July Flylady Thread: Would July-k to join us?

[CabbageBearGoat]

Welcome to the July FlyLady thread! Need guidance with routines and keeping up with housework? This is the thread for you! FlyLady is a reliable and flexible system for keeping on top of housework, one thing at a time.

This is a long running thread, but we are a friendly bunch and all are welcome to join in at any time.

Do NOT sign up for the Flylady emails - it's an excessive amount sent every day.

There are Baby Steps for starting out, which add one thing at a time to start off good habits and routines. If you're new to FlyLady, start with these. If you are not ready to start these at the beginning of the month you can set your own Day 1 as today and keep track by following the Baby Steps linked below.

After Baby Steps you can graduate to Zones. There are 5 Zones that we rotate through in the same order every month, week by week. Don't worry about finishing it all this month, it'll come around again next month! Flylady is NOT about perfectionism! The system is designed to compensate for those days which don't go to plan, as it all repeats. As FlyLady says herself, "You are never behind. Jump in where you are".

Daily missions: (each week is the same).
Monday: Home Blessing (or as we call it, home bleugh - a quick whizz over basic cleaning)
Tuesday: plan & play
Wednesday: anti-procrastination
Thursday: errand day
Friday: clean car & purse out. It's also date night (with your significant other, or friends, or yourself!)
Saturday: family fun day
Sunday: renew your spirit (something to recharge your batteries)

Common acronyms/phrases we use:
LOL: load of laundry (washing is certainly NOT funny!)
DW: dishwasher (we are not rotating wives!)
LMS: lose/lost my shit
DNLMS: did not lose my shit
BRC: box/basket of random crap
Mount Washmore: self explanatory

There are more, feel free to ask us to explain something. I'll try to update links every day, although if you can, it's worth downloading the app, you can even have it send you notifications (useful for when the zones change). You can also modify the app's tick lists to suit your home & lifestyle. FlyLady is flexible.

Links are below 👇 if I happen to not add links in time, they do update at midnight for you.

Launch Pad (Quick links): www.flylady.net/d/new-links/

Flight Plan (Today at a glance): flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=-60

Weekly Zones (With this month's dates): https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/

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

Daily mission done. All usual routines done (LOL, folding/putting away, S&S, kitchen clean up gazillion times, DW..). Straightened up the hallway cupboard.
The rest of the day was spent doing stuff with kids. I am tired and ready for bed, and it's not even 9pm yet 😬

ED loving your sunflower. See the photo of mine attached 😂 I planted few vegetables with my 3 year old this year, thinking it will be educational. Well, so far the only two things that grew are peas and cabbage and weeds (planted carrots, lettuce, cabbage, peas. I was also given a tomato plant which I planted out, but as I don't have a greenhouse I am not expecting much from that). Thanks to the rain, the snails have been rampant and ate my cabbage before it had a chance. 3 year old is on a snail picking duty 😬 Flowers are doing better this year, but bastard snails got to some of my marigolds, despite the sheep wool etc.

Edit: apologies for the atrocious photography of that flower perfect focus of the background with blurry subject.. I blame the kids for distractions!

Finished the last corner of the front hall. Might remove the hanging laundry racks and paint the radiator. I’ll wait a couple of days and see if the urge goes away. I start so many things and wander off never to be seen again….

I need to sort through the two large boxes of stuff that had been hiding under the hall table and are now in the living-room.

About half an hour spent on garden chopping and tidying. The two trees nearest the house are much more under control now. My aim is that everything in the garden will be within reach of my extendable loppers from the ground, so no ladders or any similar heroics in the future.

Saturday! It's the weekend!

Baby Step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-6/
Get dressed to shoes and keep that sink shining. AND, today's message is about hotspots & how to put them out (at the same time as managing everything else). Set a timer for 2mins and tidy one area that just keeps getting in a mess. Just two minutes, mind! No weekend burnout, please

FlyBabies and FlyExperts: your 15 minute tidying sprints are over for the week!

Daily mission: Family fun day. Go out and do something together, or plan something at home like a board game or movie night. Maybe now is the time to say F the dishes (F is for FlyLady, obviously), and get a pizza in.

