Flylady Thread: Fledglings flying into Sunny September

[DillyDeclutter]

It's September, a good time for a fresh start! 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/

I hope your dog feels better soon @Alwayslearning25 and the day went ok.

The rain has been heavy here at times too @DillyDeclutter , I invested in a heated airer a few years ago and I wouldn't be without it now !

I forgot our dc are birthday twins @HazelNotHungryLC !! Dd main gift will be money with going off to university but I have bought her a couple of things to open, a smelly set , her favourite drink and chocolate and a spider catcher!! Hopefully someone in her accommodation isn't scared of spiders because she is terrified!

Tada
🎉 work
🎉 picked up dd gifts
🎉 showered and hair washed

Not much else completed yet , I was up until 4am and the alarm went off at 6! Insomnia at its worst ! I have survived the day though and going to make sure I have clothes ready for tomorrow before attempting to get some rest .

Has a hectic lunch break, drove home, saw dog was fast asleep so left him alone. Picked up a bag of baby clothes for a colleague, due a baby boy in October, took DDS wellies to school and collectd a vinted order. I did not though, book the dentist....

I'm trying to clear out my wardrobe a bit. I gave a bag of girls clothes to my cousin. However, I looked at a couple of pairs of 9-12 months leggings but my little toddler wore them for over a year so they were looking a bit tatty so didn't add them to the bag of baby clothes. They probably need to go in the bin, but it feels so wasteful!

Tommmow,I was going to drop ds at nursery for settling in and childminder pick him up as he'll be going to both settings and it was all planned so they could meet for continuity... but childminder had a family emergency so I'm only going to work 2 hours tommmow. Bonus home time during nap, I can keep and eye on dog and can collect my DD at the end of the school day. But I don't like changing plans and it's stressful for my colleagues. It's been a week for me, dog is much better today, more settled.

I am new, I have been lurking but I have been completely inspired. I just feel overwhelmed. I don't have any kids left at home. But I work full time and have long days where I can't complete missions. Fridays I don't work but I seem to spend all day just cleaning up from the week (laundry, bathrooms, kitchen etc.) so I never move forward. Hence upstairs is literally hanging in cobwebs and the windows are filthy, I couldn't have guests. The other perceived problem is I love my house but it's really awkward to clean - a very old and odd cottage with nooks and crannies and bare brickwork and it doesn't clean up well. I consider cleaning for people in nice neat homes with lovely shiny floors and I totally envy them. Everything I have is filthy or wonky. Anyway. Here I am. I've shined my sink. Do I just work through the babysteps? I feel I need a daily list that includes a small mission. Love reading the thread because I want to have my shit together like you all!

winefixesall I also live in a crooked old, dusty spidery house full of books and I'm by no means as together as I may make it sound. I've found the 15 minutes a day approach to really help me. I didn't really do the baby steps as I was ish on top of the daily jobs, it was the bigger things I needed help to focus on. I turn around and there are Miss Haversham style swags of Cobwebs everywhere. Come and join us and do what you can each day. Every little bit helps!

Today's mission is to dust and water your houseplants.

Friday is clean out your car and purse day. My car needs a hoover, as always!

Baby step 5 is to listen to your self talk and make it more positive: http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-5/

Back later!

My house doesn’t have a single right angle in it, floorboards are crooked and creaky, and plasterwork is lumpy and bumpy in most rooms. Kitchen flat roof is several layers of plastic sheeting and gorilla tape is wound round a couple of pipes to stop leaks. Nothing ever looks really clean. The best I can do for now is keep it tidy and hoover the ancient carpets. Nevertheless, I do love it (most of the time!)

@winefixesall we live in a Victorian house which we have gradually fixed up over 25 years but the parts we did at the beginning now need doing again (bathroom, upstairs carpets, living room). We had the chimney sweep in to do our woodburner today and her instructions asked for the hearth to be cleared, I moved the log basket and firelighters etc then vacuumed round it (it's inside the chimney) and oh it was awful, hadn't been touched since last winter, dust and cobwebs everywhere, I am so glad I did it before she arrived.

