Fledglings Fly back to school & work, September 2017, decluttering along the way ...

[Sandycarrots]

Hello, it's time to brush the sand off our feet, empty out the suitcases, sharpen our pencils, polish our lace-up shoes, and get stuck in to the September 2017 fledgling Fly thread!

This is where we attempt to declutter our homes and follow the 30-step wisdom of Flylady (minus cutesy barftastic language and a surfeit of e-mails) with lots of chat and support and mutual motivation (and of course) along the way.

Fly stands for Finally Loving Yourself (cheesy but there is merit to it). The general idea is that short bursts of tidying / organisation are more achievable than marathon efforts. Flylady advises 15 minute bursts of effort but you can tweak this to fit your own circumstances.

As usual we will be following a three-pronged approach - and don't worry - we are all at different stages. (Some of us are still stuck at the decluttering stage after quite a few years ):

1 - repeat or start baby steps (again!)

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

or

3 - reinforce babysteps and/or do daily missions

And those of you who have decluttered and are really enthusiastic can throw some detailed cleaning in to the mix as well!

More info available here, here and here.

Your choice whether or not you sign up to the Flylady e-mails, but we advise caution as there are lots of them!

Helpful pointers: No perfectionism allowed! If it took a while to create the current C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome) in your home, then it will probably take a while to reverse the situation (you can't clean clutter!). Small steps are the key! And you are never behind: just jump in where you are at!

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Good luck!

Six comtinuous hours of sleep

Bliss

Been posting on Aug thread by mistake...glad everyone's having a productive Sept so far!
Great news Afresh
Off to visit relatives this weekend - they have a nice shoe shop near them so am planning on doing school shoes today. Trying to save money as well as declutter so v glad DS still fits into his from last term. Sadly after a kayaking funday over the hols his trainers have gone mouldy so need to get him some of them instead.
Ta Das so far
S&Swipe
Laundary

Hurrah afresh so glad you got more sleep. It makes so much difference!

Welcome to new thread garden I forget too sometimes as the other long running thread I'm on just fills up rather than starting over each month. It's a nice sense of optimism with a new month though isn't it, especially at the start of a new school year.

IKWYM about writing and rewriting lists cotswold!

Speaking of which I'm adding one more September habit - the only tidying based one really.

TABLE - this is our worst hotspot by far. It's hideous and embarrassing! But I want to always be able to eat at it, and also for the Caglets to do more of their work at the table. So my new habit is to keep on top of the table hotspot.

I must say we have far fewer hot spots since moving to bigger house

Our house has turned into one giant hotspot over the summer , we started redecorating a room which didn't help, it is half done at the moment but need to press on as there is somenew furniture waiting to be delivered.

Yup who our house is basically one giant hot spot. Or perhaps rather than a BRC it's an HRC - house of random crap!

Afresh I'm really really hoping that will be the case for us. This house was great when we moved in with a one year old, but now with 2 big kids with toys and home ed stuff and clothes etc... argh! And that's before our little surprise DD2 made herself known with all the paraphernalia we are accumulating!

I am determined not to just leave it until we move though IYSWIM, it's very tempting to just think ah why bother now when we will be moving within (hopefully) a year. But I'm actually quite scared of just keeping our bad habits and then suddenly moving to a bigger house and STILL not being on top of it. So I'm trying to do the whole "imagine we are in our nice new house already" thing and start the good habits early.

Hello all! I am very keen to join but very confused on terminology you're all using- please help. My kitchen is fairly clutter free (just recently installed, so clutter free but filthy) so I cleaned that for 15 mins today... what's next? (Just bit of background: just renovated our forever home, so living in chaos, am sahm with dc 6, 4, and 4m, determined to be domestic goddess) tia

Welcome Goose! Ooh & aaah at newly renovated forever home!

Read my op and go to the Flylady website here and have a look at the launch pad and getting started.

I advise starting with the baby-steps [(yuck terminology I know) which I the thread leader (happens to be me this month) posts here every day (we've only had steps one and two so far this month as they correspond to the date). The baby-steps introduce you to the basic habits and routines that underly the Flylady system. Do them (or those you find helpful) until they become second nature.

