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

PomPoms what a list I am glad you also made some reading time!

ED Except I am getting very lazy and slow but a friend from church asked me the same thing the other day as she thinks it is taking her so long to get around to stuff.

Haddie Welcome and you will fit in here because gnat attention span is a requisite !

Hazel thank you I have forgotten nieces birthday card. One tomorrow Glasgow and one on 18th the highlands.I hadn't realised we were that far through the month and damn the postie has been. MIL was 21st. It was sometimes Mothering Sunday and she liked two presents.Happy Birthday for yours.

Well yesterday went pear shaped and I gave up full of good intentions today hmmmm. However

I have put LOL on towels so not finished yet.

Due to reading today and Pompoms nudge I have done the med.cabinet. It is next to the computer.Bathroom just has a mirror and the shelves next to it is for pretty things. Photos, lovely bottles of bath bubbles, clay fish (boys) shells etc
Bed is airing.

dh is doing logs and we have snow so freezing but they are on the path so he has to do them, keeps him busy. We stopped for hot chocolate and coffee and hot cross buns at 11:5

Had visitor.

Pof 3
Strip and make bed
dust bathroom shelves
check shower drain and clean

We had enough left overs and had a picky tea last night.

Veggie box arrived so it is veggie pasta tonight. What are you having?
I have baking to do for Gardening Club today/ tomorrow and I was making a shopping list so got out Jamie's 15mins book which i haven't used enough and I am going to make some meatballs from there at the weekend and fish too. Then Miss Vegan is back.😳

Well today was a good day! I'm following the babysteps on flylady. So far Ive managed to;

scrub my bathroom sink & loo
scrub away a patch of damp in my bedroom
coat said patch with anti mould/damp paint
2 X LOL
Do some small skin care/makeup
and watch two of my children who were off with the teachers strikes so Im taking today as a win

❤

@EspeciallyDedicated how do you make seed crackers?

@Haddie321 welcome I think I missed your post. Ask any questions as when I came here first I asked about ten questions a day!

@HazelNuttyElf happy birthday to you for Sunday

@Scourgify hope you feel better now.

Not a lot of flying here:
🥶baby group
🥶 shopping for birthday items
🥶 sent and picked up Vinted stuff
🥶 just had row with middle poms right before bedtime. She absolutely pushed my buttons and I feel absolutely awful now. Mother fail there.

THURSDAY:

www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0&d=1

☔️ errand day: so get anything done out of the house that needs doing.
☔️ mission: The bathroom sink is calling you! Let's shine our bathroom sinks and counter tops. Scrub the sink and the faucets, wipe down with Windex (remember to be careful that you are not mixing Windex with any bleach products, make sure you rinse very well before using the Windex). Take time to wipe down your counter tops and give them a shine as well.
Your mission for your Stash and Dash space is to go back again to throw away anything that needs to be tossed or recycled. We are going back to do this again because now that we have peeled back one layer it is very possible that there is more to be tossed or another space to toss from.
☔️ reminder: get dressed to shoes and that is March's monthly habit too.
Don't forget to keep on top of the months that have been...January: shine your sink
and February: declutter each day for 15 mins.

Love your name@Haddie321 My dad used to call us kids haddies if we were acting a bit daft. A nice memory that I had forgotten.

Attacked a Stash-and-Dash spot today. I didn't even know it had a name. Things are now in the right place, although it took a lot more than five minutes. Emptied a shoebox of bits and pieces, chopped up several expired bank cards and sprinkled the remains into the bin.

I think there are more stash-and-dash shoeboxes around the house...

Go on holidays with a toddler, they said. It will be fun, they said. DS is being a nightmare thanks to time change and being completely out of a routine (and a husband who doesn't want to parent properly) I don't know what I was thinking booking a walking holiday in a city when 20 weeks pregnant. I can't even drink my way through it. Send help.

Oh no @DomesticElf , we will send decaff coffee and calming vibes.

@icypompoms

Seed crackers - all fairly approximate. I use American cup measures

1 cup ground chia seeds
1 cup mixed other seeds (I use a mix of pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and poppy usually)
Salt, pepper, dried herbs, chilli, anything you fancy or none at all

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add a good dollop of water and mix in to make a soft paste. Leave for about 10 mins and it will thicken up considerably as the chia seeds go gooey. Mix in some more water till it is the consistency of soft butter, leave for another 20 mins or so.

