Hello Fly Friends! Today was Baby Step Day 16 - Learning the System / Read FlyLady Email I have been subscribed to the FlyLady emails for the last 2 years, so I think I understand them pretty well. Actually, right when I signed up on this forum I unsubscribed from them because I didn't want FlyLady overload. Now I can just go to her site and use the Launchpad if there is something I need clarification on. The Launchpad section is my favorite part of the site because it has all the important stuff there - Reminders, Flight Plan, Missions, Zones, etc. Hope you guys all had very nice days!! ♥ :seeya: ♥

Good Evening Fly Friends! Baby Step Day 15 - Make Your Bed I got it made. I love getting into a made bed. It just feels nice. Now I'm thinking I would love a new set of flannel sheets :drool: Beth - thanks for the info regarding what FlyLady said about working from home and scheduling. You have some good ideas and I'm going to try to implement them. First I need to decide if I want to go with an extended work time of 3 to 4 hours or break it up per hour. I'm going to think about that seriously tonight. I had applied to sell my graphic designs on t-shirts on Amazon last August and at that time they were overwhelmed with applications and said they didn't know when I might hear back. Today I got a request for more information and they said I should hear something in 60 days. That's a long time but I'm going to use it to go ahead and get 10 designs up and ready to go if I get the OK. Positive thinking!! 3 Ladybugs - definitely try the big grid calendar! I think you will LOVE it ♥ I almost bought one for my mom for Christmas but thought that might be tacky. Good night and sweet dreams ~

Good Evening Fly Friends! Hope you all had a wonderful day :-) Today was Baby Step Day 14 - Use A Calendar I've got this one down for sure. I've used the official FlyLady calendar for the last 2 years. This year I opted for the much less expensive Amy Knapp Big Grid Wall Calendar. It's extremely similar and only $8.34, includes the stickers, and 2 day free shipping on Amazon Prime. Much better deal!! So I'm used to writing everything on the calendar AND on my google g-mail calendar so I get e-mail reminders. Also, this is my 2nd year to use a planner. I think a lot of my problem is time management. I keep searching the web for help with that. There is a lot for working outside the house women and stay at home moms, but not so much for work at home ladies. I think that's how I originally ran into FlyLady. I have a hard time figuring out when to do housework, yardwork, actual graphic design work, and having fun time for games or knitting, plus I do surveys and HIT's (human intelligence tasks) for spending money. All the $$ from the online shops goes into savings. I live near Athens, GA.

Good Evening Fly Friends! Took me a while to find this thread. I was looking for the 5th ~ I did my first actual real mission today and it was fun with the timer! I think the kitchen is going to be my least favorite zone. I am not transitioning as smoothly through the morning routine steps as I would like but perhaps that will come with time and repetition. Sorry that I was in a bad mood yesterday. I want so bad to go out to MO and visit my mom. I haven't seen her in 5 years! I keep racking my brain for a way to make it happen but I just can't see how to do it. I want to rent a car and drive out but DH doesn't like to travel or want to go. I would be fine with driving it alone but he says it's not safe for a single (lone) woman to be driving across country. What if the car breaks down or I have a flat out in the middle of nowhere. Good grief. He did say I could drive if I take someone with me but everyone has to work or has other responsibilities and I don't want to have to entertain someone. I want to spend quality time with my mom. There is flying but he won't drive in Atlanta. Possibly I could find a taxi like service to take me to the airport. Thought about the bus but he says only low-life people ride the bus. AGH!! Do you guys know of any alternatives for getting across country? Sorry, I know that was off topic. Just had to vent a little :sneaky2: Night Elf - hope your DS's dental appt. went ok.

Today is my Baby Step Day 13 which is supposed to be find a mission and do it. But this being Sunday, a lot of things are going on that usually don't, like I call my mom in MO on Sundays and we usually talk for an hour! So I am a bit behind and unfocused. I did get the laundry folded and put away and am working on the routines. Would it be terrible of me if I put off Day 13 until tomorrow, Monday, since it looks like we usually don't do missions on Sunday anyway? I don't want to be a slacker, but I'm beginning to feel stressed and like there is no way I will get everything done ~ :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:

