Jump In Where We Are: March Flylady Thread

[WinterFrogs]

Setting up to start tomorrow. I wanted to make the title That's Not Flying, It's Falling With Style, as an acknowledgement to the number of times I have fallen off the flylady wagon. But I wasn't brave enough.
"Flybabies" old and new all welcome!

In case anybody needs them, here's links:
Baby Steps: https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/14/
The different days of the month are at the bottom of the page, but they're all listed on today's entry.
Missions: https://www.flylady.net/daily-mission
There's none on the weekend, but if you want to go back and see what there was for the kitchen, they're listed there.

It is family fun day!
I posted last night what I'm doing today, what are you all up to?

Hello all!

@BloomingHazel Thank you for dropping the links in. I am sorry I have been awol. Life got the better of me a bit.

Good to read you've all been flying 💞

I didn't get the job, but glad I did the interview. Good practice...I don't really mind as I don't feel in the right place in my life for more responsibility at work. They'd have wanted me to up my hours and I don't want to with 2 small children. I think I got good feedback but thinking about it, I didn't really understand it. 'I am a good do-er but need to think more about they why of things.' also my manager waffles on a lot and I zoned out and nodded in agreement at one point.

@Alwaysgrowing glad you felt it was worthwhile going to the interview even though not what you are after right now.

Another productive day. DH cleaned the windows inside and out and I snuck ahead to tomorrow's zone and cleaned the bathroom.
Took ages as was overdue and I cleaned walls and skirtings and door as I'm planning on sanding the scruffy bits tomorrow and painting next week. So probably won't manage an extra room as the painting will take a while. Need to repaint walls, skirtings and door frames. Will see how far I get. Buy it's not been painted in 12 years so needs doing. Painting in white again so hopefully won't need loads of coats and cutting in not too tricky.

I absolutely love the timer method. My favourite is the power of 15. I'll set a 15 minute timer for general cleaning/ tidying. Flylady suggested throwing out rubbish, I might start there. During the 15 minutes I might boil the kettle for my cup of tea/coffee. Then I set another timer and sit for 15 to relax/ eat. It's my favourite to do when I've come home and want to flop on the sofa.

Happy mother's day everyone

Trying again after being MIA for most or all of February.

Been thinking a lot recently about whether to downsize. Noticed that I subconsciously avoid the stairs whenever possible. I can picture myself in a much smaller space, with massively reduced clutter. Then I realise how much I would miss my large garden and garage, and I’m back where I started.

Bathroom and kitchen needing quite a lot of TLC today.

Got a new tv hooked up yesterday. I like to watch Grand Designs or Time Team with people actually Doing Stuff. Pause during ads to scuttle about putting things away or loading wash.

Welcome back scorify. My aunt and uncle downsized recently, as empty nesters, they moved from suburbs into a city flat and they're really happy. Much closer to things like work and entertainment. To be honest, their house was always immaculate, no clutter, even with small children, lots of lovey open space for them to move about in. My uncle is, what flylady calls born organised.

Also, I'm sure you could find a bungalow with a large garden...I know most plots like that have been redeveloped, another house built in the garden.

Good morning. Many apologies for dropping off the thread. Here is this morning's mission

https://www.flylady.net/daily-mission

I have downsizing fantasies too @Scourgify Not that my house is even that big. I think the trick probably is to have a really good declutter and a bit of a redecorate before deciding.

Do you have decent banister rails?

Just a week of not feeling well has got me back into chaos but I intend to do some 15 minutes with the timer and I'll be straight before I know it.

I love flylady for the jumping in messages.

I've read ' The facades of perfectionism.' on flylady. To be honest I have the opposite opinion here. It's about trying to remember 'if you haven't got anything good to say, don't say anything at all.' rather than the ingrained voice negative opinions. I have that saying ingrained and my trying to express my opinion and be more assertive at home and work. That's feedback I've had at work I think from the interview, and my manager has said he likes it when people advocate for their career/ improvements in the department. And I can't just listen to my husband rant without arguing back. So she's very outdated there.

Today I'm hoping to get a lot done as I've a day off work after a lazy weekend. Also, I was up before my 3 year old for a change which was nice.

I like the sound of today's mission. I'm going to go in all my extra rooms and quickly grab things that need binning. I think it will be easy as the utility and study are by far the most chaotic rooms in the house and the children are very bad for spreading wrappers to their bedrooms.
I'm not planning on doing much in the extra rooms this week - do people tend to rotate which one they do? Doesn't seem frequent enough but doing them all would kill me!!
But this month I'm hoping to paint bathroom so doing nothing in the others.
Childrens rooms are pretty good anyway did a huge declutter at start of year so the weekly blessings will hopefully keep them OK. My study needs loads of clearing!

I did actually brave the oven cleaning yesterday which took ages and it's still dirty. Anyone able to recommend a cleaner for getting grease off outside of the oven. It needs something quite tough but that won't take the paint off. And I learnt a lesson for next time, start with the oven cleaning before cleaning everything else as I now need to redo tiles behind sink as they got oven cleaning grease on them.

