Fledglings Feeling Festive - come Fly with us

[ExquisiteDecorations]

December is where the winter starts properly, all are welcome as the Fledglings prepare their nests for the frosty times ahead, we are following the Flylady system for running our households - http://www.flylady.net

This is a long running thread, but we are a friendly bunch and all are welcome to join in. We recommend you do NOT sign up for the Flylady emails - we have been saying that for years because it used to be the case that there were far too many, no idea if that’s changed, if anyone has tried do report back. If you’d rather not, check in here instead or download the app.

There are Baby Steps for starting out, add one thing at a time to start good habits and routines - link here http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

There are 5 zones that we will rotate through, don't worry about finishing it all this month, it'll come around again next month! Flylady is NOT about perfectionism!

Daily missions: each day of the week has a different mission.
Monday: Home Blessing (or as we call it, home bleugh)
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

Common acronyms we use:
LOL: load of laundry (washing is certainly NOT funny!)
DW: dishwasher, we are not rotating wives by any means, although an extra pair of hands could come in handy sometimes 😆
LMS: lose/lost my shit
DNLMS: did not lose my shit
BRC - box/basket of random clutter/crap

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. You can also modify the tick lists to suit your home & lifestyle.

December’s monthly focus is pampering 😀.

Links are below 👇 if I happen to not add links in time, they do update at midnight for you.
Baby Steps http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/
Monthly habit http://www.flylady.net/d/habits-of-the-month/december/
Launch pad http://www.flylady.net/c/lp.php
Flight Plan (all the day’s tasks in one place) http://www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0
Sneak peek for the week - summary of the current week so you can plan ahead http://www.flylady.net/c/sp.php

Thanks so much for new thread ED

Some overexcited children here, my fault really, we had first Advent calendar, v silly North Pole breakfast and then a huge deal made of Advent at church. House fairly upside down so will take the week to catch up with it!

Entrance hall again - How does it always get into such a state? (It's my fault actually, the mess is mostly mine)

Pampering - definitely if I get the chance!

Thank you. I finally worked out how to block Flylady's emails. Then the address was changed and they got through again. Managed to block those and the next iteration a couple of months ago.

I feel a bit sad - Flylady was a big help, but I didn't need any more clutter in my inbox.

A cautionary tale there @WearyAuldWumman ! I have never signed up to them, making do with checking in on the website or here, I think some on the threads might have used the app though.

Right, I have spent far too much time watching the cat being fascinated by the new robovac, but it is doing a good job. Also kept on top of the laundry and dishes etc this weekend, but not much else. Back to it properly in the morning. Just about to make my packed lunch and sort today’s load of laundry.

I use the app and I like it, but it only gives me one reminder a week (when the zones change). I'd quite like a daily reminder!

Thank you ED for running last months thread, and also continuing for December too!
I'll be back on tomorrow (Monday), hopefully. It's late here and I need to get to sleep. I'm ready to be back on plan!

Thanks for the new thread @ExquisiteDecorations 💐

So here we are back in Zone 1, the entrance, porch, hall, dining room.

http://www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0

Time to take down the autumn decorations. I took down my autumn wreath in the storms last week but I still have pumpkin bunting and fabric pumkins out so I will do that later, I need to climb a bit to get the bunting down as it’s in a high window.

As we are starting a new month it’s a good idea to look at the babysteps link in the OP and get back to shining our sinks if the habit has slipped.

Monday is alaso Home Blessing day, there’s a link on the flightplan. Basically dust, hoover, empty bins and change bedsheets. In an hour. Ready, steady, go….

Or do it over the week, whatever suits your lifestyle best

Thanks for the threads @ExquisiteDecorations ! I remember spending a lot of time watching our robovac when we first got it too - so satisfying! The robomop was even more frequently watched. Sad really 🤣

My today's completed list is short:
Had the baby!

Ooh congratulations Chestnut - now the fun starts! Hope all is going well for both of you.

Spent 10 mins clearing up in the entrance hall. Could spend all week tbh.

🎉🎉🎉
Hooray! Congratulations @ChestnutStew - hope you are managing a bit of rest and lots of snuggles ❤️

Woohoo Chestnut! That's excellent news! Did everything go well?

Fantastic news, ChestnutStew - many congratulations 💐

Hope you’ve managed some sleep @ChestnutStew

Tada!
Fed cats
Filled bird feeder
Put veg box away
Took down all pumpkin decorations

Today is Tuesday so that’s Plan and Play Day

Our mission is to declutter our entrance hall - ours isn’t too bad since we got some of those Ikea pullout shoe racks last year but there are far too many coats and hoodies on the hooks.

Flight Plan here http://www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0

We got our tree up on Sunday, I'll have to post pictures! DD & her BF helped me decorate. DD wanted to do the Grinch theme again 😍

We rearranged the living room a little bit and it's so much more open right now that we may just leave it! We will need to do a little more moving around after the tree is down though as the sideboard will need to go back in there, but we're enjoying the change.

It's not quite 7:30am, but I already have ta das:
🎄 dressed & morning skincare done
🎄 took DS to school (drivers ed class starts at 6:30am, Monday thru Thursday)
🎄 1st lol washed and now in the dryer
🎄 2nd lol in the washer
🎄 2nd cup of coffee consumed (very important!)

