Heat Waves & Holidays with Flylady - August thread

[HazelNotHungryLC]

Summer holidays can be crazy! Are you looking to finally getting into a new routine with housework? Something simple to start that can be easy to add to over time? Flylady may be the answer for you!

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

Do NOT sign up for the Flylady emails - it's an excessive amount sent every day.
There are Baby Steps for starting out, add one thing at a time to start good habits and routines.

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 has a different mission for the zone we are in.

Daily focus:

• Monday: Home Blessing (or as we call it, home bleugh)
• Tuesday: plan & play
• Wednesday: anti-procrastination
• Thursday: errand day
• Friday: clean car & purse out a week. 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

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 (although I only have it for when the zones change). You can also modify the tick lists to suit your home & lifestyle.

Links are below 👇 if I happen to not add links in time, they do update at midnight for you. Although there are some issues with the website and app right now, so bear with me!

Zones: https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/

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

Alwayslearning25 I don't really have a set afternoon routine either, the only thing is the need to cook dinner when I get home from work (about 6:20pm). DS is staying after school for marching band practise so either DH or I have to pick him up after that gets done (about 7pm). That just depends on what we're having for dinner and who's cooking.
After dinner DS rinses the dishes and rotates the DW, I wipe the countertops and sink.

It seems that then I have to jump straight into my before bedtime routine:
I get my lunch and clothes out for the next morning.
Not long after that DH & I get into the hot tub - about 9pm (but not necessarily every night), then it's shower time, then bedtime, which should be before 10:30pm for me, but usually is later than that.

I'm on the mend, thanks!
Tidied up my patio plants today and potted some bedding plants up for a bit of colour.
Trimmed the ivy back and pulled up clumps of nightshade that's growing like mad in the cracks. I have no idea how it survives, the dogs wee on it and I'm sluicing down daily with disinfectant.
Put a plant in a pot, water, feed, love it and it dies 🤷
Having a rest now.

My bedroom is coming along. It now has a blond set of drawers instead of dark brown and looks so much lighter.

I remembered two willow baskets stored in the shed and brought them in. They’ve been carefully wrapped and I’ll open them tomorrow and see if they’ll be both decorative and useful in my room.

Freezer door burst open with a build-up of ice. Fortunately nothing spoiled. I chipped it all off the drawer and it half-filled the sink. TeenGirl was surprised that the ice was cold?!

Anyway, we all enjoyed the surprise tea.

Fingers crossed 🤞 for your baskets being both decorative and useful in your bedroom Scourgify!
I am laughing that TeenGirl was surprised that the ice was cold! 😂

Ta das so far:
☕️ chiropractor visit - my back was still hurting , so he adjusted me again.
☕️ bank
☕️ grocery shopping
☕️ put groceries away (this felt like a task in itself today!)
☕️ LOLs x2 (sheets was one of them)
☕️ put clean clothes away

I just stopped for some lunch.

To dos:
🦥 vacuum
🦥 mop
🦥 bleach both bathrooms
🦥 more laundry
🦥 dust

I did everything but dust on my to do list. I even sat down and watched my show!

Kitchen is all cleaned up, lunch is ready for tomorrow.
I'm sitting down with some bedtime tea, since it's cooler today and is pouring down with rain outside, and has been all day. I even made soup for dinner tonight! Very strange for August.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day.

Wednesday's mission is to do a detailed vacuum session. Vacuum along the skirting boards and under furniture. Be careful with moving heavy furniture, get help as needed, or just use the attachments for your vacuum.

Baby Step 27: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-27/
Plan your dinner before 6pm! Add this to your afternoon routine. There are links for tips on meal planning, if needed.
Continue with your other routines as well.

Yesterday evening I cleaned the sink and brought washing in from the line. Little thing at the moment.

Alwayslearning25 everything helps, especially the little things!

