Spanking new Flybaby "nursery" thread - learn how to Fly for the month of September only

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Hello. Does anyone want to join/re-join us for a mutual "kick-up-the-bum" motivational thread starting tomorrow 1st September?

[Then we can join the main Flying threads thereafter if we want to.)

We did the same throughout August

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/good_housekeeping/799866-starting-tomorrow-accelerated-flying-for-month-of-Augu st-only

and it has really helped but being confirmed slatterns extreme cases we feel the need to repeat the exercise throughout September too. We need to declutter, organise, tidy and clean and generally get our lives under control.

All newcomers welcome!

Sorry! Forgot to welcome My Good Morning too and say hello to Optimistic and !!!

Regarding your sink Golden Snitch - try not to get to perfectionist about it - but as that horse seems to have already bolted quite a good tip is to clean your sink once a week with a little Silvo Duraglit Tarnish Guard (the impregnated wadding stuff you clean silver with) and it seems to repel water for a while anyway.

Another tip (if your sink is stainless steel) is to use detergent, then rinse with white vinegar, then polish with a tiny bit of baby oil on a sheet of kitchen roll. This also repels water splashes.

Or could you get a rubber 'sleeve' for your tap? (if it wouldn't look too naff). They are still available at some plumbers merchants or old-fashioned DIY shops ....

.. meant to say hello to Snorkie (hope the bit about ring binders above answers your question)

hello also to tibni earlyonemorning blissa

sorry if I have missed anyone!!

chocs away!

[Sensing disquiet in the ranks]

What I am trying to express (not very well)is that if you trust the system now - and follow the steps however trivial they seem - it will build up in to something much more substantial later on. Flylady is all about doing small, consistent, realistic tasks every day - it helps you prioritise and not be overwhelmed - and by doing small steps now you avoid having huge, daunting tasks later.

Yes you will probably feel like a twonk at the beginning, yes you can choose to adapt the system to suit yourself and ignore the more folksy aspects of the site, but you just have to go with the flow and it will work out. Honestly!

Hope everyone's 5 min room rescue goes well today!

Bye!

Thanks counting I've been using a product called "Shiney Sinks" that is recommended by Franke (the sink manufacturer) and while it's fab at geting rid of water marks and making the sink all shiney, it doesn't seem to help it stay that way for long!

Will try your suggestions

Morning all!

So far I have:

Not come down dressed as I was gasping for a cup of tea! Regretted it as I still have wet hair and meeting friend in 10 mins!
Put on dishwasher
Put a load of washing on
Done some ironing
Cleared up son's room ( not sure what it's called but it involved putting rubbish in a sack!
Have also done hotspot.

Thanks for clearing up hotspot thing, CTGH. My problem is not adding to my 'piles'.

Later:
More ironing
cook tea
go to dentist
paperwork hotspot

Have a good day everyone!!

Aha! . I see the problem. I have been trying to follow the e-mails and not the beginner baby steps. I now understand why everyone else has been doing something different.

So instead of cleaning out the fridge today I have decluttered for 5 mins. I have sort of been doing this in any case by mistake, as I've been confusing hotspots with 'everywhere that is cluttered' (ie everywhere!). Now I'm thinking there's a subtle difference, hotspots are where clutter builds up daily, but places to declutter also include long term clutter depots and other random bits and pieces that have been left in the middle of the floor for example.

I will start a control journal too, which I didn't do yesterday.

PS sink is shiny

Oh blimey I have "fallen off" already

My sink won't take long to shine, I am dressed up to my shoes (sort of) what else have I missed?

Thanks for the update, counting.

As an ex-fly graduate, I'd really agree with the importance of getting little things in place that become routine - you start to make/keep things tidier without noticing

And yes, hotspots are clutter collection points, rather than places that are cluttered, iykwim.
My key hotspot is the end of the dining room table - it's where everything gets dumped when people come in through the door. And then the pile just gets bigger and bigger. Two mins in the morning whilst the kids are finishing breakfast keeps it clear ... but does mean I may never get to sort any other hotspot

I've got dd's home visit from her nursery teacher so time to go off and do some sorting.

