloody thing had been leaking.

And it had fitted bedroom cupboards placed against the wall (so you couldn't get to the wall to clean it - terrible, terrible idea).

Anyway, the upshot is I don't like to hang washing up inside. And we were lucky enough to pick out a w/d that actually works quite well (last one was rubbish, and took ages to get things dry).

The weird thing about laundry is how deflated I feel when there's not enough dirty washing for a load. Just me?

Also need a new iron, and desperate for a new ironing board as big as possible, but looked up the price of the big Brabantia ones and ... Not sure I can really justify it, especially as I never do any actual ironing.

Best wishes from me too, Toffee

No, not just you Aliama - I'm itching for there to be enough dark things again to justify doing the few bits that are there

Ta da

Morning routines
Long walk
Ironing (all of it)
Made a salad for lunch
Washing up
Stocked up store cupboard
Recycling
Chicken in oven

To do (revised)

15 mins decluttering
Clean up after dinner (might shift stock to tomorrow)
Rugs
Bed

I may come over as a bit OCD on these lists but I assure you I'm anything but - however, they definitely help so long as I don't have a cba day.

Daily list - this is produced on Excel so I can have 7 columns (one for each day of the week) to tick off each task. List divided into 4 timeslots so some things appear more than once (like washing, which is an ongoing thing all day - eg the afternoon entry reminds me to get it in from the line, the evening one to put an overnight wash on). I struggle to get the whole list onto one A4 page because several things are related to DH care.

Weekly list - things done once a week are allocated days (eg today is 'all rubbish out') as bins collected tomorrow. Yesterday was 'change sheets'). There is an entry on the daily list saying 'Weekly task'

Zone List - house divided into 5 zones roughly like FL but tweaked. Monthly tasks listed for each zone. Daily list entry says 'Zone task'.

This system is still a work in progress after several years but I assure you it really does help me. However, what I CAN'T do is declutter! Decluttered areas are clean and ordered; non-decluttered areas are shame-inducing.

Final ta da for the day
Lovely walk in woods
Dinner (sausages and mashed potatoes withbcarrots, chicory and leek)
Washing up and left kitchen surfaces tidy
Put away yesterday's wash
Online banking
Sorted photos from today and Christmas (off camera and onto computer)

That's it flying wise, though even with the mammoth walk I managed to renew my spirit by finishing my first book of the year (Never Let Me Go - slightly depressing and irritating style of narration) and have just moved on to my 2nd (Bit of YA - Tiger in the Well by Pullman). Trying the 50 books challenge on the Fiction board and hoping to better last year's tally of 51.

On the list for tomorrow
Hospital to make appt and pick up bloods form
Supermarket
Run in evening
House - home blessing sorely needed, wash, toys, ironing mm pil
Panic about school

Meant to add, it's inspiring reading all your lists.

I think to make up for yesterday, I went a bit mad today.

My ta da list is too long and my brain is too fried to type/ remember everything right now. But this place looks a lot better than before.

The home routine app is fab. I've set myself loads of reminders of things I need to do.

My nemesis the fish tank continues to be avoided. My poor fish I will do it tomorrow, I have to, a molly isn't looking too happy in there and I suspect it's all my fault. Someone needs to give me stern words about it all don't they? Which way is the naughty corner?

Off to find some dinner of some form.

Ta-da!

Panto, then a quick bit of lunch with DD and over to my parents to pck up some things
Meanwhile DH and DS got all the Christmas decs down and put away.
DS's birthday invitations written
DD talken to swimming lesson
Dinner and cleared up (mostly cooked by DH while I was at swimming and mostly cleared up by him while I read with the DCs)
School bags, pe kits, dinner money ready
School shoes polished
General tidying - a bit

Still need to de-flea the cats and maybe do the ironing (but will probably not do the ironing).

Feels later than it is, the DCs have just gone to bed, first time they've been before 10 since school broke up. Anticipating problems getting DD up in the morning.

Pluto - just remembered, were you on this thread right back in the beginning, about 4 years ago? I was Mrs Dinky back then. Welcome back.

Toffee - so sorry to hear about DH, hope the ope was successful and that he is now recovering.

Just skimmed thread. Toffee I hope the op went well and your H is recovering.

I work 25 hrs a week and tbh despite not being full time, in between school runs, homework, reading, spellings etc I actually find it hard to keep on top of everything. I also do voluntary work in the evenings on my PC for two different organisations too. So I think housework comes last

I don't have a drier here, just airers but as I'm a 3rd floor flat, the windows are open a lot. I'd love my clothes to dry quicker but on one salary here, my money disappears fast and a drier is not essential. I've just forked out for a new fuse board. That was important, the old one was from the 1940's and buzzed quietly 24-7

Right, I must eat something.

The routines are useful to read :) Also good to see that different ways work for different people!