Ta das (Wednesday):
😴 worked all day
😴 picked DS up from school
😴 leftovers for dinner
😴 got my lunch ready (leftovers)
😴 DS rotated DW
😴 I wiped the countertops
😴 bathed dogs (Dobby was especially stinky for some reason!)
😴 washed dogs beds and blankets (which then they pouted because they didn't have any!)
😴 clothes out for the morning
😴 20 minutes in the hot tub, then added some chemicals to try to balance out pH levels etc. If this doesn't work we'll need to empty it and refill this weekend!
😴 showered & lotion applied, face routine done
😴 in bed at a somewhat reasonable time

Thursday is errand day.

Thursday's mission is to go sofa and chair diving. You may be amazed at what you can find since doing this last month! Socks, pencils, money.. vacuum the crumbs from the nooks and crannies and fluff the cushions.

Baby Step 28: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-28/
Don't forget to take care of yourself, take breaks, drink your water, eat slowly and healthily. Sit down for 15 minutes to read a book etc, do something for you today!

I am noticing we are getting closer to the end of the month. ED was it you who said you'd be willing to run September's thread? Or was it someone else??

I’ve been dipping in and out of this thread for months. I’m very time strapped and exhausted - doing a course that takes lots of reading and thinking - but have a house that makes me miserable.

Every time I come into the thread because I’m overwhelmed by my house and lack of time , I feel overwhelmed by the prospect of having to get to grips with the methods.

I was about to duck out again but thought I’d nervously ask: if I follow the Thursday bit, and read the baby steps … is that the method?

And in the baby steps- what is swish and swipe?

I started searching the website to work out what that was but ended up having to stop for a phone call (which is where feeling overwhelmed kicks in again).

But I need to find a way forward. Aaaargh.

Hi suitcases welcome

you can start where we are or go back to day 1 on the baby steps. Completely up to you! Here is the babystep info from the very waffly website
https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

On this thread we usually post baby step 1 on the first of the month, 2 on the 2nd, etc so if you'd rather follow on here then feel free!

I don't follow Flylady religiously but I like the routine of spending one week a month focusing on each room and never trying to catch up. I also really like the five minute room rescue, spending 5 mins tidying makes a much bigger difference than you might expect.

To me swish and swipe is a quick wipe down in the bathroom, not sure if thats strictly accurate!

Hi @suitcasesarepacked and welcome. The Flylady website is a bit broken at the moment, but the basic babysteps re-start every month and are supposed to build into habits, I find it hard too (been on here years) but things are WAY better here than they would have been without these threads and some of the habits really are good ones. Sometimes you just see that it is Errand Day and think oh yes I need to pick up a prescription or whatever.

Hi suitcases 👋 I think ED & Dilly have answered your questions already! Swish & Swipe is to wipe the sink and toilet every morning so it's guest ready. There's no one right way to do this, so even if it's a little bit of toilet paper, damp, that works! Or if you prefer, have a spray bottle and rag or paper towels in the bathroom to make it easier.

Honestly, if I was you I'd just start with shining your sink tonight. Wash your dishes, then wipe it down. It doesn't have to be perfect, and as you do it more you can get more detailed with it. Just work on that until next week when the baby steps start over again.
It really does make a huge difference to walk into the kitchen in the morning to a clear sink and countertop!

We don't want you to feel overwhelmed and starting slow will help with that. Even if you only get through the first 5 steps for the whole month, that's progress and you can build on that over time. I don't do every baby step either 😳

Thank you all. I’m relieved to hear the website isn’t just me , and thank you for your patience. There are so many things that would make my life easier - meal planning for example. But the mental load that goes into getting that started 😔. Housework feels the same. I’m going to try follow the daily tips and ask questions as I go.

One question: do you get any support from your DPs? How do you balance tasks?

Meal planning is the one area that completely defeats me I must admit. We’ve got a houseful of adults with varying tastes all coming and going at different times and often at very short notice and I have lost the will.

I think there are varying degrees of DH/P cooperation amongst us. @THISnewbeginning has just decluttered hers . Mine doesn’t really know about flylady or routines but does his share of the daily stuff and I tend to do the more detailed stuff. My young adult DCs chip in but do need some reminding (both are ND). This thread is quite a good place to let off steam when frictions do arise in the home (they do in mine despite what I said just then, he’s very untidy).