Then focus on decluttering (you can't clean clutter). Basically we are in one zone of the house per week explanation here (suggest adapting your zones to suit your own house and priorities) and Flylady provides us with a mission to do every week day in that specific area.

Before you do any missions or cleaning though, it is important to focus on getting that particular zone as clear of clutter as possible.

Added to the above, is the daily focus which gives structure to the week (again adapt to suit yourself). So Monday is the day that Flylady has allocated to give your house its main once-over known as the "home blessing hour" (we call it the home bleugh on here). If you are working then you might want to do this over the weekend or split up the tasks over the week. Tuesday is for planning, Wednesday is for anti-procrastination, Thursday is errand day and Friday is date night and clearing out purses, handbags, cars etc.

There is also a monthly habit (this month's is the before bed routine).

HTH! What specific terminology are you stuck on?

Sorry - rushing this morning - the above was a bit wordy

If your house is clutter free then do 15 mins cleaning in the current zone which is the kitchen (if you choose to do zone cleaning at weekends that is) and do today's baby-step no.2 and have family fun (the day's focus)! That's it!

More routines and habits will be introduced with the baby-steps as the month progresses. Don't worry, you don't have to understand the entire system at the beginning for it to work, it becomes clear as you go along! Plus I am making it sound far more complicated than it is!!

Good afternooon (hour ahead here!) to everyone else!

Glad to hear you got a full six hours Afreshstart although I'm sure you could have done with more.

Hope you are feeling a bit better about your achievements today Cag and that sounds like a great strategy to get things as sorted as much as possible before dd2's arrival! Even the smallest of tasks will make a difference!!

Enjoy your trip Gardeninggirl!

Wow your house sounds lovely and shiny and fragrant Celeste after all that graft!

Hope the pain-killers did the trick Einstein. Incredible list as ever!

Think of how lovely it will look when it is finished Oncewho

"Ca vaut la peine" as they say over here!

Good luck with the pre-term prep Cotswold!

Enthusiastic wing flaps to everyone else!

I am bloody determined to get a better handle on wreck1 between now and Christmas. I have been wallowing for far too long. Helped by the fact that my lovely pet-sitter/cleaner who was looking after the house while we were away (and so didn't have usual chores) cleaned the oven, defrosted the freezer, and sorted a load of random crap in the basement. I want to build on her efforts!!

More immediately though, left for wreck2 at crack of sparrows this morning and am now turning my efforts to more agricultural matters ... it's a bloody beautiful day here!

Enthusiastic wing flaps to everyone!

Morning and welcome to the newbies and returnies

We were supposed to be out early this morning but I apparently needed the sleep. About to crawl out of bed and slowly get going. Should have another huge list of things to do today. Roll on next week and work shifts I could use a rest.

once as soon as I have finished decluttering it, the entire lounge is being emptied for building work finishing and painting - fuck knows where the furniture is going during this, also where the energy is going to come from to do this. But it needs to be completed before the end of October along with the hall, stairs and landing. Then we can start the deep clean ready for christmas Building dust and decorating chaos is the worst. I wish you luck getting your room finished and everything straight. You too Goose cleaning the dust seems to go on for forever...

Waves to Einstein

Btw, if anyone is confused, these would appear to be this month's zone dates:

Zone 1 Sept 1-2 Entrance, Front Porch, Dining Room
Zone 2 Sept 3-9 Kitchen
Zone 3 Sept 10-16 Main Bathroom and another Room
Zone 4 Sept 17-23 Master Bedroom, Bath, and Closet
Zone 5 Sept 24-30 Livingroom

They were tucked away in the Zones explanation link that I posted to Goose and for some reason don't yet appear on the website under "Today" or the zone link via the launch pad. Heigh ho!

But why it said we were only in Zone 1 for Friday is a mystery to me (or perhaps it is listed like that because she doesn't assume people work in zones at weekends?)

Sorry for the confusion - if you are doing zone work today - you can choose either Zone 1 or 2 to work in!!

The website usually catches up in a few days [sigh]

According to the fly system you don't do zone work at the weekend to free up time for doing things with the family and pampering yourself. By doing it during the week you should thus have extra time for all the other stuff that you need to do at the weekend - eg running kids to activities/sports etc.

for some reason I get the impression that US activities are more weekend based? Maybe that is a Hollywood illusion?? [confusion]

Morning all. I did yesterday's mission so the porch had dining room are looking good.