We had a great 4th of July. We stayed home, which meant I could get lots of prep done and blondies baked for our BBQ.
Fireworks around us were crazy, beautiful and scary at times! People had bought a lot of fireworks and a lot of them were huge and very close to us/ the house.

We had our BBQ last night, which went very well, mostly family came over, some were here from out of town, all of them on DHs side. My family never comes to visit us.

ED I love your sunflower! 🌻 😍 I need to plant some next year!
Dragons a new radiator sounds much needed for you. I do agree that blankets are lovely though.
Scourgify it does sound like you have a lot of stairs! It can be hard work lugging a heavy vacuum around.
Cabbage clearing the stairs sounds like a great idea. I don't put anything on mine, mainly because I would just walk past it until I trip over it and fall up or down the stairs!

Mc I love your sunflower too! I hadn't gone to the next page before I added my comment as I didn't want to lose it! That's sad that the snails are destroying your hard work in your garden.

Scourgify avoiding the need for ladders sound like a good idea. Less faff, less chance of falling and hurting yourself etc.

We are hosting again tonight. It was BILs birthday on the 3rd, so we are having them over for a steak dinner. I'm going with MIL to get the good steaks, we will also be having jacket potatoes tonight!

Head just about above water here

Had a school friend over for first playdate with his mum too which prompted a lot of tidying. Both before and after. Anyway house didnt take too much work to get looking okay! Daily tasks paying off.

Had a family trip out to the family festival in town and got a parking ticket which rather ruined the overall effect!

Had a lovely day today. Spent most of it in the garden except for a brief rain shower, and food and cups of tea. Got masses of pruning and sweeping up done. A robin followed me around from time to time.

Forecast is similar for tomorrow and Monday, so I’m aiming to do more of the same 🌞

Happy Sunday everyone!

Baby Step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-7/
Remember that hot spot timer we set yesterday? Here we go again. Just 2mins. Other baby steps today are, you guessed it: get dressed to shoes, and keep that sink shining. Read your post-it notes and reminders and focus on one little thing at a time. FlyLady also recommends adding getting clothes out for tomorrow to your bedtime routine. Some people swear by this, and it's part of making the morning as easy as possible with fewer decisions to make. It's not something I've ever done... maybe today is the day for me?!

FlyBabies and FlyExperts: No 15 minute tidy for you, oh no. Not until tomorrow.

Daily mission: Renew your spirit, recharge those batteries. Whether that means spending time out in nature, run a bath, read a book - whatever it means to you to feel like all those disparate parts of yourself start to knit together again.

Placemarking! So happy to see a Fly Lady thread.

Welcome @NonBinaryBlanket ! Are you new to FlyLady or have you been following the system for a while?

Having a busy morning today, stark contrast to yesterday's sofa day watching Trek and various sports. But today we're having a bathroom fan fitted by my dad (qualified electrician), so I prefer bobbing around being visible in case of any questions.

So this morning's wins:
eBay admin
Household admin
Baby admin
2x washing on
Vacuumed lounge
Big plump of sofa cushions
Vacuumed sofa
10min tidy of coffee table

The sofa plump and vacuum used to be my Sunday morning task every week, back in the days when it was just me (no cat, no wife!) and working in an office so there was less washing up and housework to do! Or maybe it just felt like it because there were forgiving wooden floors instead of pale carpets! Anyway, doing that this morning with the washing machine going felt very rejuvenating and very sort of "here I am again, I've got this" which I haven't felt in a little while. So that's been lovely and I hope you are all having similar recharging of mental happiness batteries.

Welcome @NonBinaryBlanket 👋

Dilly isn't it nice to have that realisation that what you are doing every day is actually paying off? So it only takes 30 minutes or an hour instead of 3 hours, to get the house visitor ready.

Cabbage that sounds like a great routine that you were in previously. Isn't it crazy how things just slip without you noticing until you do it again and it hits you that it's been a long time?