Anyway, I have had the week off work this week, partly to slow down a bit because life is very full on here at the moment (elderly parent saga continues, DS graduating and jobhunting, DD off to uni next month, work busy). Partly also to tackle (one a day) some of the longer term jobs that just don’t get done.

So this week I have:
✅Dealt with an absolute mountain of paperwork (filing, shredding, re-organising files)
✅Cleared a huge pile of other random crap that has been festering in the dining room for ages
✅Thoroughly decluttered my bedside cabinet drawers and reorganised them so I can actually find things (they were rammed with stuff)
✅Spent several hours moving old digital photos from when the DCs were little from an old desktop and external hard drive onto my phone/macbook cloud storage with a view to getting rid of the old desktop and having a good delete session of random rubbish ones while I was at it. Found a little video clip of our cats we thought we’d lost too which was nice.

suitcases my DH doesn't know anything about flylady! His standards are a little lower than mine too, but he does help with the day to day stuff like helping to clean up the kitchen after dinner (although that falls mostly to DS). He does help to cook, mostly on the pellet grill outside and will suggest a meal or 2 that he can partly cook, most weeks.
He's very handy with repairs though, around the house and on our vehicles. If he sees something that's needs to be cleaned around the house, he'll do it!

When meal planning I think about what we have going on in the week, how busy we are etc. I always plan on getting 2 meals out of one, so cook twice as much as we need so we have leftovers for another night. I base my grocery shopping list on the meals we'll be cooking, as well as what I already have in.
Maybe start with a list of meals you already cook, and pick some based on the time you have to cook them. Add to that list when you think of more meals. Pinterest have lots of recipes as well, if you want to try something new.

Feel free to ask as many questions as needed!

ED you've had a productive week, a well deserved break! Glad you found the lost video of your cats too!

Friday is clean out your car and handbag day.
It's also date night!

Friday's mission is to place something pretty or decorative in your living room, since it's the last day in there. This could be a bunch of flowers, a picture frame from a different room, an ornament of some kind, something to change it up that looks nice. You could even add a nice basket to store items that might usually clutter up a surface 🤷‍♀️

Baby Step 29: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-29/
It's time to take care of you! Check out the pamper missions. They are weekly missions that you can do (the link did work when I clicked on it)

We are getting to the end of the month. Is there anyone who would like to run the September thread?

I do find it helps me to stay focused and I seem to be more on top of things when running the thread. sometimes!

Happy to run September if nobody else is keen.

My house is full of dead flowers so instead of putting them in I need to take them out!

I'll be getting back into the swing in September. I think I need to start from half way through babysteps. @suitcasesarepacked I recommend the babysteps and try and black everything else out until finished. I haven't got the baby steps down yet, but have added some great daily routine, and breaking things down into bite size chucks is good. DH and I are going through a bit of a rough patch. Housework and cooking he does the main bulk, but I'm dropping a day at work so have committed to cooking 2 dinners a week. He works in a school so has been doing most meals in the holidays. As often happens in a couple, he gets a bit precious over the fridge and the way household chores are done so it's put me off. He doesn't want to hear about flylady though. I think the name puts him off.But I know I need to do more. It's often the other way round. I do feel I have the mental load when it comes to school admin and dentists etc and have dropped the ball a bit there, kids are overdue a check up.....

Oh shit ..... its the end of living room week and I haven't touched it 🙃

@THISnewbeginning same, glanced at the mantlepeice thinking that needs decluttering....

After all these years of flying (flopping) - I had thought swish and swipe was wipe your kitchen worktops 🫠 woops - did wonder why the toilet didn't get cleaned more!

Thank you for volunteering for September Dilly!
The dead flowers made me laugh 😂

Alwayslearning25 sticking to the baby steps at first is a very good idea. From your posts it does sound like you are overwhelmed right now. Do you think that would improve once the holidays are over and DH is back to work?

THIS & Alwayslearning25 the living room will come around again next month, don't worry about it!

THIS your version of swish & swipe did make me laugh! Sorry! That is the baby step I really need to work on, my bathrooms should be cleaned more often, I just don't want to have any cleaning supplies out on display and I'm not sure where else to put them. It's something I really need to think about (as well as fitting it in my morning or evening routine).