Spring into action: Flying into April, a flylady April thread

[Positivepositron]

Welcome to the April thread. This is my first time starting a flylady thread. And I've been doing flylady about a month but very are many on the thread who are years in.

I'm cutting and pasting Hazel's great intro which explains everything:

Whether you're starting to build a new routine, stuck in a rut, or been around for years, join us on the Flylady thread. I'll try to keep us on track for the month, with baby steps, daily missions and weekly zones.

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:
🩷Entryway, porch and dining room
🩷Bathroom & one other room
🩷Kitchen
🩷Master bedroom & master bathroom
🩷Living room

Don't worry about finishing it all this month, it'll come around again next month! Flylady is NOT about perfectionism!

Daily focus: each day of the week has a different 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 😆
• S&S: Swish & Swipe (wipe the bathroom sink & toilet)
• 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, if I can get them to work, she's updated the website! Although if you can, it's worth downloading the newly updated 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 👇
Daily missions (for the zone we are in): https://beta.flylady.net/daily-mission
Baby steps (on a different website, since the link isn't working on the new site yet): https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/

Feel free to ask any questions you may have, some of us have been doing Flylady for a very long time, as well as others just starting out. We may have other things to add that we have found works for us that could help you too!

Hello! Lovely to 'see' you here @SpringingIntoSummerLobelia

I have managed to keep up with routines but less so with the missions this week. Very happy to have the app for ticking things off!

I did do a very thorough clean of the lounge on Tuesday. Didn't find anything useful down the sides of any furniture but I did find plenty of biscuits crumbs and a few peanuts.

I need to start adding some garden chores on to the app and then perhaps I'll get started out there.

Happy Easter weekend everyone 💐

Anyone have any plans for Easter?
Or any decorations to show?

DH beat me to the window sill and has cleared it and top of cabinet. Though some has been moved to the room of doom. Food shopping done ready for a casual lunch tomorrow. And 4 books returned to my cousin. Decluttering is an ongoing challenge. But progress is being made.

No plans here. No decorations up either. I do manage them at Christmas though. I often think I 'should' but honestly I can only keep out of chaos with (non extreme) minimalism.
Having said that I will go and see my old ma in the nursing home. They lean into absolutely any day of interest going and have definitely gone all out for Easter. I'll take along an easter egg which she'll be thrilled to receive but then she'll insist on putting it in the fridge and forget all about it.

I have two hot spots left here, and they probably wouldn't take too long to deal with. To my annoyance there is also a shelf with dvds on which I'd love to get rid of, but that won't be popular with DH. There is also a cabinet full of goodness only knows what. If I had my way I'd get rid of the hideous thing and it's contents. Burn the lot!! But it's not entirely my decision to make and DH is quite fond of it. I think he's worried that if I declutter much more, he will end up on the list as there'll be nothing left. I think he's safe at least until I have finished doing the shed.

No decorations here as yet either. I do actually have some 'somewhere' so might hunt them out. Just little chicks and pastel colours.

I'm pleased with what i achieved today. Put a load of washing on our heated air dryer- it's been sitting wet for a few days and I caught it right on the cusp of going musty so pleased about that.

I LOVE the idea of scheduling in date nights and family days also. I need more of that in my life! DS1 is revising for his GCSEs but we have a lovely Sunday lunch planned at our lovely local so that will be our family day out.

best wishes to you all!

Agree about the daftness Positron!

We have an Easter branch with some egg decorations up plus the dc's school egg competition entries.

I have mainly been in the garden this week but forecast tomorrow isn't great so I will tackle the walls then

Did also declutter in the conservatory today, which is our entrance; it's looking much better.

I must take some pictures of my Easter decorations this weekend.. for now here's a couple pictures of the lemon white chocolate truffles I finally finished making last night. They taste really good, but very sweet.

I'll be back later (more likely tomorrow) as I'm currently on a break from work right now.

No daily mission today.

Weekly task for tomorrow: renew your spirit day.