YesTaDas:
🎂 bulk shopping with MIL in next big town
🎂 put shopping away (I had to get quite a bit)
🎂 baked a cake for BIL
🎂 put birthday banner up outside
🎂 handwashed dishes x2
🎂 rotated DW x2
🎂 vacuumed main floor
🎂 mopped hard floors (lots of people wearing shoes in the house at the BBQ 😡)
🎂 swept patio
🎂 rewashed LoL that DS put on the day before and forgot about 🙄

As we were leaving the store, MILs car got hit by another vehicle. Of course his had a metal bumper, so no damage to his, but it crushed her bumper in 🙄 Thankfully he had insurance, pictures were taken and information exchanged.
No one got hurt, which was good.

Today we are taking out our boat (inflatable boat, that has a motor). We just got it, so going to try it out. DH & DS will use it for fishing mainly, but I'm sure we'll use it for fun as well. Only 3 of us can really fit on it though, comfortably. We will get in the pool later today and I need to do my nails. It should be a good day overall 😍

Welcome to a new week of FlyLady cleaning!

The week ahead:
Here are your links for this week, where we move into Zone 2: Kitchen
http://www.flylady.net/d/zones/zone-2/
https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/detailed-cleaning-zone-2/

FlyBabies: Your overall task this week is essentially the same as last week - decluttering in 15 minute bursts. Just as in Zone 1, if your kitchen is fully decluttered then you can focus on the detailed cleaning list linked above and spend your 15 minutes on some of that.

Monday's To Dos:
Baby step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-8/
There's nothing particularly new for today, except a reframing of everything we've done so far and a recommendation of when to do them. Morning routine all about getting up and ready (get dressed to shoes), reminding yourself of your plan (read your notes). Evening routine is about being kind to your future self (shine the sink, set out clothes for tomorrow, pick a 2min hot spot and tidy/clean).

FlyBabies: 15 minute declutter of Zone 2. Maybe pick a cupboard/area at a time and work around the room.

FlyExperts: Today's zone task is about looking up. We're talking light fittings, cobwebs in corners, and I'm going to venture a guess at the top of the cooker hood. Now, we only have 15 minutes so maybe this means spray something on the cooker hood and let it soak in while you get the other bits and then give it a nice easy wipe down afterwards. I don't know. I might need to split my 15 minutes across a few hours... the cooker hood is... neglected...

Daily mission: Home blessing! You know what this means: swap out bedsheets, change your bins, dust the underlay, and with whatever time you have left in the hour, vacuum something (and change the bag if needed).

After a rather tumultuous weekend the radiator has been put on hold for 3 to 6 weeks. Its a story. I am too exhausted to explain. Other things are being done to bring the project to a close in the meantime but yeah that end in sight got moved again.

Today's jobs are pick fruit, and make jam.
not loose my shit
REST
I pushed so hard at the weekend that i am not sleeping and the pain levels are getting super high again.

Tuesday's child is full of grace, which you're going to need to be able to reach today's tasks.

Baby step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-9/
Today is much like yesterday: review everything we've done so far, and keep up the morning and evening routines. Get dressed, shine that sink and do a 2min hot spot.

FlyBabies: 15 minute declutter of something in Zone 2.

FlyExperts: Today we're crouching and reaching (kitchen) cupboard doors. 15 minutes to wipe as many fronts as you can get to - get off any water/oil drips, fingerprints, bloodstains, you know how it is.

Daily mission: Plan and Play! You're in the kitchen already so maybe plan the week's meals, write a shopping list, that sort of thing. Anything that makes future you think "oh good I don't have to prepare this because I already did it". You accomplished thing, you.

@CabbageBearGoat I much prefer your posts to the original flylady ones 🤫 You have a talent for writing.

I’m going slightly off plan today because I have a lot of areas that are feeling very cluttered and disorganised so I need to try to get on top of them before I have a meltdown! I think this is largely teenagers being home leaving a trail behind them and also dp doing diy which means screws and other paraphernalia being left on every available surface (and in his pockets in the washing machine 🤬). Plus I did a Costco order last week which means lots of “stock” piled in the cupboard.

@Scourgify I feel your pain with the stairs, 5 stories here (although I only clean three of them weekly). Good for combatting all the chocolate I eat though!

