Fledglings January 2023: the one without an interesting title

[CurseYouPerryThePlatypus]

Hello everyone, it’s that lovely time of year when we all aim at a fresh start! Welcome back to our regulars, and if you are new or returning, a huge welcome to you as well! Please feel free to post or lurk, whatever helps you most.

So, Flylady. That mysterious system that promises a lovely clean house! This link is a good place to read about the basic principles, but we strongly recommend ignoring the first bit - do not sign up for emails as you’ll be inundated!

www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/

If you’re new to the system, or are wanting a refresher course, the baby steps may be a good idea. Some are more useful than others, we’ve found, and stuff like affirmations may not work for you, so pick and choose what you want to try. You don’t have to do it all! Perfectionism can be left at the door, we celebrate any achievement here no matter how small it seems (this is why you’ll see our Ta Da lists as well as To Do lists!).

www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

There are parts of the house called zones, each taking a different part of the month, and missions in those zones to do little tasks we may have neglected. If you don’t feel ready for those though, a good way to start is doing 15 minutes decluttering in that zone! Remember it didn’t get messy in a day so it won’t be fixed in a day either. Slow and steady.

Then there’s the daily focus - each day of the week has a theme, although many of us switch them around to suit our own lives.

Each day I’ll provide the link to the launch pad, which is where you can see what is meant to be done that day (but again don’t feel you have to do all of it! That way lies burnout!).

A couple of principles we talk about on here are:
Future Friend - the idea of doing something today that benefits you later, such as choosing your clothes or making your lunch the night before.
Power of Three (po3) - if you’re overwhelmed, just pick three easy tasks - no matter how small - and forget about the rest until they’re done. Then reassess and decide another three.

Finally a few acronyms:
DW - dishwasher, not dear wife!
LOL - load of laundry, we aren’t finding washing hilarious
WM - washing machine
TD - tumble dryer

Feeling a lot better today but still have horrid tonsils.

✅ cleaned bathroom
✅ slept for an hour this afternoon
✅ made a cooked dinner
✅ lol
✅ did the bird watch counting hour
✅ starting a new book. I'm actually using the library now and it feels great

Tada!

Yesterday
🍏Decluttered wardrobe, 2 bags for charity shop
🍎Weekly food shop bough and put away
🍏Parcel wrapped to take to PO tomorrow
🍎Took part in volunteer hedgeplanting session
🍏MEssaged various people about various things
🍎One load of laundry done

Today
🍏Upstairs vacuumed, included pulling out bedside drawers, much dust
🍎Ironing
🍏Another load of laundry
🍎cleaned up a couple of items to sell
🍏bit of decluttering of garden shed (we used it for storage when we re-did the kitchen 18 months ago, there are a few bits still out there that are clearly never going to be used again)
🍎cooked roast dinner, first since Christmas

@Redsquirrel5 I did see the post about risotto, unfortunately I don’t like it but DH does.

@freezingpompoms glad you are starting to feel better

at Bee Day

Good to hear you're feeling a bit better pompoms
ED we still have things in boxes from our move almost 2 years ago! I'm guessing some of that can go at this point, but others are things just just need to go up (pictures etc) that we just haven't got around to yet

I've not done anything today, other than got dressed in comfy clothes and shoveled a small path for the dogs outside. We got some snow last night and it's drifting really bad in places!
I've got some slight cramping going on (unusual for me during TOTM) and I'm sitting feeling a bit sorry for myself!

Thank you for commiserations, lovelies 💐 We are holding out to buy until I switch my contracts (no point in buying here if I will need to move for job elsewhere..). The funny thing is, if the landlord has hold out for another 6 months or so, we would have bought the house off them! But now I am just annoyed, and to be completely honest a bigger house would work much better. So it's all for the best really.

Pompoms tonsillitis is pants, I am glad you are on a recovery path.
Hazel sounds like a cup of hot chocolate and a relaxing evening is in order.

Ta da:
💪 Make a spreadsheet to organise a house move. We already saw two properties on Friday, few more to see Monday/Tuesday.
💪Usual kitchen clean up, DW rotation
💪LOLs X3
💪Kept toddler entertained with vaguely educational activities.

I am hoping to get new property confirmed this week, and once that's sorted, I am renting a skip! Actually quite excited to do a major declutter. This house move will turn out to be a good thing, as it will force me to sort few little house niggles I was putting away (like decluttering, getting better chest of drawers for DS clothes etc).