Spread on a baking tray (I use a silicone liner) to about 5mm thick. I score it into 2” squares with a palette knife. Bake at approx 200C for half an hour or so (sorry, I’m very much of the cook it till it’s cooked method so don’t have exact times). If they start to brown take them out of the oven, if you stop sooner, as they cool make sure they are properly crisp, put them back in for 5 mins if not. Then break them carefully and store in an airtight container.

Red I've no idea what the question was (or even if I replied! 😆 ) but I'm always happy to help. In answer to your questions, I have never had a tablet of any kind and never had an apple device of any kind. What I did have was 3 different phones broken by the same internet forum (not Mumsnet). The symptoms were firstly being constantly kicked off the site. If I persisted with trying to use it, the phone would sometimes shut itself down completely, powering off and on again to reboot itself. Eventually, one switched itself off and refused to ever switch back on again, one gave me the blue screen of death and one carried out a factory reset on itself of its own accord. I gave up on the forum after that and concluded there was something dodgy about it/the ads on it or whatever. I presume something was trying to somehow hack my device (can't imagine for what purpose, there was no sensitive or even personal information on there, except people's phone numbers, but perhaps that wasn't known by the would-be hacker) and the devices were shutting things down to try to protect themselves. So I'd advise looking at your security. I know nothing about security except DP puts something called Norton on all the computers here and says it's well worth the cost. One payment goes across 3 devices. Maybe it would work on your iPad? If you're getting kicked off for security reasons, which you might not know unless you fix the issue. I've no idea if you're getting kicked off due to signal, I don't understand how a different phone would make any difference to that, I thought signal strength was to do with the service provider and their coverage in your area, not the device? But as I say, I know nothing, so I could be talking shite

Hattie welcome. My attention, memory etc isn't always so great either. As FlyLady says, you're never behind, so start from wherever you are. As you persevere with the system you start to pick it up and understand it better

Pompoms I hope you get some well deserved rest today. I love your eating rule

Scourgify I hope you feel better soon

Hazel happy birthday to all the March people/pets

ED seed crackers sounds interesting I like things with seeds on

Ta-da's:

🌃 Morning routine (eventually)
🌃 Decluttered a few bits after watching some YouTube videos
🌃 Nailed the anti-procrastinating for once by writing a letter that I've been putting off for several weeks to somebody nice who deserves it
🌃 Wrote something nice in Mother's Day card. Found a sufficiently posh looking cardboard flower that won't make my mum's upper lip curl at the sight of it, to glue in the rest of the space and look like it was always there and I didn't put it there, to distract from the fact I CBA to write much
🌃 Anti-procrastinated some more by walking to the post box to post both letter and Mother's Day card. In the rain
🌃 Anti-procrastinated even more by punching holes in a belt that's been hanging around waiting for more holes for a few years now
🌃 Used aforementioned belt to cinch waist of tee shirt dress worn over tights, so when DP came home he said "I like your shirt" with a look of approval and not "you look like Ali G" whilst laughing, which was what he said last time I wore it with baggy trousers
🌃 Read some stuff that'll be decluttered when I've finished with it
🌃 Evening routine

@EspeciallyDedicated thanks so much for the recipe. I'm definitely going to try these. We loved crackers here but there's so much salt in them I worry for the little poms.

@DitzyDaffodils I'm sensing Mother's Day can be difficult. Same here if so. It'll be no Mother's Day for me as I'm hosting my mother and mil. Mil refuses to drive the 25 mins to our house even though she drives further to other destinations. So H will spend some of the day fetching and taking her home so I'll be with the kids and cooking and cleaning and generally seething quietly.
I'm obviously I could just have a stern chat with myself to be nice and positive. I think I'll do that! Plus a 12 noon red wine

Good morning ☕️

Busy few days , not much flying done but I have kept up with the basics and will have to catch up properly tomorrow night as kids have running club and gymnastics tonight 😴

Ds reminded me we have house guests this weekend. And will need to sort a bed for them. And also will need to sort the food.
Following that we will have house guests for a whole week from abroad.

Essentially that means i will be tidying ds' room up. Which will be so much fun. not. So much to do. No time to do it.

Oh you are so patient Pompoms, your serenity is an inspiration. I'd be having a stern chat with DH about how it's time, now he has a family of his own, for MIL to step aside as No.1 Mum. That's your place now! The refusing to drive to you is a power play and that alone would make me seethe. Wishing you the strength to get through it any which way you can. Luckily Mother's Day is an easy win for me, means a lot to her for very little effort on my part. I won't be seeing her, she's not local and I have other siblings who will. So it's just the search for a card that doesn't say Wonderful Mum or something like that on it (because there's a limit to how much silent seething one can do without having a heart attack)

OMG Hills that's a lot of house guests. I hope they're the pitch in and help kind and won't add too much to your usual huge burden of being all things to all people

You're doing well Sunny

Elf now is the time to really milk any pregnancy related issues and develop a few new ones 😉. Ones that mean you can't possibly be default parent from dawn to dusk, ones that mean you have to sit and rest lots and maybe even cut the day short to return to the hotel alone to lie down one the beach in peace

That's a good start Haddie

I'm liking the sound of those biscuits even more ED I may have a go at making those at some point, I have all the ingredients, although I've no idea how to grind chia seeds. Maybe I can leave the water on them longer an that'll work?