Babystep for tomorrow:
Self compassion is key so this step is about recognising any negative voices in your head and turn them into positive messages and set up a post-It reminders around your home

Place notes around your home to remind yourself to be kind to yourself, and to remind you of the key habits, like “Shine the Sink” or “Start a Load of Laundry.”

Those chocolates look amazing @BloomingHazel 👏

We have visitors today and need to do a quick sweep and wipe in bathroom and kitchen but compared to preflylady this is a pretty easy, quick job!

oh my @BloomingHazel, wish I lived close by - your baking and cooking always looks and sounds amazing !

All our Easter decorations are made by dd2 , just the little kits you can buy from the works etc. No plans , just some family time ❤️

tada
🥳 morning coffee!

I have also picked up my book club read, I’ve been in a reading lull and I think it’s this book, I’m aiming to get it read this weekend then I can get on with my reading challenge ! Work later and need to jump in the shower but hopefully will get a few things checked off first.

I hope everyone is having a lovely Easter weekend .

I've muddled up the babysteps as I've been googling them as they aren't currently on her website. So tomorrow is now read some of the flylady website/ app articles I think as I've already put day 5s down.

Tomorrow is also the weekly bleuugghh:

1. Change sheets.
2. Empty all trash.
3. Vacuum main rooms.
4. Mop hard floors.
5. Dust surfaces.
6. Clean mirrors/doors.
7. Purge papers/magazines

I tend to do this spread over a couple of days.

We had a lovely family lunch yesterday a d had cleaned up within about twenty minutes of them leaving.

Kitchen zone is here again. We did a decent amount of this yesterday before the visitors and it had lasted well anyway. Might try and do the fridge as didn't last month, do oven again as it didn't get it all done last time and tackle some drawers or cupboards. Possibly too ambitious. Will see.

Happy easter all!

I made a really good dent in the house on Friday - however its quickly slid back to CHAOS - how 😪

Hello, I'd like to join you on this thread. I've tried this routine a long time ago and I'm coming back to it now after my house has got into a bit of a state following a bereavement a couple of months ago.
Just got to remember not to be all or nothing about it and that getting some of the tasks done is better than not doing anything.
I've downloaded the free version of the app so hopefully that will keep me on track, but some of the content is not really to my taste so I thought joining this thread might be better.
Did a great little declutter yesterday and finally got some bags of clothes off to the charity collection.

Welcome @katand2kits sorry to hear about your bereavement

Ive dabbled with the app but in all honesty it doesnt help me. Im still searching for motivation 🤣

Welcome and sorry about your bereavement.

I find the app helpful in stopping me being too all or nothing as it breaks everything up rather than one massive list that's too daunting. I manage what I manage in a zone then the list is gone, same with morning tasks etc you get to afternoon and the list is taken from active so you are never failing.

I have tired children who don't want to go anywhere so have made good start on the kitchen; swept, half fridge cleaned, oven round 2 done, and done the grill and 2nd oven too, hood and filter done, microwave dome, windows done, cobwebs done.

Also scrubbed the stains on bathroom floor again.

Will hopefully clean the kick boards and cutlery drawer at least in the kitchen before week is done as they are in desperate need.

Hopefully found a new to us armchair on Facebook marketplace will see if any good tonight and if so we can get the sofa we saw the other day to go with it, just need to wait until Tuesday to order it if so.

Also probably very old fashioned to still have CDs but started moving them from cases into a big folder to save space. Really keen to have space for all our stuff. Am gradually giving dvds to charity and lots of our books are going too. Threw away a board game yesterday that had bits missing.

Happy Easter! 🐣

Welcome @katand2kits I'm so sorry for your loss. Just a little at a time and things will be easier to keep on top of.

@Positivepositron I found the baby steps through another site: https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/14/ there's 1-31 at the bottom of each page to take you to the relevant day of the month, if that helps.