Please ignore my lack of grammar above. Brain no thinks. 🫠

Hey all,

My ta da's

• stripped beds ✅
• washing machine on x2 loads ✅
• took ds to Sunday morning football ✅
• went snappy snaps for passport photos ✅
• made lunch ✅
• cleaned bathroom ✅
• made beds with fresh bedding 😊✅
• antibac kitchen tops ✅
• general living room tidy up ✅

Back to work tomo for another week of juggling everything at once 😆

ta da
🐍sorted meds for the week
🐍sorted a lot of dirty laundry
🐍uni reading
🐍essay plan
🐍nudged Caglets to do keep sorting their swapped rooms and do their laundry through the day
🐍put LOL on (ours) - plan is to spend tomorrow doing laundry between meetings etc but the Caglets had finished theirs so I may as well get a head start
🐍wrote the week up on the board

Also put Cagletini to bed, before watching a couple of episodes of Michael McIntyre😁

Insanely busy week ahead. Need to make sure I stay on top of things 😬😬😬

Can I join you lovely de cluttering people?

Love all the positive, honest posts. Nice change from some other areas of mumsnet ho ho 😂

I have done some of the Marie Kondo and am taking bits from flylady also - a bit of everything. So far this January -
💪Went through all my clothes brutally. Took 2 bin bags full to charity (about 50 items, how did I ever get 50 clothes? Sometimes I wonder I don’t even spend much… just the sheer waste. Mental note to spend even less.) 1 bag to ‘sell’ on eBay. Haven’t got round to it yet. 1 box (clear box) of sentimental items of clothes, summer clothes or things I swear I’ll still fit into…

I am going to put out ‘winter’ clothes and ‘summer clothes’ on rotation.

Tackled youngest kids clothes. Ignored 18 year olds clothes… for a young man he loves his fashion and so daren’t touch anything. It’s overflowing though.

💪Went through all paperwork. AGAIN! I’ve got papers from revising, papers to do with the kids health (SEN… so much blinkin paperwork), banks, mortgage…

💪Tackled my bedroom, kids bedroom, living room ‘surfaces’ and cleared them all and only put back what was nice looking or necessary. These are ‘hot spots’ I guess? Have some nice plants which make things look OK.

💪Cleaned most paintwork, windowsills, dusted, hoovered under beds and sofas.

😢don’t want to go inside cupboards in kitchen or tackle the washing machine/‘utilities’ pile. It’s just overwhelming! So much stuff to throw out and clean.

😢don’t want to look at the windows too much, cleaned downstairs but can’t afford a window cleaner/gardener at the minute and it’s too crazy for me to tackle alone.

I don’t like getting dressed straight away. I’ve realised I am not a morning person, never will be. But I’m not lazy. But putting on my clothes feels way too unnatural and forced for my particular metabolism. I like to start the day slow. So when I do get dressed I enjoy it (around 11am). I work from home, have to get up at 7am as first child gets in transport for their school, but then it’s coffee, calendar.

🤓I am going to tackle ‘miscellaneous inside drawers in living room and bedrooms’ this next week. I am not going to make the sink shiny as it’s reasonable enough, and just not so important for me.

I wish everyone luck in the next week or so. Let’s do this!

Not sure my posts are positive, i'd call them moany. Welcome aboard Cherries

Welcome cherries! I too appreciate the honest, down to Earthness of this thread. No insta ready houses here 😁

It has been a long day filled with not much productivity

Thanks for the welcome! 🤗

I think it can be very positive to have a good old moan @HillsBesideTheSea 😊

Hello and welcome. Sounds like you've hit the ground running!

I'll be starting our February thread now in a minute so I'll link that on this one and we can all move onto that.

I saw that Marie Kondo has almost given up having a tidy house now she has three kids. That made me laugh a lot!

Flylady Fledglings February: Thawing out of winter www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4731996-flylady-fledglings-february-thawing-out-of-winter

Here's the thread for Wednesday folks.

I'll still be staying on and chatting on here until then though.

✅ home bleurgh which almost killed me off today after being ill
✅ three lol
✅ made tea for two nights
✅ actually sat outside in the sun and read my book!
❌ didn't end up getting dressed!
❌ had to have a lie down at 3pm

Putting this here so it will archive

@freezingpompoms Just a quick FYI the fat fairy gets rather awkward if you copy the information (aka post pictures/quote directly) Iirc it caused an issue in the very very very early days of the thread. She is happy with links to the stuffs. And as such we have gotten away with summaries. its about the ad revenue But it is something to bare in mind

Oh god shall I let that thread slide and make a new one?

Is she watching us? Does she know I didn't vacuum all the way to my skirting boards today?

ta da
🍭meetings
🍭catch up with line manager and colleague
🍭LOL into dryer
🍭new LOL on
🍭replied to email about beehives
🍭put Cagletini to bed
🍭bit of studying
🍭maths with DD1

Plan of getting all laundry done today didn’t happen but oh well

If she is i bet she doesn't care cos it won't generate her income.

Not that i am cynical or anything. Nah you are good. But worth keeping in mind moving forwards. I am sure she can ignore a one off, but repeated issues could be where we fall foul and the less attention we draw from HQ and else where the safer this littler corner stays iyswim.