Hello Fly Friends! Today was Baby Step Day 12 - Delete E-mails. Well, this was a skate in the park for me because I've had this as a personal mission that I've been working on for the last 2 weeks and should finish up tomorrow. I certainly lucked out on this one! I've decided to occasionally send some of the Diane and Cajun flylady videos to my mom. Her house isn't dirty but it's extremely cluttered. She's a bit of a shopaholic so that I'm afraid it might turn into hoarding if she's not careful. Husband did laundry today and hung the large items outside on the line. I put the smaller stuff on a wooden dryer in the sunroom. I will fold and put away tomorrow. Night Elf - I hope your outing was a good one. I can't quite tell by your wording if it was a good day or a bad day. I hope everything is ok! :confused1:

Hello Fly friends! DH isn't feeling well so we went to bed early. I'm typing on my tablet and it's a bit awkward so won't be writing much. Congrats 3Ladybugs! I'm so happy for you! Today was baby step 11, write motivational quotes in control journal. I did that. Good night and sweet dreams ~

Howdy Fly Friends! Today was Day 10 - You can do anything for 15 minutes. I don't really have trash laying around the house, like wrappers, newspapers, empty cans, etc. I keep that stuff all thrown away right away. So for 15 minutes I worked in the kitchen / dining room. Mostly at the coffee station. It's a round table in a corner of the kitchen where I keep the coffee maker, a selection of coffee mugs, coffees, creamers, etc. The area is all cleaned up and fresh now. I did some clearing of the dining room table, too. I have a question for you guys. What do you do with or about your husband's piles of stuff? Or are your husbands really neat? Mine isn't a slob. He has neat piles of books on the coffee table, piles of lists on the dining table, etc. Just neat piles of stuff that I don't feel I can put away because he likes everything within reach. I'm thinking I'll just keep my and the other areas tidy and hopefully he will catch on to how much better it looks. He always says it's our house and we should live in it and some stuff just needs to be out and available and in easy reach. Husband and I walk a mile every day but he has arthritis in one of his knees so I don't get any aerobic benefit from the walk, just fresh air. I do have an elliptical machine in my office and that's what I use along with some 5 pound weights and stretch bands. I'm a long way from doing it for 17 minutes. :-(

Hello Fly Friends! I did my Baby Step Day 9 of de-cluttering with a 5 Minute Room Rescue. It took place in my office again. That is the place I stick things when company is coming to get them out of the way and out of sight. It also goes there if I just don't have anywhere to put it at the moment. But hopefully that will be changing soon. So I have 2 bags ready to go to the FISH as donations when I think the flu has died down enough to be safe. 3 Ladybugs - I was born in NJ. Long Branch to be exact. My brother was born in Red Bank. I was running behind all day because I had to do end of month and end of year paperwork. I was off $10 on one paper and it took me 3 hours to find it!

Good evening Fly Friends! Today was Baby Step Day 8 - Get binder, put paper in, and write down my simple morning and before bed routines. I didn't have a 3-ring binder laying around so I used a spiral notebook. I'm pretty much staying on track and getting everything done. Sometimes my morning routines drags on till around noon but I'm getting the things done and I think I'll be quicker after winter. I say that because we heat with only a wood stove. This means that the stove room might be 83 degrees but the bathroom is 56 degrees. I don't relish spending a lot of time in there first thing in the morning. We do have several electric space heaters but the electricity cost adds up pretty fast with those. When we first moved into this house it had a heat pump so the house was a more or less uniform temperature but it died 2 years in. We had it fixed once but it went out again. The repairman said he could fix it for $900 but wouldn't guarantee it. So we got the wood stove and converted our front porch into a stove room. DH likes to cook on the wood stove! Another thing is that we only do laundry once a week because we have a really really deep well and only a small pump. The electricity in the house is not wired new enough to let us get a bigger pump so we have to be careful with our water usage. Not because of the well but because of the pump. So I don't get to have fun with the laundry :-( I don't know if this is important, but I did want to mention that on Baby Step Day 8 the Cajun Lady video is correct but Diane's is for Day 7 again.

Hello Fly Friends! My Day 7 Baby Step is Pick Out Your Clothes I have them hanging on a peg rack behind the door in my office. You guys are amazing at all you get done in one day. I hope I can be right up there with you one day.