I don't have any errands to run so I'm having a day off. Today I had a long lie in and watched some decluttering hoarders on YouTube for inspiration. I've realised I need to go through my craft supplies again because although it's all tidy the drawers are packed to bursting and I can't root through to find anything without creating a huge mess

@DitzyDaffodils yes you are spot on. It is a power play. She didn't want us to move to the next village so she won't drive to us. To be honest that suits me just fine. No more unexpected drop ins. H can go there and take the kids in theory so I get time off.

feeling rather deflated today, pmt and exhaustion and a 4:30am start.
✅ just took baby steps to tidy each room
✅ quick hoover and mop downstairs
✅ tutored for one hour
✅ dyed 2kg rice for bday party
✅ lol

FRIDAY: www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0&d=1
🦄 clean car and hand bag
🦄 mission: mop bathroom floor
🦄 mission: Chuck 27 things from stash and destash area
🦄reminder: Your evening routine will help you rise and shine
Dear Friends,
This is the most important routine of your whole day. It helps your morning start off on a less-stressed foot.
1 Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
2 Take a few minutes for yourself
3 Check your Calendar for Tomorrow’s Events
4 Spend 2 minutes clearing off your Hot Spots
5 Shine your sink
6 Wash your face, moisturize, brush your teeth and floss
7 Go to bed at a decent hour

Both lots of house guests are the pitch in and help, will bring a soothing influence to the house kind. It is just the fact that the ds' room will be needed so that he can keep access to his precious computer. Which will be essential for getting college work done.

It is hard to motivate other who are struggling when you are struggling.

@icypompoms I'm sure whole chia seeds would work, they all go gloopy when mixed with liquid. The ones I buy are milled, from the health food shop.

@HillsBesideTheSea good luck with guest preparation

Well, I finished work early today as I had to pick DD up from college due to the train strike. Got home thinking I could crack on with some chores and the front door handle came off in my hand. Took it all apart and decided it was beyond repair, luckily we have a branch of toolstation nearby so I was able to get a replacement and fit it but the whole thing took 2 hours. One good thing though - about 6 months ago, I got so sick of never being able to find a screwdriver because DH never puts them away that I bought myself a few small tools, stashed them in my (fairly big) pencil case so no one knows they are there and there they all were when I needed them today.

ED that was a win re tools. Recipe sounds good. DD is vegan so great for her.I would put the chia seeds in a pestle and mortar.
Ditsy thanks so much. We have Norton unless DH has taken it off I will check.
The kids bought my IPad for me.They clubbed together one birthday or Christmas and bought it yes it is Apple. DD will be home after the weekend so I will ask her.She is fairly good with tech.
Elf just try and enjoy the break. Cafe and people watch.
Hills can't DS sort his room.I would have a breakdown if I had guests coming.
Haddie great start. It does work but you wont change overnight.I find lots of things like S&S automatic now. I just need to do more decluttering.
Scourgify yes i have some of those shoe boxes too. Well done though it is a start.

So I got my Pof3 done yesterday and just the floor to wash tomorrow.

Veered off course today as I put the drawer container in the drawer which meant tidying out the drawer and I had to do four in the end as I swapped stuff around.So kitchen drawers lovely and tidy.I need to do the Jam drawer in the dresser now.
I was baking today as Gardening Club. I made a Persian Tea Loaf and a Carrot Cake. There were lots more people tonight due to our new advertising. Will be a good amount in the coffers tonight and I got paid😀which was great. I bought three plants too.One as a present and one I might give as a present and some Muscari as I haven't any in the garden.My friend and I had fish and chips.There is a great shop between us and her so I collected a portion and shared.I got a shock though £11 for one portion. We rarely have them and it might be even less now.
I am meeting up with two ex colleagues for lunch tomorrow and then a little bit of mooching around the shops.
I'll do the bathroom floor, purse and car tomorrow. Bed and maybe a BRC when I get home.If I remember I will take my inhalers for recycling at Boots.
Cherry Waves.😻

Red - his SN means that getting it tidy is problematic. He can tidy off his own bat if he is motivated, but he is a low mood right now and everything is overwhelming so i know it will only get done if i help and direct. Looking at it yesterday it is mostly his floordrobe so shouldn't take too long. And then just a case of washing the bedding.