And happy birthday for yesterday, Positive

Flippin' heck CTGH you were supposed to be getting off to work!!

Thanks for all the birthday greetings. I had a fantastic evening out and a lovely day.

For those of you keeping quiet from DHs so am I . He has noticed how tidy it all is and has passed comment on how much nicer everything looks, but I dare not tell him that I am following a stupid fat fairy from America. I do not think I could cope with the hysteria that would follow!

Came downstairs this morning to absolute carnage in the kitchen. (somehow did not notice last night when I got home, so beginning to think that instead of housework, if we all just drank vast quantities of wine we would not notice anything!!!!) Naively left 6 teenagers in the house last night and told them they could make themselves supper as they had an early dinner to give myself time to get ready! Mistake number 1!!! This morning I had no bread, no milk, no cheese (huge block when we went out last night), no bacon, no biscuits (shock). Marshmallows had been exploded in my microwave and I am sure they used nearly every utensil imaginable and left them all wherever they happened to drop!!
Anyway, got stuck right in and
Had to go to the garage for emergency bread and milk supplies (twice the normal price, grumble, grumble!!!)
Unloaded and loaded dishwasheer.
Unloaded and loaded washing machine
Put clothes on line
Cleaned up all the mess around the kitchen tops
Scrubbed the cooker top (not going to ask what actually made that mess!!)
And this was all as well as all the sandwiches and getting everyone off to school vaguely on time.

On arrival at work I realised I had not actually had breakfast myself as I had been so busy. Was suddenly starving as soon as I realised this and ate my lunch!! It is going to be a long day!!!!!!!

Have slipped a bit here too! Still haven't shined the sink or mopped the floor. Have spent my child free morning at the drs and so will try and get these done tonight and tackle the hovel that is my bedroom for 5 minutes!

I haven't told my dp about Flying either, he thinks this whole mn thing is a bit weird (pure computer phobe!) and so I can't see him understanding how a fairy and a thread will help me become more organised and tidy!

One good thing is that tea is sorted- shepherds pie mix is defrosting to be heated up later, and the potatoes are peeled and chopped.

Off to pick up ds now

Hope your day gets better PAO, hi to everyone else!

Hi everyone - I have slipped too!

I have been good with the sink, and getting dressed, but last night hadn't made sandwiches at boy's tea time like I said I would and it was horrible to go into the kitchen at 10:30 to a mess and a dishwasher to unload and reload and do the sandwiches.

Must get back on track - lots of you are doing so well, and again my DH knows nothing of this, but hasn't noticed yet either (probably as I haven't got very far!)

Got dressed before breakfast AGAIN this morning.
Made breakfast,
got DS ready for nursery
Unloaded diswasher
Cleared breakfast things
Nursery run
DS2s lunch
loaded dishwasher and washing machine

Would love to say decluttered DS2's nursery but that actually meant sorting through massive piles of washing that get thrown in there. Managed to put it all away in 15mins though

Will attempt a hotspot later

Just dropping in (lunch) to say hello. [Don't worry PA - made it to work on time - and sorry about your horror kitchen this morning - lol at stupid fat American fairy!! Good you had a good night out though!]

For those of you that feel you are behind: Please don't waste another second about "falling off the wagon" or "slipping" or any such thing - seriously - just jump in and do today's step. Forget what you did or didn't get done yesterday. The beauty of Flylady is that it will all come around again ....like groundhog day... That way you can focus on today and not have the stress of feeling that thing's are out of control - because we will get to it all given time -

Snorkie and DeepDarkWood - you have explained the difference between ordinary clutter and hotspots much better than I did. That's it precisely! Sorry! I am always dashing on and off here and not expressing myself very clearly as a result.

[Digression alert: To say I feel a bit of a fraud "running" this thread is an understatement - I am no expert on Flylady (but am consulting book regularly!) and I have to clear paths in my sitting room and office to be able to walk across them. House is complete disaster zone currently. Have stopped and started Flylady 3 times! So welcome any tips/advice just as much as the next man.]

See you all tonight and happy decluttering!

CTGH - I too was going to ignore the ring binder, but I am happy to report that I now have one with paper in etc and am feeling strangely thrilled by my new Dymo letratag bought at the same time!!!I have labelled my file .