@TheMainCharacter haha! Thank you - glad to be of service 😁Your plan sounds like a great idea to me - going off plan to tackle something that's really bothering you. I sometimes do what I've called a "trash trail" which is basically: pick up one thing misplaced in a starting location, put it away, pick up something nearby to your new location and put that away, repeat. If you run out of things to put away, return to start location. It's like treasure hunts, but where the real treasure is the floor you find along the way!

Yesterday's wins:
Morning routine +S&S
Cleared draining board
Emptied bins
Fresh loaf made
Cooker hood wiped
15min tidy of lounge
eBay admin - post office
Cleared and cleaned office desk
Argos collection #1
Began shelf assembly in baby's room
Baby admin/prep

This morning's wins:
Morning routine +S&S
Cleaned shower doors
Cleaned utility worktop
Argos collection #2
Set up writing group

Ok so

😵‍💫Overstock area organised, couple of things rehomed/got rid off
😵‍💫countertop tidied
😵‍💫Top of fridge tidied (still too much up there but will work on that)
😵‍💫LOL done and hung
😵‍💫yesterday’s lol folded and put away
😵‍💫Lego removed from living room and put back in ds’ bedroom
😵‍💫soap dispensers refilled
😵‍💫sofa properly plumped and vacuumed -inspired by this thread. I agree it makes a big difference, see also actually moving side tables etc to vacuum instead of going around them
😵‍💫living room properly vacuumed
😵‍💫rest of downstairs quickly vacuumed
😵‍💫surfaces in living room wiped
😵‍💫dinner prepped

I think at the end of the summer I’m going to be brutal and get rid of anything dc3&4 didn’t play with over the 6 week break (special items excepted). It’s really hard to keep their rooms tidy with so much stuff. Also need to persuade dc3 to get rid of some of the art projects which are currently displayed every flipping where. Am also going to try to have fewer clothes in the next size up for them. We get so many hand me downs though it’s tempting to keep all of the nice ones!
And then of course the pre uni clear out for dc1!

Dragons did you manage to get some rest?

Cabbage should I be a little concerned that you included blood stains on the kitchen cupboards? 🤔😂

Character I need to do the same as you today. I haven't exactly put everything away yet from the weekend. I have got everything clean, just not put away. The table is still opened up, food serving dishes still out (but clean) etc. I'll start in the kitchen and make my way around the house.

It's going to be very hot here for the next 10 days at least (we have a warning for high temps through the end of this week). Thankfully we have our pool up and ready and it's been nice to get in it after work.
I'm currently airing out the house while it's a little cooler this morning, but will need to close the house up in a few minutes as it's already starting to heat up (just gone 9:30am here).
I've already stripped my bed and sheets are in the washer.
I'm going to start watering my plants, then take down the happy birthday banner that's still up from Saturday 😳

I should be back with some ta das soon.. 🍒👋

@TheMainCharacter doing an end of summer clear out sounds sensible. Well done on the sofa plump and vacuum!

@HazelNotHungryLC just checking you're reading 🤣 Very envious of your pool. We just had torrential rain here so could have gone outside for the same end result but it wouldn't be as enjoyable 😁

Phew Cabbage you had me worried there for a minute!

Ta das so far:
🥵 took down birthday banner
🥵 watered my flowers
🥵 all food serving plates etc put away
🥵 sheets dried and bed remade
🥵 all clean clothes put away
🥵 3rd lol in washer
🥵 fridge cleaned out & reorganised
🥵 changed tablecloth on dining table

It's almost lunchtime here. I have a few more things I would like to do today and shopping that has to be done today (DS is now out of milk!).

I don't want to join you, but I wanted to put my head in an applaud your terrible pun!

@StoatofDisarray why thank you 😁 are you stoat-ally sure you don't want to join us?

More ta das:
🥵 bleached both bathrooms
🥵 cleaned mirrors in the house
🥵 cleaned glass doors
🥵 cleaned kitchen window (inside only)
🥵 handwashed dishes
🥵 wiped countertops (moved stuff so I got the whole thing)

I'm actually really tired right this minute and may even take a nap!