Flying into Spring with icicles on it

[icypompoms]

Hello everyone, iWelcome 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.

This is an incredibly helpful thread and the system can be confusing but someone on here will be able to answer your questions and get you on track.

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

Hi all. Haven’t been in for a while, work just took over life completely! But the big scary presentations are done and went really well so things are less stressful in that department. So now it’s time to catch up on everything I’ve been ignoring… like the fact I’m several weeks behind on uni stuff! But things have been chaos at home too, as Cagletini had Strep A/scarlet fever.

I have absolutely loads to do today so thought I’d sign in with a list.

TO DO
😩put all laundry away (the dryer cupboard is full to bursting)
😩write the week on the board (haven’t done that for a couple of weeks)
😩sort meds for the week (ditto)
😩finish current uni chapter (need to go back a bit as I can’t remember where I’d got up to!) and do activities for whole chapter
😩a couple of online activities needed for assignment
😩go through online assignment questions to check what I already know and what might need looking up
😩sort out when/where I’m seeing friends for dinner
😩sort out plans with colleague for tomorrow as if she’s coming here I also need to tidy up!
😩change Cagbunny litter
😩work a bit more on DS’ CAMHS forms (ADHD referral)
😩sort out a week’s worth of GCSE revision for DD1 - I am too tired after work to sort anything each day and due to her learning difficulties it’s hard for her to manage herself

😬😬😬 Best crack on then really. 😬😬😬

Life is crazy. I am being broken in the name of figuring out how broken i am this week which means there is frantic tidying going on so the house is guest ready before the testing which will render me useless prior to them arriving.
Needless to say in the name of progress i am still in bed and about to attempt to move. i dont wanna
People have helped where they can but it is like having small children trying to help sometimes and it is often easier if they just dont.
Thankfully as long as there is a bed, and the kitchen and lounge are tidy the visitors are not the kind where things have to be perfect and they will offer help/can be asked to help if necessary. I have half a meal plan too as additional allergies get added to the mix, but when you are so used to working around allergies it is not hard ime to work for a new one when you know what you are doing to lower exposure. We are essentially set up to go.

But Ds has reminded me i promised him a lift at 1pm so i should find clothes and move now.

Oh and i lost more fish so there is just a lonesome fish in the tank. honestly there will be no more tank mates because right now is not the time for additional responsibilities. So whilst he will be looked after, if he goes the way of his tank mates i will just shut down the tank system until a time where i can juggle that plate in addition to all the new plates that have appeared of late.

sunny everything went well, eventually, with activating my phone. Transferring everything over went smoothly though. I have everything Samsung though so no problems for me, including my watch 😇

that it's really tough being out of the house like that. I understand, the days I work I'm out of the house for almost 12 hours (4 days a week), sometimes when I come home I'm too tired to even cook dinner. I hope you were able to get some rest today.

Perry I was wondering how you were doing. That is some to do list! I hope cagletini is feeling better too.

hills I'm glad to hear the visitors you will be having are the type to help. That's sad about your fish, but it sounds like a good plan to hold off on getting more fish at a more manageable time.

No ta das yet today, other than setting up my old phone for DS.

DE the evenings are really tough aren't they ! I am with you, when I get in from work , make tea , take the kids to their clubs and do the bedtime routine, I am ready to collapse into bed with my book ! Let me know how you get on with making some changes and if you find anything that works better for you (looking for inspiration!)

That I hope you feel better soon, that's a great tada list !

Perry well done on scary presentations ! I hope cagletini feels better soon , strep A is horrible , poor kiddo . How did you get on with your very long to do list ?

Hills that's so sad about you fish. How have you got on on with the prep for house guest ? I think we all worry when we have people staying over but bare in mind they will be coming to spend time with you , they won't mind about the house stuff ❤️

Hazel I'm glad the phone swap went well - I now have mine all sorted thank goodness . I just needed some time when I wasn't exhausted from work to spend on it 😂

DE it's DS's 12th birthday today . We celebrated with his friends yesterday because he asked for a family day today ❤️

We have had a great day for his birthday. He went to football with oh whilst I took dd2 to swimming and dd stayed home to bake his cake (she is so much better at baking than I am ! ) Once clubs were done , we went out for a yummy meal with MIL and back in time for the England match . A bit of Lego and currently watching Buffy !

In between the birthday celebrations:

Tada :whilst listening to atomic habit :

👍3 LOL
👍Tidy living room and hoovered
👍Cleared dining table
👍Folded clean washing
👍Dd2 homework
👍made beds

Not too many tadas today, I'll have alot to catch up on in the week !!

Off to bed soon to read , still on where the crawdads sing, I'm enjoying it so far .

Sunny that sounds like a fab birthday celebration ☺️ Re routines, it feels like it has no wriggle room whatsoever at the moment, if even the slightest thing doesn't go to plan, that's the wheels coming off the wagon. I am not sure there is a realistic solution to that for me. Here is a depressing thought.
Hills when are the guests coming? They are coming to see you and spend time with you, and not to appraise the house (although this is A LOT easier to say than to actually live by..)
That that's a long day. Sending coffee.
Hills I get you re fish. Every week before I have to do usual water change/maintenance on 3 fish tanks, I question my sanity of why I got so many.