Hello Fly Friends! Today was Day 6 Baby Step - Hot Spots: I spent 2 minutes on a flat surface in my office. It looks better. Still a ways to go but if I focus on it I think it will be clear at the end of the week, at the most, and that will be very nice. It's been a dreary day here in GA - RAIN RAIN RAIN :thumbdown: I hope you guys all had a lovely weekend!

Night Elf - thank you so much for posting your routine. It helps me a lot to see how you adjust it to your needs. Love the cat area! I have an android, not an iPhone, so I'll have to check and see if FlyLady has an app for that ~

Hello Fly Friends! Today I feel like a human being again. Thank goodness!! Babystep Day 4 is making the sticky notes and posting them. I have them already from previous attempts at this so I will just need to stick them around. 3Ladybugs - how do you like the sleep number bed? They sound so interesting but I've always been afraid that at some point they would start losing air, like a slow leak on an air mattress or water in a waterbed. Night Elf - that's awesome that you're getting a cat tree. Two weeks ago I moved ours from the living room into the sunroom so it's in a corner with windows on both sides. My 3 cats are actually outside cats from a feral mom who had them underneath the sunroom. DH has lots of lumber stored under there so we didn't know they were there for several months. Long story short - they were not socialized. But for almost 2 years I've been patiently working on that and now I can pet them all and they come into the house to sleep all night on cold nights and in the morning while I make their breakfast. The one thing I can't do is pick them up and that makes me sad because I really want to cuddle them but I think it's way past time to give that a try. Take care everybody ~

Hello Fly friends! I did not do Babystep 4 today because last night around midnight I was deathly sick. I'm talking food poisoning sick! OMG I was so miserable 😲😷😞 Today I mostly rested in bed and nibbled bland food - toast, crackers, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs. I'm feeling considerably better so I plan to jump back in at Babystep 4 tomorrow. 3Ladybugs - Do you knit? You could work on a small project like a scarf, hat, or neck warmer.

Hi Guys! Day 3 went well. It was basically just doing what we have already done. Husband and I went into town this morning to run errands and that made getting up, getting ready, and dressed to shoes easier. I want to thank everyone for their input and suggestions and advice. It helps SO MUCH to know that other people understand and can relate to you and what you are going through. I felt like I needed to do a little bit more today so I took an old toothbrush to the faucet in the master bath. I'm also working on a personal goal of cleaning out both of my email's inbox, sent box, folders, etc. That is clutter, too. This week I'm concentrating on Yahoo. Next week will be Gmail. They are so full because of procrastination. It's mostly stuff like reviews of products I want to do, short surveys from companies, and people I only email 3 or 4 times a year. Night Elf - I hope your back is feeling better! Is the thrift store to help out animals? We don't have anything like that here. We have a FISH thrift store that we donate to when de-cluttering and shop at occasionally. I would love to do something to help animals. I'm sort of a crazy cat lady ~ Goodnight everybody ♥

Hi Guys! Ok, Day 2 Get Dressed To Lace-Up Shoes ~ This is the hardest habit for me!! It's not the shoes that's the problem. It's the jump out of bed and get dressed right away aspect. I work from home (actually it's more of a hobby that I can make some spending money at) and my only son is 24, married, and out of the house. I have a slow paced and more leisurely lifestyle. Husband brings me coffee in bed at 6:30 and I open my tablet and read the email, etc. At 7:30 I get up to feed the cats. 8:30 I eat breakfast. 9:30 we go for our daily walk. I'm just really not motivated to do much until we get back from our walk. I putter around and make my bed, put away the dishes, etc. That sounds pathetic doesn't it? I think I have the Cajun lady syndrome!! Tomorrow I'm going to get out of bed at 7:15 and see if I can do the teeth brushing, face washing, etc. before I go out to feed the cats. Another of my problems is that I LOVE fuzzy pants. And tops. I basically have been living in them all winter. For many winters. I own 7 pair! I love layering and fuzzy clothing is warmer than sweatshirts!! I'm really going to try to conquer this. Perhaps I can use them as a reward to be put on after 5 in the evening if I accomplished my goals??

Hello everyone! I signed up to this site yesterday and started the Baby Steps today. I have shined my sink and made my bed. I am not new to FlyLady. I have been dabbling for over a year and purchased several of her products but I have never made it through the Baby Steps with four tries! However, now that I have found this wonderful support group I feel like I have a real chance of succeeding. ♥