Engels I loved Never Let Me Go (book version - never seen film) I cannot stop thinking about it...I read a book recently about the First World War and Public Schools and that made me think about it again...all those teenage soldiers knowing it was them next and inevitably doomed but somehow accepting their fate (although of course they weren't clones )

Finding it very difficult to think positive thoughts about tomorrow here - just seems tremendous slog about to start all over again, uniform school runs, homework, early starts...although I'm sure the children are
relieved to get away from us and see some motivated energetic adults!

done
chicken ham in white sauce with crispy breadcrumbs topping and salad
washed more stuff
dss bathed
dd showered
knapsack ready
uniform ready
twins in bed, hopefully asleep

still need to put all those A3 posters in some sort of folder

Dh and ds1 watching Sunday Sherlock atm in an attempt to ward off termtime blues

I'm still here! Sink will be shiny tonight but I'm just waiting for the wine glasses to drain first.

DH has spent the day completely re-doing DS' bedroom (new bed and everything). It looks fabulous but has meant I've done mostly child-entertaining today.

This evening though I've sorted the dishwasher, cleared all the sides, done 2 loads of washing up, tidied the front room, vacuumed downstairs and put the bins out.

To do:

Take down Christmas cards
DS' meds
Prepare steriliser for the morning
Shine sink
Make hot chocolate

I also loved Never Let Me Go. I watched the film over Christmas and it was also very good.

I'm a big fan of Kazuo Ishiguro - studied The Remains of the Day for A level (a truly excellent book) and then I went to the same university as him (albeit a fair bit later!!!).

Engels one book I really enjoyed last year was "Before I go to sleep" I think it's called in case you haven't read it. I thought it was cleverly done.

whoknows indeed - where does the time go? Yes, it's me back again from the murky past. I posted a lot in the beginning because I was on mat leave. Then I went back to work, initially 4 days a week but since September I've been doing 5. It is bloody hard because it is long days out of the house but we need the £. Hopefully though there will be a bit more focus on staying on top of the housework this year as well as the paid work and I know this thread will help. :)

sillybob I think I might have to drain out a wine glass to mark the end of the xmas holidays. The sink is shiny and dw empty in readiness for tomorrow.

Aliamo you are right, I need to use the tumble drier more. I just don't want to give the electricity supplier any more of my hard earned cash!

I will be looking to all of you who are working full time to rewrite my routines when I have to go back to work! That could be as soon as this time next year, if not, September 2015 when DD will start school

Thanks for all the good wishes. DH has spent all day waiting for the results of the scan, which eventually confirmed the diagnosis. He had the op this evening and I had a call to say all was well, apart from the fact that they'd lost his property, which includes his mobile.

Am feeling guilty now because DH was hoping I'd visit him after the op and bring him a sandwich (he hadn't eaten since last night), but the op was so late and I'm too tired to go now. Also, it would be a very expensive sandwich, as the return taxi fare is around £50. The nurse rang me later (still looking for his property ) and said DH had just eaten. I'm still feeling guilty though, as I expect DH just wanted to see a familiar face.

But I know I will be more use tomorrow if I catch up on sleep tonight.

I have a 'ta da' list:

Bath
Laid out uniforms
Polished boys' shoes
Coats and gloves - sorted
Washed PE kit and packed into bag
Put all school bags by front door ready to go
Rang hospital several times
Rearranged my DM's visit next week
Lunch
Visited poorly friend and cooked dinner for her and her boys
Made sure my boys made 'Get Well Soon' cards for DH
Managed to get my boys to bed at a decent time (although they then chatted for a while because they are sharing whilst MIL is here)
Washed up
Put laundry away
Laid out breakfast stuff
Made pancake batter for DC for tomorrow morning

Did not manage to put the Xmas decoration box away. Did not visit DH in hospital .

It is so nice to know that DH's diagnosis is straightforward, that he has had the op and that he is coming home tomorrow . I have never seen him in so much pain, poor thing.

It is also unbelievably gorgeous to be in bed at last. It feels as if it has been a very long day.

silly I love R O D too, although it ranks as one of those books which you are desperate to change to a happy ending even though poetically it wouldn't work...[I wish I could rewrite all those books like Chesil Beach and Age of Innocence]

oh battery nearly gone

Evening all!

Didn't end up posting yesterday as too exhausted by getting home, unpacking, finding homes for Christmas presents etc... Not as tired as poor DH though, who had an extra 2 hours' driving to retrieve my handbag forgotten at FIL's house. I'd have settled for them sending it recorded delivery but they decided it would be better to meet halfway back. (it had DH's phone in it too, maybe hence the urgency!)

Anyway, today the house is de-Christmassed and the laundry nearly caught up with. And I got to have lovely newborn cuddles with one of my best friends' baby girl.

I thought the boys were back to school tomorrow but it's an INSET day so may have to spend it shoe-shopping instead. Joy.

Silly - I wonder if we went to the same uni? Kazuo Ishiguri's BA or MA??

Toffee - have just ordered that book on getting kids to eat after some rather awkward moments with DS2 over the holidays. Hope your DH is recovering OK.