Ta das:
💥3 fish tanks sorted
💥Bonsai tree pruned. Need to repot it next weekend along with one or two other plants. The rest watered today.
💥Beds stripped and remade
💥LOL in, out to dry. Clean folded away.
💥Usual routines done: DW rotated, kitchen tidied, living room straightened up.
💥Future friended with work clothes ready for tomorrow and nursery bag sorted, all clothes and shoes tagged.

I actually really enjoyed this weekend, nice and relaxed in the house, spending time with little one (and DH). I really don't wanna start the working week tomorrow.

Standard for house guest:
some where to sleep
some where to sit
somewhere to sit to eat

And a good hoover through cos wooden floors are a good idea until you realise how much crap doesn't get hidden any more by disappearing into the carpet.

My standards are low even if my ability to post in one post is not great.

We sorted the meal plan today, looked at the activity list for the visit, and generally play the emotiional support person role that is needed of me right now.

I have not done half of what i needed but bollocks to it. I got stuff done and all i wanted to do was to curl up with a good book. which i didnt do.

About to change the washing machine and head to bed. Getting into the habit of a 6:30 start. I am still not happy about it.

Eeek, we are about to replace most of our downstairs carpets with wooden flooring.

Hope the visit runs smoothly @HillsBesideTheSea .

Tada!
Sorted two loads of laundry from yesterday and put away my stuff
More laundry
Cleared cat sick from the carpet (thankfully one which is going)
Quick trip to supermarket
Made my packed lunches and boiled eggs for next couple of days
Went to gym
Home and shower/hairwash
Cooked roast dinner
Went to pub quiz, came second.

When I got up yesterday I remembered something about clearing off surfaces in my bedroom from last week. Got a bit sidetracked and started sorting out the jewellery and trinkets boxes in the chest of drawers. So the tops of the chests of drawers are now covered with little piles of tiny boxes and strings of beads, etc.

MONDAY flight plan link

www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=-60

New Zone 5 is living room.

Mission:

This week we are in Zone 5, The Living Room and I want each and every one of you to go into your living rooms and stand there. While you are standing there I want you to look around you and look at the flat surfaces (end tables, coffee tables, tops of tv's/entertainment centers, bookcases, mantles, etc)
What do have on these surfaces? Are they the same decorative things that you have always had? Do you really love them? Are they cluttered up with too many things? Too many ducks, bunnies, candles, cows, precious moments etc? I am not condemning those things but asking you if they still bring you joy and do you still love seeing them in your living room? Or are you just used to them.
What about the piles of magazines and papers? Do you NEED those? You would be amazed at how much neater your living room will appear by just removing a few things.
How much easier would it be to dust these areas without all that stuff?
Your mission is to get rid of the stuff that is cluttering up your living room. Take 5 minutes to let go of some things. I am willing to bet that more of you will find you do want to get rid of some things because they do not bring you joy and you are just used to them being there.

ED would still recommend the wooden flooring. It is not that there is more dirt it is just that you can see it more. So you get cleaned and less dusty easier with a wooden floor. But you tend to see it more. Wooden floors really saved the need to wash the carpets annually to get rid of the muck which took a lot of really hard work and was really hard.

Not loving morning this morning. About to get ds moving on his normally lie in morning to get him to an appointment so he is going to be thrilled at me.

Anyone got some good old patented witchy brew? realises about 90% of current flock will have no idea what on about I really need so seriously strong coffee this morning.

Flat surfaces hmm don't have many of those Pompoms they're all under the stuff

Sorry Hills no witchy brew here (probably, would help if I knew what it was 😁 ). RIP fishes 🐟. Pondering whether I want to know what happens if you don't have the carpets washed annually

You've done amazing with the unpacking Elf last time I moved it took me 4 years to finish it 😅

Sunny, the aftermath of the party that never happened reminded me of that ad for something where the guy rushes off to work accidentally leaving his front door ajar and his flat like a tip, to be greeted by his neighbour on return commiserating on his burglary and saying they've phoned the police 😆

Liking the sound of the wooden wick candle Hazel, especially the bit where it doesn't flop over on itself

Ugh cat sick ED 🤮 nasty, at least it's an old carpet. Well done on the pub quiz

I did my jewellery too Scourgify

Poor Cagletini 🤒 Perry. Glad your presentation went ok

Hope you feel better soon THAT

Ta-da's from this weekend:

🕳️ Reorganising shoe rack
🕳️ Tidied bedroom
🕳️ Decluttered
🕳️ Gardening
🕳️ Met up with a friend
🕳️ Detangled jewellery
🕳️ Unpacked delivery and put away
🕳️ Gathered up all the recycling
🕳️ Emptied bins
🕳️ Tidied living room
🕳️ Meal planning
🕳️ Filled in weekly planner

Honestly, you don't want to think about it. And if you do get around to cleaning the carpets expect it to take a while before black is not the colour of the discard water. 1 years worth of life (and building work) will result in dark coloured discard water.

