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/

Hazel I want sun and warm pool. Like Scourgify our heating has been coming on several times this week. It's so miserable in Scotland this summer.
Cabbage loving your writing style, it relaxes my brain ☺️

Kitchen jobs are mostly done. I just need to give the oven a once over.
I invested in a robovac, which makes it my third hoover, and I use them all! Trusty Shark for deeper home bleugh cleans, cordless for quick daily targeted tidy up of high traffic areas, and now my robovac to run between home bleugh days and clean under the sofas and beds. We have those sofas with large gaps from the floor, and dust bunnies need regular eviction as they are quite visible otherwise.

yep it is freezing over here hazel
No rest. furniture was moved. Books returned home. Clothes sorted and returned to storage in furniture rather than a basket
In short i made burn out and pain levels worse. And there is still a huge amount to do before i can have a sit on my ass day tomo.

To do
Finish rhubarb soup - you eat it cold, it is amazing when the weather is super hot.
clean jars, label and put away
finish cleaning the cupboard that is 2/3rds done
start massive shopping list
make bread
continue work on taming the kitchen
finish the doings in the kitchen that have been started but not finished.
Laundry
Ironing
move the last of the clothes
start sorting through the folders and decide which are to go in room a and which to go into room b
build a book case
But most importantly to remember NOT to drink my own body weight in coffee so there is actually sleep tonight.

@McMumster we have just arrived in Scotland and it is warm and sunny! Having driven through hours of drizzle and murk to get here. Hoping it lasts.

ED oh good weather must be on the way! We are up north and it's very grey.

I’ll send some in your direction! We are not very far North, close to Glasgow. I have to say, at home (England south coast) it has been a shit summer and I’m no fan of heatwaves. My allotment is over-run with weeds (sympathy re blight @SleepingIceDragons ) and the actual plants are not growing very fast.

I have not been posting much as I have been out a lot and work has been busy too, left the house in a less than immaculate condition, which I don’t like to do but I did at least change and wash the bedlinen amongst 6 loads of washing I did on Friday. Actually the weather can’t have been that bad then because I got them all line dried.

@CabbageBearGoat could I just say, you are doing a great job with the thread. I have done it many times in the past but am a bit jaded and you are doing a massively better job of it than I would have done this time, it really does give the system a freshen-up when someone new takes the helm.

Here we go, Week 3 of July with FlyLady.

The week ahead:
Here are your links for this week, where we extract ourselves from the kitchen and find ourselves in Zone 2: Bathroom and an Extra Room
https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/zone-3/
https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/detailed-cleaning-zone-3/

This week gets an extra bit of information here because the "Extra Room" is really whatever you'd like it to be. FlyLady has chosen her home office, other people choose another bedroom (not the master bedroom, that's next week), and for me I find it easier to make this week "bathroom week" because then when I'm restocking loo roll or whatever I can do all the bathrooms at once and I know they're all done and ready. That just works for me. Do whatever works for you.

FlyBabies: This week is again about removing obvious clutter - FlyLady talks here about dirty laundry and emptying any bins in there. If there's nothing obvious you can start to look at old supplies or "spares". Do not de-spare, some of this is part of the daily missions so you can join us there if you would like to.

Monday's To Dos:
Baby step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-15/
Week 3! Today is about adding "making your bed" to the first step of your morning routine. Now, what this means is somewhat up to you: some people like to make the duvet all nice so that it's ready for sleep. Others prefer to air the bed first. The key is having it ready for sleep when you get to it. Personally, I open my bedroom windows when I go downstairs for breakfast, and I do my timed tidying afterwards. By the time that's done the bed and room are usually all aired, and I can close the windows (and curtains too if it's hot!) and that's when I make the bed. Do what works for you! Don't forget those other routine points though! Shine that sink!

FlyBabies: 15 minute declutter of Zone 3. As mentioned before, just pick one thing and declutter it - don't try and do EVERYTHING today. Even if all you do is empty the bin, that's something you don't have to do tomorrow, so it's progress.

FlyExperts: We're starting with the ceiling again, with a special mention to the "vent grill" which I am going to assume is about dusting the bathroom extractor fan and not referring to some sort of indoor barbeque which is now the mental image I'm battling to keep out. In your "other room" I recommend looking at the detailed cleaning list above for ideas, or if you're organised and have set up this extra room on your FlyLady app, spent 15 minutes working on some of those tasks. Keep an eye on your July task of the swish and swipe. How is that going? Now we're in bathroom week maybe you can either be terribly smug about how beautiful it is, or use this opportunity to get on top of the sink scrubbing needs, ready for an easy and swishable week.

Daily mission: Home blessing. It's what we need after the weekend has thoroughly sneezed its chaos and detritus across our beautiful abodes - it needs a good blessing. Change your sheets, towels, bins, and vacuum something. And bless you while you're at it.

