🍁 Flylady November — Slow Days, Warm Drinks, and Shiny Sinks (title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[Alwayslearning25]

Well, here we are — darker evenings, the smell of woodsmoke in the air, and that slightly panicky feeling that Christmas is somehow next month. But fear not, lovely Flyladies — we’ve got this (mostly).

This thread is our little corner of calm amongst the chaos — a place to cheer each other on, share small wins, and occasionally moan about the state of the laundry mountain. Whether you’re shining your sink for the first time or just trying to keep the kitchen table visible for more than an hour, you’re in good company.

The Flylady system is all about baby steps — 15 minutes at a time, routines that mostly stick, and being kind to ourselves when life happens (because it always does). Pop in, post your list, or just lurk with a cuppa — everyone’s welcome.
Let’s make November about cosy corners, tidy-ish rooms, and gentle progress — before December sweeps in with tinsel and mince pies.
Kettle’s on. Who’s flying today? ☕🕯️🧺

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!
Zones:

1. Entryway, porch and dining room
2. Kitchen
3. Bathroom and one other room
4. Master bedroom
5. Living room

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 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. Well, they should but there is some technical difficulties on their end while they update the website. You can also check out the Facebook page Zones: https://www.flylady.net/d/zones/ Baby Steps: https://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

Good morning,

Today is family fun day, no missions. Babystep 1 is to shine your sink. DH cleaned the kitchen last night, overall much better than me, but left food in the sink so I did that this morning. I also used baby sterilisng tablet as it worked well in my stainless steel travel mug to make it more shiny.

We just had a half term holiday to the new forest and beulie motor museum, the kids loved the playground there. House was not too bad on return.

Morning,, thank you @Alwayslearning25 off to shine my sink now

Thanks @Alwayslearning25 for starting a new thread and @Hazel for the last thread.
I had a burst of energy yesterday, tidied my bedroom and put my LOLs away.
Started a bit of a deep clean, dusted and damp wiped the walls.
Stripped some more wallpaper, got the hump because the stuff I've been saving for my son was in the way, so that's all downstairs and I've booked an Anglo doorstep collection for the lot.
Today's flying is rearranging the downstairs cupboards, and DP is putting some more rails in for coats, and shelves for shoes. And if time I'll do more in my bedroom.
I keep saying this, but I'm determined that come Monday I'll have decluttered/ tidied enough to start cleaning!
Happy flying everyone!

Place marking!

Thank you @Alwayslearning25 and Hazel for the threads ❤️

It is Christmas prep month here ....

Checking in x

are we doing Christmas missions in this thread too?

Thank you for running the November thread Alwayslearning25!

Those are some good ta das Cherry
THIS I'm determined to be more on top of Christmas this year, and there won't be as many presents either. We do have Thanksgiving here first though, but that's not as crazy, even though we're hosting, as always.
Cabbage is baby Cabbage feeling better now? Are you able to get more rest?

@timoteigirl 👋 we don't usually cover the Christmas missions, although I do want to be more on top of them this year.
If nothing else, I can update the missions for Christmas on here, it will help me, and can help others. They did start last month though..
Alwayslearning25 are you okay with that or do you want me to start a separate thread for the Christmas missions?

I have a lot to get done. I changed my username already to my Christmas name as I really need to get motivated to get started on that now, and not put it off for later!

Today I'll be taking down Halloween decorations. We had our party last night, along with lots of trick or treaters. It was a fun (although somewhat stressful for me) night. Although I wasn't as ready as I thought I was, even though I got off work early. We cannot have a party on days we work, I won't make that mistake again!

Plan for today: (not in any particular order)
☕️ take down as many decorations as possible, both outside and in
☕️ rotate DW
☕️ wash handwash dishes
☕️ shine sink
☕️ wipe countertops
☕️ vacuum
☕️ mop
☕️ bleach bathrooms
☕️ laundry

I also need to:
🫖 drink chamomile tea with honey
🫖 drink lots of water
🫖 take medicine, as I'm starting to think I might be getting what DH has, and I really, really don't want it!
🫖 fit some rest in there somewhere!

It's our anniversary tomorrow, and we are planning to go out for dinner, we are not exchanging gifts this year. Hopefully we'll both be feeling up to it!

