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

Family fun - we are cooking for Christmas! The littles love helping. We've iced the cake, baked sweet breads, made red cabbage and still have mince pies to do. Got to leave mince pies for Father Christmas!

Also have mostly managed home bleugh and DS6 has hoovered the car out, his current favourite job.

We are away tomorrow returning late on Christmas Eve so this is last chance to get organised!

I did Parkrun with DS, then off to visit my Dad (at home) and Mum (still in hospital). Tonight I am going to wrap up my presents and watch the darts on TV. Tomorrow DD and I are having a day out to a carol concert in London, looking forward to that.

House is a tip.

Dilly good idea to get food ready for Christmas! It really does make a difference to stress levels.

ED that sounds like a good day to me!

The party was a success! Games were played, food was eaten with lots left over lots of laughs.
It was a great team effort. DH & DS did a lot to help get things ready for the party.

Ta das (all 3 of us):
🎄 bathed dogs
🎁 vacuumed
🎄 dusted
🎁 baked cookies (mostly DS)
🎄 cut up meat & cheese
🎁 cooked jacket potatoes
🎄 made soup
🎁 cleared surfaces
🎄 handwashed dishes
🎁 rotated DW x3 (before & after party)
🎄 wiped countertops numerous times (before & after party)

After party:
🎄 put extra chairs away
🎁 put leftover food away
🎄 changed tablecloth
🎁 put table & chairs back in place

Tomorrow I have got to make more cashew clusters & caramels, as well as more truffles (one flavour).
I also need to go grocery shopping and I really would like to do my nails!
I do have wrapping I need to finish as well. Time is flying by, I just wish I could push a pause button!

I'm around lurking in and off, mainly been ill. I've only just started to feel christmassy for some reason. Only just caught the last post for my cards yesterday.

Hope your mum's op goes well ED

Hazel I feel like you that there's too much to do and too little time. I also feel I should be way more bothered by it than I am.

Someone was asking a while back about if they should be doing more than the weekly Home Blessings and routines because they felt it maybe wasn't enough. Whoever that was, you sound ready for the Detailed Cleaning lists, which comes when you're on top of decluttering and routines etc.

Oh and just a quick question. What can you get from eggs🥚? I don't mean like pancakes 🥞 or chickens 🐔, I mean like ecoli etc. I don't want to play dodge the germs 🦠 this close to Christmas. I'm UK so no salmonella and they're in the fridge since I bought them many years ago the best before says somewhere around Genesis, day 8, the dawn of time early October 2024 and my mum reckons you can smell when eggs are off 🤢 so if you can't smell anything it's fine, but despite having a massive garden her favourite thing to grow is new varieties of bacteria and mould in the fridge, so I'm not sure I should trust her. It's for a cake 🎂 if that makes any difference. So, people, how old is too old? I won't starve ⚰️, I do have other things to eat but it's salad 🥗, so I'd rather not.

Ditzy I'm not sure what you can get from bad eggs other than an awful upset tummy, but you can test to see if they are still good. If you put them in water and they float, they are bad, just chuck them. If they sink, they are still good.
I would crack them open into a separate bowl before adding to the other ingredients, just to be sure. You will definitely smell a bad egg once cracked open!
I'm sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well, I hope you're feeling better now.
Another one here that it doesn't feel like Christmas yet, despite watching every Christmas movie, wrapping, our party etc. I think it's the lack of snow here. We should be getting some soon though, unless the weatherman changes his mind again.

I got the last of my goodies made! I have them ready to be delivered tomorrow (Monday).
I did nothing else today, so lots to do after work tomorrow and Christmas Eve. Mostly wrapping.

Morning all,

@ItsieDitzyBitsOfOnionInTheSoup I'll go a week or so past the shelf life of eggs but not any further but we don't keep ours in the fridge. Otherwise I agree with @HazelNuttyElf . Sorry you've been ill.

@HazelNuttyElf have you done your nails yet? I stuck another couple of coats of glitter top coat over my silver base last night as I CBA to take it off and start again. I think they now have about 8 layers on (base, 2 x silver, glitter, topcoat, 2 x glitter, topcoat). They aren't gels but I suspect the removal process will be similar, but they are at least looking festive.

I haven't even looked at the Flightplan for a few days. I suggest just covering the basics now, swish and swipe, sweeping floors, wiping counters etc.

Maybe in the New Year we can have a look at the detailed cleaning lists, we never really talk about those. It is all the mission type tasks but in long lists for each zone. But you are meant to get on top of the decluttering first and that is a bit of an ongoing battle here. The thread tends to get really busy at the start of Jan, might look at the detailed stuff next week in preparation.