Thank you for the various thread leading compliments - it's quite fun! I'm not sure if it's keeping me on track but I'm definitely more aware of what I'm "supposed" to be doing. I've got out the habit of checking the app daily so I haven't done some of my usual things. But then I've been distracted - kitchen week turned into cupboard and freezer projects and I never got around to deep cleaning the coffee machine or changing the water filter, that sort of thing. But I'll get to it next month or whenever I have a spare moment.

Today is going to be more of an errand day for me - I have haircut, dentist and ebay admin to do! DW spent yesterday investigating and fixing the dripping tap in the ensuite so at least that's a good bathroom related win! Saturday night we were at the hospital checking in on baby as I had reduced movements and a few other funny things going on, but all is well. So I am hoping that little jobs FlyLady-ing today can keep my mind off all the stressors of the weekend and focus on what's now and coming up.

Morning wins:
haircut done and next two booked
registered at new dentist
eBay admin - post office and new listings
bought replacement tap toppers (the little "Hot" discs)
set up baby's gift wishlist (birthdays, christmas)

and this week's distraction side quest is to sort out a window cleaner who will do our velux - they need an extra long pole because the conservatory makes things awkward. Our current person is good but just cannot reach them, so it's all okay in the meantime but I really need this sorted before baby comes.

ta da
write document i was procrastinating on
loose my shit
stomp around the house being angry at the world
mutter about tourist season and how it impacts the roads.
sort out shopping list priority
make sure teen is up so he can be ready to leave when he needs
warn people tea will be late as can't be in 2 places at once
drink my own body weight in coffee whilst moaning about an inability to sleep and generally feel stupid tired (an no dropping the coffee doesnt help i tried that. I need to stop burning out chronic illness wise and reduce the pain levels)
sort out a few things for updating the calendar
label some more jars and get them put away
look under the kitchen benches where the kick board is missing and regret that choice immediately <added to to do list>

I send you all warmer weather and sunshine! 🌞

YesTaDas:
🌡lol x1
🌡scraped & sanded picnic table top (it needs to be repainted)
🌡helped DS finish packing
🌡loaded his things into the Jeep

I hurt my finger yesterday. Same one. 3 times. My nail ripped when closing a drawer (not all the way off, but enough to make it bleed under my nail). I then cut it with the scraper, like a deep paper cut. Then a piece of wood lifted with the scraper, my hands slipped and the wood took a chunk off my finger. I had to tell myself to not pass out! Needless to say, when I went to lock the door this morning with my fingerprint, I realised I had to use my key as plasters were covering up my fingerprint!

I dropped DSs things off at school before work this morning, DH took DS later. They just got to the other school where band bootcamp is being held.
Today has been super busy at work. My lunch has gone by super fast and I'm about to be sure back already 🙄
I'm glad my day is going by fast, but I do actually have things to do!

Iiiiiit's Tuesday! The second day of the week, so be careful of second-guessing yourself when it comes to these tasks.

Baby step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-16/
Today's baby step is to read the FlyLady emails on the website: a musing, a testimonial or a question. It's about seeing how everyone else does FlyLady. And, yup, get those routines done.

FlyBabies: 15 minute declutter of something in Zone 3.

FlyExperts: We're getting into the details today. We're talking door handles, light switches, and whatever "door facings" are. I'm going to take liberties on this and recommend if you don't have "old toothbrush" in your bathroom cleaning kit, it's super useful for getting in underneath sink taps and bath taps. And taps are a kind of handle, so go ahead and tackle those too. Don't forget your "extra room" too.

Daily mission: Plan and Play! Have you meal planned this week? Do you plan your meals? Do your meals plan you? Find something to do today that's kind to your future self. I'm not sure how to make this bathroom related... but if you're like me and you have a toilet paper subscription, now is a good day to check your stocks and work out if you're due another delivery or if you need to change the schedule.

Re possible mould in cupboards, I decant packets into jars and everything that isn’t a can or jar goes into fridge or freezer. Bananas are under a metal mesh cover. Had mice a few years ago, and almost never now.

All the greenery has gone mad with the weird weather, and I’m struggling to keep up. DH intends finishing the highest branches of the laurel today.

My “other room” will be downstairs generally, and mostly living-room. I put a nice table in the front hall, and it’s already a hotspot and I’m the only person here for almost all the time. Need to clear that off. And the coffee table. And the card table. And the kitchen table. I think I have Flat Surface Syndrome, where things creep onto every flat surface until stuff is spilling onto the floor again.

Not much done in the house apart from dishes. We did get on with the branches in the garden, DH up an extended ladder, which I hope he never needs to do again because it was terrifying to watch. I tidied up after and we had a lovely blether. I fell asleep in the afternoon.