Ah shit I forgot to name change

Im highly annoyed at being trapped in my halloween name for the thread 😒

Tentatively saying hi and hoping for a handhold to get on top of things…

Hazel yes babyCabbage is now off the antibiotics and has possibly shifted her cough completely now too. So sleep is better but could be even better still. Her digestive system hasn't quite recovered from the antibiotics yet... once that settles maybe we'll all get some good rest. 8 teeth now too.

No flylady wins for me today but DW mowed the lawn and did a fair bit of weeding while I stayed inside in the warm, so that's a nice weekend job done!

If you change your username in your profile as normal and then also type the new username in the field before you post a new response here the thread should retain your most recent username, if that makes sense.

Hi everyone
@HazelNuttyElf thank you for last months thread and for offering to add the Christmas missions. I'm happy for those to be on here.
@Doyathinkhesaurus welcome. Have you done the flylady method before? I'm still a flybaby really as I've not got on top of daily routines, which is what babysteps are. I really enjoyed doing them. I wouldn't say I'm massively on top of things but in less overwhelmed now, as the sight of my messy house and thinking of housework often makes me want to lie down but instead I can just do 3 minutes hotspots of 15 minutes decluttering followed by 15 minutes rest.

I think if you report your post, mnhq can change all your posts in this thread to your chosen name.

I have tried reporting it as the other way didnt work. Hopefully they take pity on me and I transform like a butterfly ......

Oh hello, that is better

Thankyou mnhq

Yeah I found her nearly 20 years ago through the MSExpert forums. I like the baby steps but the deep cleans and challenges leave me cold. I just fail to show up because I bloody hate cleaning. I hired a cleaner but I got fired for being too messy. I can’t throw stuff away - for all sorts of reasons - and I’m good at caring for others but not me and my house!

Welcome @Doyathinkhesaurus 👋

Thank you Alwayslearning25 I will catch us up on the Christmas missions as soon as I can!
We're almost home from being out at ILs for dinner. I'm really starting to feel sick so will be trying to have an early night tonight. It may be in a little bit when I can update, but more than likely it'll be tomorrow (Sunday).

Sunday is rest and renew spirit ready for monday. We are going to church. Had a walk through all the autumn leaves yesterday was lovely too.

Babystep 2 is the get dressed into shoes in the morning. We are a shoes off house. The idea is without shoes you might want to lie down again, but for me, wearing day clothes is enough. Over half term I have been having a couple of pyjama mornings, so I guess that changes today.

For me Monday is an inset day and I've invited DDs best friend + mum and sister. So might not get much housework done. In friends with the mum and DD regularly goes to his house as it's near school and they help with childcare. Fortunately, her house is normally messy so I don't feel like I need to blitz it.

I struggle with throwing things away too, esspecaly kids clothes. I've listed some on vinted yesterday. DH is worse. He doesn't want to ever get rid of toys. Esspecaly with presents from his parents. There was one creepy doll I got rid of, he's not happy about that. I didn't want too much noisy electric toys for DD. DS though loves them.

If you stashed the toys gifted by his parents, would he be able to list what they were? Is it possible to ask him and keep only the ones he can remember? I think this is how they made children get rid of some soft toys on television.

Well we do intentionally toy rotation so toys seem fresh and new. So there's some benifit to forgetting toys. DS mainly thinks of his trains, knows all of them. DD is at a good age of talking about gifts to give away. She has a few boxes under her bed and sometimes we go through them and she choses what she doesn't want anymore.

Also I re-read and realised I was unclear.DH got upset by the missing doll not the DC. DD was 1 or 2 at the time so didn't remember.

Good morning ☕️

Thanks for last months thread @HazelNuttyElf and for this months thread @Alwayslearning25!

I've had a lovely half term , the first week, me and dd2 went on our annual girly holiday to Butlins (it's always super cheap the first week because not many school do 2 weeks in October) , we got back on the Friday then DD1 came home from uni on the Saturday, it's been great having the family back together ! I even managed to get DS involved in an activity by booking crazy golf , very unusual for him to want to join in anything lately , full teenage mode is activated!

Today dd2 has a competition, ds has football and dd1 has work then will be driving her back to uni this evening, busy day ahead aswell as prepping for back to school and work ( I have been in complete denial that I am back to work tomorrow and have done nothing to prepare for it .... ooopppss!)

Tada
✅ coffee
✅ 30 mins uniform ironing