DH and the young adult DCs are all very untidy (all ND) and I have spent an hour this evening picking up and throwing away ripped open envelopes, receipts and junk mail from just about every flat surface in the house 😡

Managed to get 4 loads of laundry line dried today after days and days of heavy showers. All clothes done, tomorrow is sheets and towels.

Another thing that doesn't help at the moment is starting to get stuff together for DD to take to uni. Conveniently DS has just moved back home after his degree and is happy for her to use his stuff so we are planning a big sort out this weekend.

Alwayslearning25 it's good to see that your dog is feeling better! Re the leggings, does your local charity shop take rags? If they are so worn out due to wear and tear, it might just be best to throw them away, or use them to dust maybe?
You did good to have them last that long though!

Searching happy birthday to your DD! It's belated at this point though isn't it? I know there's at least one who shares a birthday with DS and another who's DC is within a few days. It might be Sing (who I haven't seen in here in a few months!)
I love the idea of the spider catcher to take with her to uni!

Welcome @winefixesall 👋 I work long days too so end up doing the majority on Tuesdays, my day off. I would start on the baby steps, and of you feel up to it, the daily mission. Usually it's only 15 minutes (or less). That's what I did when starting out, although I don't usually get them done either 😳.
On my day off I do the home bleugh (blessing), so I vacuum, mop, clean bathrooms and wash my bedding. I then focus on whatever Zone we are in, so this week I was spending time in the entryway/porch. Next week I'll spend time in the kitchen and so on.
So if I was you I would work on the baby steps every day (even if you just shine your sink, get dressed, make your bed and get your clothes out for the next day, it all helps), and do the home bleugh on your day off, with some zone work (even just one mission helps).
Sorry, that was long!

Dilly for once I'm ahead of the mission! I dusted and watered my plant on Tuesday and had repotted the orchid from work over the weekend!

ED I'm glad that works out re DC and uni! Hopefully DD can use everything (or at least most things) that DS isn't going to need anymore.

We have 3 extra teenage boys in the house this evening (with 2 staying the night), so I'm sure I'll need to air out the basement tomorrow, after they leave!
We got pizza in for dinner, served with salad, will soon do presents and the dessert DS asked for.
I will cook waffles in the morning, served with fresh fruit, syrup and cream.

I did leave work a little early today, so I cleaned the bathrooms, emptied bins, rotated DW, handwashed dishes and cleaned up outside, so the boys could eat out there.
I also had time (thankfully) to wrap DSs presents before anyone showed up.

I plan to do a more deep clean tomorrow, after the boys have left.

Thanks everyone for the welcome. Yesterday I did bedding change and 2 laundry, shone my sink and tackled a hotspot. By creating a new hotspot with the stuff from the other one. Don't think I've quite mastered this! @HazelNotHungryLC that's great, I get the idea. I'm gonna do that. Thanks everyone!

Morning! Saturday is family fun day. No missions at the weekend.

Baby step 6 is to keep doing steps 1-5 and add on spending two minutes putting out a hot spot: http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-6/

winefixesall I usually* *find it takes a while to clear a hotspot properly. The first few times you are sort of thinning it all out, and then one day it suddenly all finds places to go.

We have a sickness bug here so the third load of washing is on and a lot of little bowls are scattered around the house . . .

Not much happening at Cherry towers.
Keeping on top of my laundry, keeping the bathroom clean (because I spent hours blitzing it).
I've had two separate incidents of people being vile to me this week, one I had to make a police report, so emotionally I'm drained.
Saw my lovely GP yesterday, had more bloods done to try to get to the bottom of why I keep getting flu/covid.
I bought some lovely new summer bedding that I was going to put on my bed as a little treat when I'd finished gutting my bedroom.
The room's not finished and now the weather has cooled down I'll be putting my flannel set on. Still, there's always next summer 😄
I also live in a crooked dusty cottage, generally looks like it's Halloween with all the cobwebs.
When I painted my study, I asked my DP to do the cutting in, which he's really good at. But even he was foxed by the wonkiness, so I had to paint it all white!
A really odd thing has occurred, being in a rural area we do get a lot of flies, and normally I'd get dead flies on my windowsills, (which embarrassingly could be seen by passers by if I wasn't on top of removing them). My daughter got me a Venus Flytrap, and I was going to feed it with my endless supply of dead flies. Except since I've had it I've had nor one dead fly other than those on the sticky fly paper. The neighbours must think I've started to do house work 😅

Morning all

Started new job this last week. It went well. I am content in my decision to leave old job.