Fruitstick - your diet comment got me thinking. Has Flylady done a similar thing on taking a babysteps approach to losing weight? (Not judging by the website!). But wouldn't it be great if it went something like:
Day 1 Drink 2 litres of water
Day 2 Eat fruit for breakfast
Day 3 Do not open fridge at 4 o'clock in the afternoon!!!

I know, I know I should be doing my 5 minute declutter instead of musing on here .

optimisticmumma I think we may be onto something here!

I also think there's a market for a UK version of flylady written in plain English!!

Plain English fly would be good. I too have not divulged the 'fat American fairy' to dh, but I have stressed the importance of a shiny sink to him, by threatening a complete housework strike if it wasn't kept pristine. So far he's been mostly very good about it. I've also tried to explain about decluttering, but he's not really got the hang of that one.

Counting, you are an ideal leader - if we had someone with a showhome, we'd all have given up in despair by now. The fact that someone else with a house like ours is persisting gives us hope you see.

Positive - sympathies over the state of your kitchen - teenagers are the worst.

So, now I have identified my real hotspots I'm going to start sorting them. I was wondering if it was within the rules to identify 4, one for each family member and allocate us each one. Both ds and dd have areas of the living room that are their personal dumping grounds - I have one too and dh could have the top of the microwave. Is it reasonable to get the whole family into good bedtime routines or is that cloud cuckoo land?

I have started my 'control journal' !

Not really sure if I've had a good start or not. Think I went a bit mad yesterday and was still pottering about at 9 (which these days is nearing my bedtime) but today I have

Got up and dressed before breakfast
Made bed
Got DS dressed
Expressed milk for tonight
Emptied dishwasher
Done supermarket shop and put it away..

and that was all before swimming with DS at 11am and coffee/lunch with freinds after.

Dinner is currently in oven and washing machine is on and sink is still shiny. Goldensnitch sounds like I have a similar sink and for my first clean yesterday I used car polish! (Flylady suggest carwax so I figured must be similar) Seems to be holding up quite well.

Haven't looked at todays step though oops

I have decluttered my understairs cupboard. Actually most of the crap was carrier bags that I reuse. Realised I will never reuse that many so have kept enough jute/cotton/bag for life ones and recycled the rest.

I can now find shoes

fruitstick - my understairs cupboard is exactly the same, I do have one of those little holders for carrier bags - but I just tend to open the door and throw them in

Does anybody NOT do that? I thought that was what understair cupboards were for! That must be where I am going wrong. (or just one of the many places!!!)

What is it about understairs cupboards and dining room tables - seem like they are hotspots for lots of us.

Evenin' all

Here's tomorrow's step:

step for September 10th - I can do the feet up/magazine bit really well

aahhh Optimistic - always glad to commune with a fellow stationery junkie ... Serried rows of brand new post-it pads and boxes of paper clips do it for me

Fruitstick - am definitely up for a grumpy UK version written in plainest Anglo-Saxon - oh yes - strongest Yorkshire vernacular called for I think - none of this fluffy "home blessing hour" (or even better - in Mumsnet speak - lots of farking and emoticons

Blissa please save me some shepherd's pie - tis me favourite

Thank you for your kind words Snorkie - I love your nickname btw - visualise you as a benign Banana Split (can you tell I have had red wine tonight?)

Hello to PA havingaGiraffe shoppingVeggie and anyoen I have missed

I am trying to keep on board but with 7 days until we get our new puppy dh is busy laying a new patio area (for puppy to have hard area to toilet on) and I am attacking loft!

I have my date - 25th - for loft insulation, now I have to get it clear. Took 5 black bags to the charity fabric box today, have a pile stacking in garage for the tip (not open until Friday) and bits and pieces for friends to make use of and to list on freecycle and I have not made a dent in the junk yet!

Found all the baby photos out yesterday which slowed me down

Good going tibni!! Never fear, you'll meet your deadline of the 25th.

Oh no TeamE [hands over large glass of whisky and lemon]. Hope you feel better soon. Take it steady and jump back in as and when you feel better. Hope you feel better soon.