I need to work on my truffles & caramels today, as well as everything else..
To dos:
☕️ more laundry
☕️ dogs to groomer
☕️ bank visit
☕️ drop off a return at the UPS store
☕️ grocery shopping
☕️ get Mum's package ready to go (need to finish some truffles first)
☕️ vacuum
☕️ mop
☕️ clean bathrooms

There's a lot to do (and I know there's more), but glad I got an early start with the laundry.

Our decorations so far:

Thanks for threads, ED.

TeenBoy is back to full days at school tomorrow, so no more excuses for leaving things lying around. Front hall is hoovered. Front room is slowly returning to normal after the plumbing problems, and I’m making my way through more shelves.

Oh, congratulations @ChestnutStew ! I hope you are enjoying lots of baby snuggles and everyone is eating and resting well.

Thanks @ExquisiteDecorations for doing two months running. I fell off the end of the last thread as the medical stuff ramped up again for DC3 at the end of last week and now we are speaking to not one, but TWO different consultants tomorrow! Face to face in London at 9am (have to leave at squawk o'clock) and by telephone to Oxford at 12.30 (which is good, because I cannot teleport).

Flylady has rather gone by the wayside except for very basic routines as a result, although I have managed to fill some holes in the Christmas shopping matrix and help DM out with her computer. Today, I collected DC3 from their University city (200 mile round trip) and I take them back on Thursday. As far as I'm concerned, December doesn't actually start til Friday!

@GreenWillowAndHolly I hope the consultant appointments go well and sympathy re all the driving. I have got a packed schedule this weekend (mainly social I admit) and DS also wants to come home from uni which means 2x150 mile round trips for DH and I (one each), plus DH has a 350 mile round trip to do on Thurs/Fri for other reasons. I may not get much Flying done. I am off to bed early in a minute with my notebook to make a list of all the other things that need doing this week.

I only got in an hour ago so flying has been restricted to letting the robovac run round the hall (at least it’s the right zone). I am very pleased with it.

@Scourgify hope the return to full days goes well for Teenboy.

@HazelNuttyElf your decorations are fabulous

@ChestnutStew hope you are taking it easy

<waves at everyone else>

I hope you get some answers tomorrow Willow

ED that's a lot of driving!

Scourgify it sounds like you're making progress!

Ta das: everything on my to do list and more I ended up washing 10 LOLs! But I started very early this morning, which helped.
I'm so tired 😴 and my feet hurt! I ended up making cashew clusters. We have a potluck on Thursday for a birthday so I've decided to take some of them. I'll have to finish them tomorrow, and maybe I'll remember to take a picture of them.
I'm back to work tomorrow for the rest of the week, so I'm sure my ta da lists will be nonexistent 😆

Huge congratulations @ChestnutStew 💐 how are you and baby doing ?

Yesterday's tada
🎉 15 mins clearing dining table
🎉 30 mins wrapping
🎉 15 mins general tidy
🎉 the usual work , school, taxi to after school clubs etc

I'm having a bit of a low energy few days so I'm just doing what I can . Happy with doing a bit of wrapping ! I will be doing more tonight 🙂

Morning all, well, I stuck some laundry on before bed last night so I need to venture out into the frosty garden in a minute and hang it out. Brrr. Also on today’s list is to declutter the understairs cupboard as the boiler is under there and being serviced tomorrow, there is a shelf that sticks out in front of it which I need to clear and take down (it is easy to do) plus clear the shelf underneath it. I will be EFH tomorrow while it’s done but only have a report to write for my second job so hopefully will get more Flying done around that. Today is my main job so heading off shortly.

http://www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0

Today’s mission is to get a cloth and wipe smudges off the walls in your dining room plus clean switches and handles, a good idea for this time of year when there seem to be so many germs about.

Also I wanted to mention Swish and Swipe which is one of the babysteps

http://www.flylady.net/d/br/2012/05/15/what-is-swish-and-swipe/

Now I don’t do it quite like she does, I do have a loo brush but don’t keep it dunked in soapy water. But the principle is good, give your loo a quick squirt and brush/wipe down every morning and it keeps it sparkling and hygienic, I don’t always remember but it is a good habit. I also try and give the basin, tap and mirror a quick wipe with a microfibre cloth in the morning to keep on top of that. The whole thing only takes a minute or so.

Hi everyone and congratulations @ChestnutStew! Lovely news ☺️

Can I ask a practical question - are people doing more bathroom stuff than Flylady allows for? I don’t know if it’s being in a very hard water area but our shower is not being kept on top of… I’m going to have to go in hard with the Viakal again I think…

Yes, I think you need to, it should be part of home blessing really, to give it a good weekly clean. I try and swish and swipe most days and then the missions are often more about decluttering or similar but it does need a proper clean once a week IMO especially if you have hard water. We put in a water softener a few years ago and it has definitely made a difference. Maybe Flylady lives somewhere with soft water and doesn’t realise what a pain hard is.

Tada!

Swish and swipe ✅
Washing onto line this morning ✅
Work✅
Washing off line and into dryer this evening, only slightly damp ✅
Living room robovacc’d ✅
USB cable carefully removed from wheels of robovac 🤦‍♀️✅
Understairs cupboard cleared for boiler engineer and vacuumed ✅
Stairs vacuumed ✅
Bins brought round ✅
Kitchen bins emptied - not yet

TeenBoy did very well today 😀 thanks ED.

DH dismantled two bookcases in the attic, and passed the lengths down to me. I hadn't realised how manky they were, but nothing a damp cloth won’t fix. I did notice that part of the attic has no insulation, so that needs sorted asap.