I've woken up with a stinking headache so not quite sure what's going to get done today. I'm going to start writing the current zone on the meal plan which lives on the fridge to help remind us what to concentrate on. The kitchen is a pit so a good place to start...

[aspirin/paracetemol to Purple with hot hope pain eases soon!

Aye Einstein but to get really pernickety about it, why does she then say that Zone 1 dates are 1st & 2nd ifyswim? Plus I think lots of fledglings who work full time find getting everything done during week an impossible task. And most of all, why the jeffing hell doesn't she update her website properly [stamps foot]?? [Over-invested, moi?]

Afternoon everyone,
Hi sandy welcome Goose,
Sorry been quiet youngest ds ended up in hospital again
Ta da
Dishwasher emptied
Laundry all done
Kids fed and dressed

To do
Batch baking for this weeks school packed lunches
Batch cook pasta sauce as we have so many tomatoes this year.
Check everything is in order on the command centre

Hope you all have a great day

Personally I think she has partially updated to take into account that lots of people have to do zone work at the weekends due to schedules but hasn't updated the coding for the site to automate and show correctly. You might not think to sort it and it did start to balls up when she did her last major update to the missions/babysteps/website so I do tend to think it is a coding glitch.

How is youngest mumofazoo?

Einstein youngest is 8 and youngest ds is 12
I have dd 8 dd 14 ds 12 and ds 15

Bless you, I meant how are they doing/ are they ok?

Oh no MumofZoo sorry to hear that, is your youngest ds back home now?

Reckon you are spot on about the partial update and coding glitch Einstein

Last day of work today

I thought I was going to have the screw you bitches attitude until they gave me a huge bouquet of flowers and then I properly broke down and wept! I have been there since the store opened so I am weirdly attached to it. My area manager also told me I can't come back if I leave because its likely il leave again.

My phone leapt from my hand in street face planted path,screen side down.damn thing went white and never recovered.having sorted most zoolets stuff fir school(need pick up scientific calculators tom and coloured pencils for lil zoo) i designated cash fir new phine(sobs) its cheapest i can find but as with all technology it still hates me...expect plenty zoo howlers as i wrestle autocorrect and the usual gubbins.....
What tucks me off mist us last one only dued on me just before kids broke up.anyhoo
Place at hovel status .nerves atpoint break

Tadas
One load wash done
Another trip shops fir milk.bread.fruit etc
Clean bath n sink
Litter tray

Help friend clean church(laughable when own gaffe such a sty really)

I am now flouncing off for a walk in the sunshine with zoolets and a pitstop at a playarea on way home and yar boo sucks to the mess(closes eyes so cant see it)

Oh sorry Einstein I misread.
Thank you Einstein and sandy he's back home now they only kept him in for a night, his legs gave way while we where out and he was in a lot of pain so an ambulance was called. He's come to accept that this is just his way of life

Ta da
Finished the baking ( banana bread is still in the oven)
Batch made loads of pasta sauces.
Put winter curtains up
Changed all my candles for orange ones
Pizza dough ready for dinner tonight
Command centre all sorted

Hi all! Welcome goose :)

Just got home from a nice day in the neighbouring town. So haven't achieved anything in the house. Highlight of the day though, DD felt her baby sister kicking for the first time! The look on her face was just magic. ❤️

Big hugs to your DS mum it's horrible to go through that bless him.

Hope you're ok mum and your ds is okay poor thing

Cag aww that's lovely !

I've been out all morning then got home and worked all afternoon so not much done in the house just a quick whizz round after we put the kids to bed. Dh was tidying the garden this afternoon while the kids when mad with paint...I didn't witness it I just saw the aftermath and the two of them sitting in the bath in some seriously murky water afterwards!

In other news, I have stopped breastfeeding and I am SORE and hormonal definitely time for us to stop as ds wasn't really interested anymore and I didn't want to carry on but still...sob, end of an era, and his first birthday next week, I will be a soggy teary mess so be prepared for my pathetic ramblings!

Oh and my new steam mop is FAB! My kitchen floor has never looked so clean. It even feels different under foot! I'm going to try out the attachments tomorrow sad case