For a house hold of people with allergies, especially dust allergy wooden floors or regular carpet cleaning really helps reduce the impact assuming you stay on top of the cleaning <ignores the dust bunnies that seem to be rampantly breeding in the corner behind the door>

Hills - we have a vax and yes, the water gets absolutely grim, it is unbelievable. To my shame, these carpets were here when we moved in 20+ years ago and they looked old then so it is high time for a change, we don't have allergies to contend with but we do have cat hair.

Ditzy - I'd forgotten about that advert, similar happened to us once, in our old house, we'd left all our washing up overnight and gone to work, came home and found a burglar had attempted to break into several houses including ours and the police trooped in to inspect the damage to the back door before we had time to clear it up. Of course that was in the days when the police actually came out to this sort of thing.

Perhaps I should research the lifespan of a carpet. I can't have wooden floors but the carpet was new when I moved in. There's no underlay so it's easy enough to replace when the time comes. I do hoover regularly and don't wait until it looks dirty. I suppose long carpet is worse than short for holding onto dirt. In one place I eventually ripped up a proper manky carpet to find a slightly less manky one underneath, the previous owner having lazily covered it up

Ta-da's:

🧘 Home blessings
🕉️ Extra LOL
🧘 Decluttered
🕉️ Tidied living room
🧘 Tidied bedroom
🕉️ Manicure

All the bulbs are growing and the buds are on the trees. Feeling very Zen 🔔

I think the lifespan of a carpet is like a piece of string, depends on the quality of the carpet and the usage type it gets.

I am having a day. turns out not even a bitchy brew (coffee so strong you could stand a spoon upright in it) would have saved my ass.

But poor little fishy is being rehomed tomo and the tank will be shut down after the plant goes in a fortnight.

My to do list is as long as it was at the start of the day (and contains virtually all of the stuff that was on it then too), i have drunk enough caffiene to induce a heart attack, i am about to go clean out my car because i am not going to want to do that at the end of the week after i have been poked and prodded by medical people. I need a nap.

☀️ home bleurgh
☀️ cleaned windows
☀️two lols
☀️read book in the sun during nap time
☀️started decorating house for middle poms birthday.
☀️planned shopping and food for the week
☀️baked flapjacks and mini nut roasts for lunchboxes this week.
☀️ate lunch and tea in garden.

Total miracle day considering yesterday we travelled back 5 hours from a wedding with rotten hangovers and two kids to parent. Is there any greater hell.

If the suns out I get recharged.

Tuesday:

www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=-60

☀️ Back to the Living Room we go! One of my favorite missions for the living room is to go sofa and chair diving! This is where we start digging through the furniture and pluck out the cheerios and old socks! I am always amazed at how much stuff I can pull out of the couch in just one short month! I think the couch is kind of like the clothes dryer, it seems to keep things!
Have fun, this should not take longer than 5 minutes!
☀️ plan and play day
☀️reminder: drink water

Hi again. I didn’t manage all of my to do list on Sunday but I did do the most important stuff - all laundry away, worked out who was doing what during the week etc. And got much more uni work done than I anticipated. Yesterday I had a fairly productive day work wise, and tidied up a bit (including full clean of bunny hutch) but did nothing at all after getting home! 😳

Cagletini is much better now, one more dose of antibiotics this morning and she is back in her own room this evening so will have to get back into a routine there.

DH is on his last week of a hospital course, I need to just try and get lots of admin done really. I work term time only and it would be nice to not have any little tasks hanging over me at Easter!

I have to get my carpets cleaned! I miss having hard floor throughout as it was easy to clean. I no longer have a carpet cleaner, but tempted to hire someone locally (we've used them at work and they do an awesome job).
Speaking of carpet, Dobby seems to have found a spot he likes to eat there is a patch in our room of missing fibres and no remnants, so I'm assuming he's actually eating it 🤦‍♀️ so now we'll have to think about replacing the carpet in our room, eventually 🤬

YesTaDas:
🍷 worked all day
🍷 cooked salmon dinner
🍷 cleaned up kitchen, including wiping fronts of cabinets to try to get rid of the fish smell 🤢
🍷 loaded DW - DS had already rotated it
🍷 handwashed dishes ignoring the fact they have been sitting there since last week

Ta Das today:
🐟 put new comforter in washer (it smells like chemicals 🙄)
🐟 drank one cup of coffee

To Dos:
😱 lots, no time to add a list right now, so hopefully I'll be back with ta das!

Ta Das:
🐶 comforter in the dryer
🐶 sheets in the washer
🐶 clean LOLs put away (apart from DS's laundry)
🐶 2nd cup of coffee consumed

I have to take the dogs to the groomer this morning. I'm planning to shower, get dressed and leave with them. I will bathe them and wash their beds and blankets. I need to wash DS's sheets too. I plan to check in later
🍒👋

☔️food shopping
☔️lol
☔️tutored for an hour
☔️sorted birthday party boxes
☔️Rehung all the lanterns that fell down overnight
☔️ironing
☔️prepped for toddler group photoshoot tomorrow.

I can't remember who said they'd set up and run the April thread?