Searching thank you! I usually enjoy making goodies, especially for others. I need to make more really, just finding the will to do it!
Did you finish your book?

We had Easter lunch at our house. DD came, it was so nice to see her. ILs came also. MIL hid eggs, the rest of us searched, including FIL. We had a lot of fun!
I baked a lemon blueberry loaf for dessert today, pic attached. I've also attached a picture of some flowers I have, the pictures I took of my decorations are too big to attach!

I did rotate DW this morning and put it on once full, after lunch. I also did handwash dishes. I'll need to put them away soon.
The countertops have been wiped down, as well as the stovetop. I still need to clean my oven though, it's looking bad.

I did a quick vacuum, mostly on the hardwood floor, so that's much better.
I do have to work tomorrow (Monday), it's not a bank holiday over here, unfortunately.
That means I'll need to get a lunch ready and my clothes out ready tonight.

Welcome @katand2kits

The loaf looks amazing. Lovely flowers.
Glad you had a fun day.
I have used that site for the babysteps a couple of times but also used some others and it turns out they weren't all the same. Never mind.

Here is the daily mission copied and pasted from flylady. I have done this yesterday but not dusted the lights as we can't reach them not really sure what to do about that. We have a fantastic extendable feather duster which has really helped with cobwebs but it's not helping with the lights.

We are in the Kitchen this week and we are going to work our way through from top to bottom!Your mission for today is to look UP!
Today we are going to look up, set your timer for 10 minutes and take a broom or a Multi-wand and get those dust bunnies and cobwebs that are hanging on the upper walls that are taller than you, the corners of the ceilings and the ceiling.
If you are feeling adventurous ask someone in the house to help you and take a damp rag to the light fixture and/or ceiling fan. Please be careful! Don't get obsessed and take your light fixture apart or repaint the ceiling.Babysteps!

Thanks for posting that @Positivepositron !

I have so far tidied the kitchen, vacuumed downstairs and am about to make a carrot cake.

I will get to the dust bunnies next!

Wow that's impressive for so early. I'm still drinking coffee.
I hadn't thought before but carrot cake is a perfect easter themed cake. Enjoy 😋

Oh yes! I had not clued into carrot and easter!

I was up super early this morning after a bad dream. I was even in the 24 hour supermarket before 6 am chatting to some of the staff and a few of the early regulars buying their papers!

I've never made a carrot cake before. I'm even going to try my hand at the proper icing. Usually my cake-making stops short at the icing, which tbf is usually the best bit.

Morning 🌄 everyone.
Welcome @katand2kits , sorry to hear of your bereavement.
The photos of your baking @BloomingHazel are making my mouth water! Ive had a cluster of migraines and in my after phase of Very Hungry Caterpillar I fell off the chocolate wagon, and three days later my cravings are sky high.
I'm treading water (as usual). Keeping up with my LOLs. Considering getting a tiny dining table to shrink the hotspot!
DP is having his surgery on Thursday, at last.
Have great days everyone!

Hello everyone! I am pleased to report that I'm still finding the flylady app helpful even though it's just a glorified to do list.

Sorry about the migraines and the bad dreams @CherryogDog and @SpringingIntoSummerLobelia 😔

Thank you @Positivepositron for the mission. 'Don't go mad and take your light fittings apart'. You just know old flylady's been there and got the tee shirt don't you 😂

I have the afternoon to myself and I'm just pottering about doing little jobs. Interspersed with looking at gardening videos. It is peaceful here.

Love to all 💕

Decent start to the week, considering it's a bank holiday. Parents had been round for the weekend and have gone home now, so I've managed to get the sheets changed in the spare room, dishwasher has been on twice and I'm on the second load of laundry.

Also had a nice bubble bath.

Not doing all the weekly bleurgh today. I'd hoovered last Friday and most of the house doesn't need doing again yet. I think I'll aim to do a little each day on the weekly list rather than feel pressured to do it all on Monday.

On my mental list for today is washing the air fryer. And I did clean the hob this morning.