Mum is doing well, only problem is we don't know when she is going to be discharged from hospital, possibly Christmas Day. Dparents were supposed to be coming to us for Christmas Day, but they live half an hour drive away and the hospital is another 15 mins so we will go there and possibly I will fetch Mum home. I am considering cooking the turkey and veg here tomorrow night and taking it all with us rather than trying to do it all at their house my Dad and DH in charge while I go to the hospital what could possibly go wrong might get DD to do it

Oh Lord, ED a Christmas day discharge! be prepared for hanging about waiting for meds ect, might it be better to have Christmas dinner in the evening? I mean it might be really swift and organised, but possible not. Definitely cook as much as possible in advance though if you can face it.

I had a broken wrist one Christmas day, DH and DD (9 at the time) did really well between them. I was fairly drugged up having had the wrist put back together the day before, but I could hear that the 9 year old was very much in charge of proceedings.

I hope the timings work out for your mum'discharge ED, that's a little too stressful for me!
No, I still haven't done my nails!

Glad your mum's ok ED, a pity about the Christmas Day discharge though! Hopefully it'll go smoothly and not take forever.

Nellie that's funny, your LO as head chef 😄

Thanks for the egg advice ED and Hazel. IDK whether I'm just lucky or whether it's the fridge, but I've regularly eaten them a month over the date all my life. Even the floating ones. I used to think it meant floating on the surface like a boat, didn't realize it meant floating under the surface stood up on end until recently. Delia Smith, I am not. None of them ever smelled bad though. I'm not sure I'd want to smell a bad one if it's that unmistakable! I guess I'll bin them then, I don't want an upset stomach either. Found out my corner shop is staying open as usual throughout Christmas, so I can always get some more if I don't have time for the supermarket tomorrow.

I'm a weird mix with the detailed cleaning stuff, some I do regularly as part of my weekly clean and some I never do apart from moving in/out day. I'm still on my decluttering journey too, that gives me enough to think about for now.

We were supposed to be going to a Christmas event today but messed up the timing and the location, so that was a fail. At least I know for next year. I can't quite believe it's Christmas Eve tomorrow and New Year's Eve next week. It feels like early December to me and I can't put my finger on why 🤔. Maybe I'm just getting old and the years are going by faster!

Morning all, well, I’ll phone the hospital this morning and see if there’s any update. DB is in charge today, me tomorrow but I’m the main contact for what’s going on. While we’ve never had Mum in hospital before, DDad is a regular and we are familiar with the “no one knows when they can go till the last minute but it’ll drag on” scenario. Meanwhile trying to get ahead a bit with dinner preparation, undecided at the moment whether to do it at their house or cook here, reheat there. Either means a lot of things to pack.

So, I am trying to get ahead a bit.

Tada!

✅Got pigs in blankets and gravy base out of the freezer (turkey came out on Sun night)
✅made stuffing (posh packet mix made into balls)
✅veg fetched in from garden shed
✅sprouts peeled
✅kitchen floor mopped
✅packed lunch made (working today)
✅DW emptied

@ItsieDitzyBitsOfOnionInTheSoup sorry you missed the event, it’s so easily done especially at thie time of year. Time has gone fast this year. Unusually we aren’t going away at all, which gives me a bit of a breather, normally we spend a few days between Christmas and NY with the ILs, but DH is going off to spend time with his ill friend instead, so we will try and fit in a day trip to the ILs next week.

Today’s Flightplan is here, Flylady seems to be ignoring the festive season
http://www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=0

with a decluttering your bedroom mission.

I’m sure there used to be Holiday Season Flylady pages, maybe not, maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Oh well. Enjoy your day everyone.

Ditzy time is flying by for me too! Probably best to play it safe with the eggs. No one wants a dodgy tummy for Christmas!

ED maybe prep at your house, cook at theirs? Did you find anything out from the hospital yet?
There is a holiday flying page, lots of info on it. I think the countdown starts the beginning of November (but there's also Thanksgiving thrown in the mix too, since it's US based).
https://www.flylady.net/d/cruising-through-the-holidays/
I found it! It started October 20th, to be finished by Dec 1st. Clearly we're way past that, but I have looked all through these in the past and there are some great tips!

Well, I can't believe it's already Christmas Eve!
I still have presents to wrap, so that is my main focus today.
I do have my sheets in the washer already though, but have a basket full of clothes to put away.
I do need to vacuum, mop and clean the bathrooms, but I'm not going to stress over getting that done today.
I am making a cheesecake for tomorrow and will be baking a modified version of my mums ginger cake (I can't get all the ingredients here and didn't plan in advance to order them online). That will be for boxing day.
And I still need to do my nails!