I still dream of upsizing, we bought a three bed Victorian terrace pre DCs and kind of assumed we'd upsize at some point, but we liked it so much we have ended up staying. It is a bit cramped, we don't host much, it's definitely not good for that as all the downstairs rooms are small and separate but it's in a lovely location, nice neighbours, has parking and the garden is big enough (I have an allotment less than half a mile away). But sometimes I dream of having a HUGE house and hosting big parties, having lots of people to stay, separate hobby rooms etc.

I blitzed the bathroom yesterday (we only have one) including around and behind the bowl. Since I decluttered it properly in Jan it has been so much easier to keep clean, tidy and organised. My "other room" is the landing which is consistently the worst place in the house for clutter and mess.

I just remembered a conversation with another mum at a playgroup. I was blissfully ignorant about the middle east, this was pre the 11th October attack. In my area there were a few free Palestine flags but I didn't know much about the area. This mum was quite a new imigrant and said how she misses her big house in Palestine where her kids could run around. I put my foot in it and said 'oh is Palestine near Israel?' She looked very uncomfortable and didn't have the English to explain.

I think she did say, it's the same place.

I always thought we'd get a bigger house, and there were a few years when it felt a bit cramped, but we are empty nesters now. I always loved the idea of having a big house and doing lots of hosting but honestly I doubt I'd be up to that kind of responsibility. I mean I still need flylady to remind me to put a load of washing on in the morning.

It's taken me a while to get my head around that conflict @Alwaysgrowing Which place is where, and why.

I'm off to read that essay @Alwaysgrowing that you mention upthread

All dishes done this morning. Some tidying, three laundry loads. TeenGirl appeared at lunchtime after getting bumped into at school

Ran out of steam in the afternoon. Have spent this evening sneezing a lot and shivering under a blanket while my face and scalp are on fire. Adult DS is similar, and texted to say he’s been sleeping most of the day.

As soon as this LoL is finished, I’m off to bed. At least I got caught up with the laundry.

Sorry you were ill yesterday @Scourgify hope you feel better today (and DS).

Just finished morning routines, I am trying to stick with doing the DW myself (easier than getting the others to TBH), on after dinner, emptied in the morning, then at least they put their things in it instead of dumping them on the side. I finished work a bit early last night and batch cooked some chilli and beef casserole, so just frozen some portions of those, will have some for dinner tonight.

Is it only me who needs multiple dishwasher loads a day? I'd love to be able to load them in right away out of sight but it's on, uploaded and loaded again. Round and round it goes

There's only three of us most of the time @Positivepositron and we all work outside the home. Sometimes at weekends and when a DC is back from uni (one was away for the last three years but is now living back here, the other is in first year) it doesn't last a whole day, or if I've been batch cooking or baking. Last night I used the same chopping board, knife, wooden spoon for both meals, started them in casserole dishes on the hob and them into a slow oven for the evening so only the two dishes and a ladle to go in this morning.

Hello! Here is today's portal to the Flylady missions etc
https://www.flylady.net/daily-mission

Another good mission today. Cleaning the bathroom bin, which despite cleaning the bathroom on Saturday I didn't clean the bin. And a 5 minute timer in your extra room looking for things to donate.
Collecting rubbish yesterday went well, all kinds of junk on utility floor.
Got more stuff to the charity shop yesterday and today.

Makes sense about the dishwasher @ExcellentDaydream one of us is normally home at lunch time and we make two packed lunches, and my children are autistic and fussy so often 2 or 3 dinners are made so I shouldn't be surprised one dishwasher doesn't cover it all!

Oh and on a nice side note I bought myself flowers for the kitchen today as a reward for maintaining a neat kitchen for the week (we won't mention the dining room side of the kitchen/ diner which I haven't tackled yet.

This system does seem to work for every shape of family. I wish I'd found it when my children were small. As it is I came across it when they were between 13 and 17 years old and I was a newly single parent. It was definitely helpful in helping me with the chaos of that time and I swear it helps with my mental health too. It also helped me to help them manage their flights into adulthood and living independently. Years later we still occasionally remind one another of shiny sinks and routines. Just two of us at home now (remarried) and it's also true that the routines are 'catching' for want of a better words.

@Alwaysgrowing I have just read the perfectionism essay from yesterday. I read it slightly differently to you I think and more as a reminder that we don't need to internalise the messages from our past (ie only perfect will do) and also to watch what we say to our kids. Am in total agreement about standing up for ourselves with other adults though. But from a place of calm. A tricky balance at times.

We are a dishwasher free by choice family household here @Positivepositron It normally works very well but my flaky week last week led me to not do the shiny sink thing for a couple of days, and piles of washing up got the better of me. DH helped but I did rather go splat and so he ended up with more to do than usual poor chap. It's definitely proof that round these parts at least, 'if mama ain't happy then ain't nobody happy'. I don't mean I get nasty, just that the whole family (in this instance poor old DH) feels it when I'm not my lovely best. I like the CEO of the household image that Flylady sets out, though I think that could be considered dated and sexist too.

Anyway what I needed was a break as things had got on top of me so I've taken a few days leave from work and I am very glad I have.

I hope you are feeling better @Scourgify and love to all flyers, old and new 💕

How lovely 💐