Decluttering - DH took two sudoku books to tackle all the level 4, which I rarely manage to complete. Also three half-finished junior puzzle books to pass on.

Bathroom’s looking quite good with shiny mirror and taps.

Cabbage I actually managed to plan our meals and go grocery shopping today so did what I was supposed to do! 😇

Scourgify I know what you mean about the flat surface syndrome. It happens in our house, although DH is the main culprit 🙄

Ta das so far:
🌻 watered my outside plants
🌻 video chat with Mum
🌻 sheets washed & dried
🌻 2nd lol in dryer, 3rd lol in washer
🌻 went to the bank, to finally deposit the cheque I've had over a week!
🌻 grocery shopping
🌻 cleared fridge out
🌻 bought sunflowers & put them in a vase (I'll take pictures later)
🌻 cooked lunches for today & the rest of the week, for me
🌻 currently getting my hair done 😁

To dos:
☀️ make salad for dinner
☀️ bleach bathrooms (& make them shiny!)
☀️ vacuum
☀️ mop
☀️ change sheets on DSs bed
☀️ make our bed
☀️ take Jeep to DHs work so he can do my oil change
☀️ get in the pool (SIL & BIL are joining us for dinner & a swim)

I was planning on working on the picnic table today, but time is flying by so I'm just going to have to plan that for the weekend.

@Scourgify some good progress made today! I'm not sure what you meant by the sudoku books but it sounds like your DH had fun 😁

@HazelNotHungryLC look at you go! Very organised

Welcome to Wednesday wonderful wombles!

Baby Step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-17/
Something new for today - choose a bedtime and stick to it! Then, do all your now-usual routine things done.

FlyBabies: 15 minute declutter of Zone 3

FlyExperts: Today we're focusing on the sink specifically. The implication from FlyLady is that your sink ("vanity unit"... which, yes, I had to google) includes storage and therefore doors. So today's task is to work on that area, wiping down the fronts and getting toothpaste spots off of the rag. For this month, when Swish and Swipe is the name of the game, hopefully your sink isn't too much of a bother. For those of you who have a pedestal sink I think really it's up to you whether you decide to reward yourself by taking it a little easy today, or whether you will follow in the spirit of the task and tidy down some other area of storage.

Daily mission: Anti-procrastination day. I'm not too sure if these daily missions are supposed to be zone-specific, but I am willing to bet there's something a bit grim that needs cleaning in the bathroom that you've been putting off, so I challenge you to deal with that today.

Well I didn't get as much done as I was hoping 🙄 time seemed to fly by too fast and I'm thinking I lost 4+ hours somehow today 😂

Ta das:
🌻 made salad for dinner (I made a LOT!) It took a lot longer to make than I thought it would
🌻 cleaned bathrooms (not shiny though, unfortunately)
🌻 vacuumed main floor
🌻 mopped
🌻 2 more LOLs (blankets from the couch)
🌻 put the blankets back on the couch
🌻 made our bed
🌻 rotated DW
🌻 washed handwash dishes
🌻 wiped countertops
🌻 got in the pool for a relaxing evening

I didn't have to take my Jeep over for an oil change tonight, but it will be done tomorrow night. SIL & BIL came over tonight, it was nice to spend some time with them and chatted lots while in the pool relaxing.

I did finally hear from DS, they are doing really well with their bootcamp and ahead of schedule!

Flat surface syndrome is the bane of my life and it isn’t just tables and shelves, it’s chairs and sofas too. Anywhere stuff can be dumped it gets dumped. DD and DH are the worst by far. I dump stuff but I don’t leave it for long and I do notice it every time I walk past until I do move it. DD and DH just dump and the stuff apparently becomes invisible, or they don’t care that it looks messy and it stays indefinitely till I nag them. DH is gradually getting better but it has taken 25 years of training.

That sounds painful @HazelNotHungryLC rotten luck having three injuries on the same finger at once.

@CabbageBearGoat our “other” room tends to be what is called the dining room, it also doubles up as a thoroughfare, games room, storage space and occasional home office. We mainly eat in the kitchen or outdoors and rarely at the dining table, so of course it is a clutter magnet.

Disappeared again! Had a massively stressful RL situation that involved me having to try to get lots of documents certified and witnessed at short notice so seem to have spent most of the past week on the phone to various solicitors trying to find one who was a) willing to do it b) could fit me in at short notice and c) didn’t want to charge me thousands 😬. Have one more appointment next week and then it should all be sorted. Fingers crossed. It’s not anything serious/bad in the long term but needs to be done urgently.