Just popping by to say Merry Christmas to all the Fledglings and families. DMum was discharged last night, I stayed at their house overnight to get her settled, came back here about 10 and have done presents and got the turkey in the oven. We will eat here and then all go over to Mum and Dad's taking food parcels with us, mum isn't up to sitting at the table for a long meal so they can have a MN -style picky supper this evening. I might stay over again.

Thanks for the Flylady holiday link @HazelNuttyElf I will try and remember for next year.

That's great she's home and settled ED

Merry Christmas to you all 🎁🎄

I haven't kept up with the thread however I have scanned the messages and read that your mum has been in hospital @ExquisiteDecorations , I'm so sorry to read this . How was yesterday, did your mum manage to enjoy some of the festivities? Wishing her a super speedy recovery ❤️❤️

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy Boxing Day too!
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas day.

I'm glad your mum was released home in time ED how is she doing today? You're very welcome, it took some digging to find the holiday link (they really need to update the website). It's not even mentioned on the app! There's some good advice and tips on there that's worth a read.

Our Christmas was lovely. Christmas Eve was nice, I got my presents all wrapped by 2pm (that's a record for me, it's usually midnight or 2am!). Dinner was at ILs. DH & I did end up staying up until 4am! Watching movies, then getting stockings ready and rearranging the presents (I pull them all out to make it look like there's more). I also had to put DSs scavenger hunt presents in their locations, for his main gift, an electric guitar.

Christmas Day was pretty relaxing. I still haven't managed to do my nails though 🤦‍♀️ but that is the plan for today. I got a new colour yesterday and I'm excited to use it.
I got the veggies all prepped and cooked early, just put them in slow cookers on warm. DH cooked prime rib on the pellet grill which was melt in your mouth delicious!

Today's to dos:
☕️ spin bike workout
☕️ shower
☕️ bank
☕️ grocery store for milk & more veggies
☕️ vacuum
☕️ mop
☕️ clean bathrooms
☕️ general tidy throughout the house
☕️ laundry (1st lol is in the washer already)
☕️ paint my nails, while watching a movie!
☕️ get dinner warmed for tonight (leftovers, of course)
☕️ have an early night as I'm back to work tomorrow

Had time to clean and tidy at times, but not to post about it! So, recent wins:

Vacuumed lounge, hall and bottom stairs
Swept porch
Took out bins
Cleared coffee table
Wiped down coffee table
Decluttered box room
Removed shelf in box room
Vacuumed box room
Made up slow cooker freezer bag
Emptied ensuite bin
Cleaned 2x toilets
Cut baby's nails
So much washing
And washing up

Chestnut you've been busy! Did you have a good Christmas? Was it as quiet as you were hoping?

I was busy today!
Ta das:
🚲 spin workout
🚲 LOLs x5
🚲 bleached bathrooms
🚲 washed shower curtains
🚲 vacuumed
🚲 mopped
🚲 bank
🚲 ornament bought for this year (actually I made one) for ILs tradition
🚲 handwashed dishes
🚲 rotated DW
🚲 warmed leftovers for dinner (ILs came over again today)
🚲 lunch ready for tomorrow
🚲 clothes out ready for tomorrow

I'm dozing off, it's bedtime!
🍒👋 to everyone

And no, I still haven't done my nails yet!

Quiet Christmas here, apart from all the coughing and sneezing. Today is mostly catching up and getting the place straightened before nye.

On the decluttering front, I opened the cupboard where I put all my old videotapes years ago. Noting the programmes I would like to see again on streaming, then boxing up the tapes for disposal.

Pleased your mum is home ED

chestnut ime the endless washing continues till they are about 2 then it slows off a bit. We used reusable nappies too so even more! I do now find doing and folding washing quite soothing though.

Sounds like everyone is very busy! hazel I painted my nails for my Christmas party on 13th and it's still there all chipped and horrible but I just haven't had the energy to redo them! Hope you get the time to sort yours!

We were away just before Christmas at my parents house, they are Hoarders and sadly not clean ones, it always stirs up lots of emotions for me. Nice to see them though. I've had a fluey bug since getting back, lots of aches and pains and a temp, so absolutely nothing done around the house, which is currently looking very untidy! (But clean at least as kids have been out in the daytime)

Ho ho ho ..... no

Yet again i resurface as i try to sort my shit out ..... will i fail again? Probably!

Hope all are well!

I actually have had time off work! And not back in until the 2nd so im currently trying to work through the mess. I need someone to do a tip run for me though or i need to bite the bullet and pay for a skip

Motivation most welcome

THAT!!! Good to see you on here!
Enjoy your time off work, that must be a lovely break. Things are good here, just busy. I love your username btw 🤣
A skip in front of my house would very much motivate me to fill it! But I can imagine not wanting to spend the money on it.
How are you doing?