If we are motivated we could do a full on deep sort and clean but it is not necessary for what is needed, especially this weekend. for the oversea visitor it will be done.

Tbf to ds i got up this morning and he'd put the shopping away without being asked.

Red - I was thinking about your ipad/MN troubles and wondered if you needed to clear cookies and log back in again. I have to clear MN ones every now and then because it plays up on me. Do you use the app or Safari? If Safari:

Go to Settings, scroll down on the left to Safari, click
Scroll down on the right to Advanced, click
Website data, click
If Mumsnet isn't on the list, click Show All Sites
Scroll down till you find MN, click Edit at the top of the screen, then the - sign next MN, then delete.

Go back to safari and MN, you will have to log in again, at the consent page if you click on Manage Consent and then Reject All you won't get adverts or those annoying Promoted By threads

I stopped in a far corner of the car park and cleared all the rubbish off the floor of the car. I tidied all the stray bits and pieces into the glove compartments and door thingies. All the seats are in the correct position. (I Rarely have more than one passenger.) It's still bogging, but no longer messy.

Anti-procrastination -
Completed and posted an important form.

Paid a bill online.

Had a financial conversation with H by phone. We both concentrate better doing it that way. We agreed on something.

Discovered the wonders of JustEat. It helps a lot with occasional topups between supermarket deliveries.

I've been asked to look out a rucksack for DD. She hasn't used it for about a decade. I don't remember it at all, but I'll hunt around. The trouble with putting things away is that I no longer remember that they exist.

☀️very quick go in the car
☔️ran some errands
☀️lol
☔️tidied house a bit
☀️made a chilli for friends coming tomorrow in the wonderbag
☔️ baby group

I'll post link now for tomorrow and if I miss Sunday it's because there's three games of rugby on and I might just forget 🍷

SATURDAY:

www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0&d=1
🦄family fun day

SUNDAY: renew your spirit by doing something nice... I think I'll scream into a pillow.

Also happy Mother's Day to all the different types of mothers out there 🌸 and if it can't be a happy Mother's Day for whatever reason lots of love to you too.

Thanks @icypompoms

I have done my Friday Focus tasks (apart from date night). Decluttered my handbag and car and on the spur of the moment took the car down to the local valeting place for a thorough inside and out clean (it was filthy in both). I’ve never done this before but OMG it’s like having a new car.

Tada!
Took DD to college
Got petrol
Went to laser treatment place (having underarms defluffed)
Zoom yoga
Swept kitchen floor (having seen it close up during zoom yoga)
Wiped some of the kitchen cupboards that were dirty
Cleaned out fridge
Load of washing done and put on line
Swish and Swipe
Bleached bathroom tile grout
Took car to valeting place, had a coffee while I waited
Main food shop done and unpacked
Few work emails attended to
Went for a walk before it got dark
Dinner made
Phoned parents - tech support given
Pottering about now. Watched a bit of Comic Relief but I don’t like all the slebs doing good stuff.

Unlike a few of you, I did not clean my car, inside or out. It really needs doing though.

Ta Das (Saturday):
🥳 grocery shopping with DH for few bits for dinner
🥳 bleached kitchen countertops
🥳 baked banana cupcakes as per request from DD for her birthday (it was Thursday)
🥳 made cream cheese frosting for those cupcakes
🥳 made chocolate frosting & coconut pecan frosting for the German chocolate cupcakes (for FILs birthday - Saturday)
🥳 had DS vacuum and mop
🥳 I bleached the bathrooms, floors included
🥳 had DS help me prep jacket potatoes
🥳 cooked the potatoes while I took a shower
🥳 got the shrimp ready and cooked
🥳 had a big birthday dinner celebrating all 3 birthdays (mine is Sunday - today)
🥳 opened our presents. I got new dining room chairs that I added to my wish list on Amazon! (Among other things)
🥳 enjoyed my gluten free cake that ILs bought for me from a local gf bakery. They had it specially made for me
🥳 DH & I sorted out the dog's food and treat storage, no more issues of Coco getting into treat bags and eating too much from now on!
🥳 rotated and ran DW x3
🥳 handwashed dishes
🥳 cleaned kitchen bin (outside)

Not much to do today (it's after midnight here, so Sunday). We're going out for dinner and looking at phones for me
🍒👋 to everyone