I’m ahead of the game in the bathroom this week as we had a shampoo leakage all over the cupboard and floor at the weekend (lid wasn’t on properly) so cupboard got emptied and cleaned and floor had a very bubbly wash. Did make me laugh though as ds had two friends over and he called me up to the bathroom to show me and there were 3 16 year old boys just standing around looking at the spreading puddle of shampoo, didn’t occur to any of them to do anything about it!

Younger Dc bedrooms my extra rooms this week as despite having had a good tidy last week there’s stuff everywhere again. Not making such good progress in those as I just can’t face it!

@scourgify your decluttering is inspiring

I'm loving seeing what counts as the Extra Room for everyone this week! I haven't been doing much flying as some of the hyperemesis symptoms have returned, so it's lovely to see all your lists coming in! On the plus side, spending more time in bed means I'm not making any mess. Swings and roundabouts. But, some progress. I'm going to a new dentist tomorrow (first time in, er, a while), so arranging that is what I'm counting as both anti-procrastination today and errand day tomorrow! Double win.

On the moulding cupboard side of things, most things were in jars or containers thankfully as I went through a brief Marie-Kondo-esque drive a couple of years ago, so all the pastas were in glass jars (some of the bamboo lids a little worse for wear) and the main baking ingredients had their own containers too... but it's not practical to decant everything everything, and I've never in my life had an issue like this so didn't expect to need to protect things like custard powder!

Weirdly, as DW was in charge of chucking out the things that had gone too far, I didn't have a good view of everything that went... and I'm not entirely sure what we're missing as "everything I really need" is still there. Alarming. What did we have?! So, lesson learned, now we're in a much older house, these things happen and we need to be prepared. Thankfully, Cabbage Cat has any potential rodent problems sorted. She's a keen beheader of uninvited furry guests. Grim but effective. Anyway. More things in better containers now. I'm looking at you, cornflour.

The table in the front hall is now cleared off. I’m going to keep the bagged and boxed decluttered stuff there for adult DD so that I don’t forget about it. She took away a load today, and I had a few hours of Declutterer’s Remorse, even though she is keeping the books.

Coffee table was tidied off for about half an hour then I brought down two shoeboxes from the living-room shelves and discovered they’re jampacked with “bits” that have fallen off toys, and I can’t dispose of them until I know what they are and whether they’re no longer needed. Oh dear!

On the plus side, I’m actually enjoying starting to feel in control of the Stuff instead of the other way round.

Spent about an hour in the garden today. Bagged up leaves from the sawn off branches for mulch.

Cabbage that's a scary thought to have when you're sure you needed everything, but can't think of what isn't still in the cupboard! I've been there and done that!

ED thank you, I'm sure it'll heal just fine, it'll take some time though as one injury was very deep 😔

Character isn't it funny how some people react (or don't react) to spills of any kind? At least it was something that would actually help clean the surface, rather than make it bad, like lotion!

Scourgify well done on getting on top of your house and the things in it!

I feel like I'm behind this week, not done as much flying as I'd hoped. I did get one of our wheelie bins cleaned though, it was smelling awful. It's currently drying, but smells much better now!
Last night I took a picture of the sunflowers I bought for the house, pic attached 🌻

It's Thursday again, which means it's errand day in FlyWorld.

Baby Step: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-18/
Today's recommendation is to read the 11 "commandments" FlyLady created: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/flying-lessons/flyladys-11-commandments/ along with the usual routine

FlyBabies: 15min declutter of Zone 3.

FlyExperts: For today, we're thinking and writing rather than doing. It's about something you'd like to change in the bathroom, maybe that's at the DIY level of replacing a light or changing the wall colour, or maybe it's at the decorative level with a shower curtain or towels. Then it's about checking your stocks of bathroom supplies (so there are no nasty supplies-es...). Same again for the Extra Room.

Daily Mission: Get out, get the thing. Or take the thing and get out. Do you have parcels to send? Groceries to buy? Do those things today.

There are a couple of things i like to transfer because they are just messy - custard powder happens to be one of them. Cocoa powder and corn flour are the other two. I have a lot of food in tubs and jars. We have had problems with mice, damp and mites so it is easier to contain this with tubs rather than the bags of the flours. Pasta flour got mealy and i could just wipe out the cupboard and throw that flour rather than having a whole cupboard having to be thrown out.

Need to figure out the tub for tapioca starch. But I ran out of jars and tubs so need to sort that.

Don't have a car atm as waiting for mechanic to sort a repair for me. Which is a little spanner in the works but never under estimate a stubborn woman. We WILL find a solution in the end.

ta da
hang up net curtain to dry
consider the plan for the day

to do
sort the kitchen
ring GP
send important email
other admin

There is a huge other list to draw from but I am trying to be realistic. Not feeling the best right now so don't need the to do list bullying me.