Dc are all back in school by Tuesday - so I need check all their stuff is sorted. Annoyingly the stamp i ordered for the Littlest ones uniform hasn't arrived yet. So I may have to write in his stuff.

Catching up on the thread now but so far -

Ta - Da
🍁 DW on
🍂 LOL on
🍁 Dry LOL away
🍂 Recycling out
🍁 Kitchen worktops clear and clean
🍂 Hall swept
🍁 Kitchen / dining area swept

winefixesall 😂 that made me laugh that you cleared one hotspot and created another! You will eventually have a home for everything (in theory), and you would put things away when clearing a hotspot. In the meantime, you can put things in a bag, box or basket and put them away as you walk around your house: today, tomorrow, or in 3 months when you eventually get to it 😂

Dilly I'm sorry to hear about the sickness bug! I hope everyone gets better soon 💐

Cherry that sounds like you've had an awful and stressful week! 💐
I hope you get some answers from your GP as it's not good to keep getting sick.
I love that your Venus Flytrap is actually working and doing it's job! That's one less job for you!

THIS I'm so happy to hear that you had a great first week of work! That is annoying about the stamp. Maybe it'll still arrive in time?
It looks like you've been busy already today too!

It's just gone 8am here. Apparently one of the boys left at some point as there's only one here now! But, I've had one cup of coffee, I'll start on making the waffles in a few minutes, but think I'll get dressed first.
I should be back with some ta das later today..

This week I have the opportunity to do lots of housework. Monday will be my first home Monday since DD and DH have gone back to school. DS also has a settling in sessions for nursery on Monday and Wednesday. From then on he'll be going to the nursery Thursday and Friday, and childminder on Tuesday. I'm on the waiting list for more nursery days but there's not the space, im not using all the funded hours.

I worked an early shift which was pretty chill at work on the weekend, then read with ds napping on me. Slid him off and did a bit of dusting and organising drawers in DDS bedroom. She has a big room and my stuff is in her drawers so I was emptying it, had fair bit of paperwork rubbish. Also, now I have a bedside table I moved the non rubbish from her draw to mine. Found a nice hand cream in there.

Had a stressful, exhausting week, am so glad it's the weekend.

Ta das (so far):
🧇 cooked waffles, put them in the oven on warm, ready for when the boys wanted to eat
🧇 cut up/ rinsed fruit to go with the waffles
🧇 rotated DW
🧇 handwashed dishes
🧇 2nd lol in washer, 1st in dryer
🧇 put mattresses back on spare bed (the boys slept on them last night, in the basement)
🧇 opened windows and doors to air out the house (especially in the basement!). There's a nice breeze outside so I'm taking advantage of it!

Good morning , sending a coffee to those who want one ☕️ I'm enjoying a coffee whilst the rest of the house sleeps , my favourite time of day on a Sunday 🙂

Sounds like your ds has had a lovely birthday @HazelNotHungryLC ! Waffles for breakfast sounds yum ! It's been a strange one this year with dd1, she's been away, came back on her birthday, then went to stay at her boyfriends, I saw her for maybe half an hour. We did go out for a meal last night , however, I'm getting a lot of words thrown at me like 'controlling' 'overbearing' because I have the audacity to suggest that perhaps now that she's back off holiday , she maybe needs to get a few bits sorted for uni next week. I have to keep reminding myself that at 19, I also thought I knew best and bought my first house with DH against my mums wishes and I've turned out kinda ok 😂 I'm really having to bite my tongue and say I'm not trying to control you , it's coming from a place of care . I thought this parenting malarkey was meant to get easier as they get older , it's so much harder !

Congratulations on your new job @THISnewbeginning , happy that it went well for you !

@CherryogDog I'm sorry you've had a bit of a week ! I hope your blood test gives you some answers ❤️

How's your poorly household @DillyDeclutter ? Sickness bugs are the worst 😩

It's Sunday which means it's all about prepping for the week ahead . I'm also going to watch my son play football and hoping to get a little time to craft in the afternoon. I've got dd1's blanket to crochet and some bookmarks to attempt on my embroidery machine 🙂

First to do list :
📋 30 minutes ironing
📋 shower ready for football match
📋 put on a lol

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday !

Searching parenting really does get harder as they get older! I'm hoping DS will be easier than DD 🤞. At 21, she knows best, we know nothing, we haven't been through any tough times, we haven't struggled like she is currently, not at all 🙄. We can't tell her anything, she'll only listen to her friends, as they know best 🙄. It's so much fun 🤬! Ugh!
Enjoy your day! It sounds like a great balance of fun, relaxation and productivity.

I ended up washing 4 LOLs, but will need to rewash the last load. I did my nails, took a nap and went to ILs for the evening, while it sat there, in the washer. It's still in there, at almost 1am! I'll take care of it in the morning. We had a great time, and played Newmarket with my ILs. DSs request. It's a very late night for me, so I'm signing off to go to sleep 😴.

Morning all

We have a birthday in the house as DS is 6 today. The small 4 DC were up very early, presents have been opened and are keeping them busy

I need to prep the uniforms for tomorrow. I did email the company about the name stamp and they said they are very busy and its one of the next to be processed but will still be 5-14 working days (website says 3-5) EXTREMELY annoyed. They gave me the option to cancel but I dont see the point as I will still need it and can't get one for tomorrow anywhere else. Ordered some temporary sticker from amazon instead but had to get the ones you write on yourself as others wouldn't arrive in time. #fail

Working Tuesday to Friday this week so aiming to get on top of things today and tomorrow 🤞

But first, another cup of tea

Morning! Happy birthday to your ds this!

We are in the halcyon days of parenting I think, 6 and 3, old enough to be reasonable and not old enough to argue too much. Im not sure i fancy the teenagers stage Hazel & Searching but probably too late to back out now . . .

Always hope you have a nice chilled day today.

Sunday is renew your spirit day - church, meditation, a walk, whatever works for you.

Baby step 7 is to choose tomorrow's clothes as part of your before bed routine:
http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-7/

I have two LOLs on the line and now it's raining.

I have 4lbs of plums and 3lbs of raspberries waiting for jamming, plus a huge number of beans and cauliflowers in the fridge. Will have to get creative with the cauliflower, its not something i'm used to having a surplus of. Consequently the kitchen is a bit of a tip - ideal i suppose for next week which will be kitchen week.

@DillyDeclutter that was me with the washing last week. My children are a similar age to yours. I don't want to think about them being teenagers. I'm actually counting down the years my dd7 won't have periods, could be anywhere between 3-8. I do want to be less awkward than my mum about it. And we're still considering a 3rd, DH is really keen but I've been exhausted since 2nd was born. But it's not just because of parenting....
If anyone new to flylady is reading this, I would say it's a great method if your chronicly exhausted, because you can always, clean your sink and have a basic morning and bedtime routine which helps, not just with the house but with your life. I'm not flying yet. I did a 15 minute timer, put away laundry then tried to have a nap, but it's not happening today.

🥳🎂 Happy birthday to your DS THIS! Is that your baby?!
That sounds frustrating re the name stamp.

Dilly & Alwayslearning25 the teenage stage is.. fun.

Dilly I use a lot of cauliflower! Whether it's cauliflower rice, cauliflower cheese, adding it to soup and casseroles to add bulk, or just roasting/ steaming it. We tried to grow our own this year, but they just went to seed.

Alwayslearning25 was it you who was going to see the doctor about your exhaustion? I wonder if there's something else going on.

I've had a cup of coffee, I'm about to make my 2nd, but I still need to get the lol going again in the washer.

To dos:
☕️ meal plan for the week
☕️ grocery shopping
☕️ LOLs

I haven't decided what else I am going to go today, probably not much though!

Yes, I was thinking of going to the drs, then I felt a bit less exhausted so didn't but now.. exhausted again.

Morning!

Today's baby step is to get some paper and write down your morning and evening routines: http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/day-8/

Monday is home bleugh day - hoover, wipe down mirrors, change sheets, do bins, dust, and mop.

This week we are in the kitchen and today's mission is to scrub your stove top and knobs. Nice and easy for those of us with induction hobs . . .