Fly Lady Babysteps Day 3

Today's Fly Lady babystep instruction is:

I didn't do the first one first thing this morning. I didn't have time for a shower so just threw on yesterday's tracky bottoms and the first vest I could get my hands on before I had to get the kids dressed and head to drop my son at nursery. When I got back after I had a friend come round to visit, I managed to steal 15 minutes to have a shower. I did a proper clean up job - shaved legs, washed and conditioned hair.... brushed teeth and got dressed - in jeans and a top. I felt SO much better.

Number two I've just made a start on. My kitchen had become a tip again so I've cleared surfaces, filled dishwasher up (after emptying it), washed up. I have yet to put washing up away and empty and clean and shine my sink. But I'll get to it.

Fly Lady Babysteps Day 2

Today's FlyLady babystep was "get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes".

I was a bit confused because a) it was a work day so I had to get dressed up and b) I don't have any lace up shoes. Not that I wear for work anyway.

I understand the point of it. Its so that you feel ready for the day. I often feel rather sluggish (at the moment) because I need to lose at least half a stone (a stone if I'm being optimistic) and so when I'm not at work I am living out of tracky bottoms and baggy t-shirts. I don't feel like I can get dressed up in nice (if practical) clothes because I'd be uncomfortable and I HATE being uncomfortable.

I need to shine my sink before I go to bed. My dinner isn't ready and I'm shattered after driving to Heathrow to pick up my in-laws. I'm not 100% sure that that sink is going to be shined before I go to bed.

This is last night's shined sink - I was so pleased with it I put a picture up on my Facebook page:

Here is the FlyLady's instructions on How to Shine Your Sink.

Really its not JUST to shine your sink. You have to empty it of dirty dishes first. So you have to do the washing up and then dry up the washed dishes. And then clean the sink and then dry it with a tea towel.

It really does leave you feeling like you achieved something good once its done. Having said that, its 10.07pm and the worksurfaces are covered with clutter (only yesterday they were clear - this still amazes me: that I can spend so much time and effort tidying up and so quickly it all becomes messy again). Honestly, I don't think I'm going to get to it today. I'll do it in the morning (I'm thinking maybe this is my problem...). 

Organising and decluttering the toys and tidying up kitchen/craft table

On saturday I am going to be helping a friend out with her kids play room. I thought before I go and do that (my first organising job in someone else's house) I should probably have a go at my own kid's toys.

While it wasn't that long ago that we bought a new toy storage unit and re-organised everything to fit, somehow (as always happens) toys have managed to get out of control again. In addition to all the toys in the unit itself, we also now have a big box of blocks and a toy garage that they regularly play with. I decided that (in preparation for my job on saturday) it would be a good idea to have a practice run at home. I also wanted to test out on Joshua the idea of getting your kids involved in purging their toys.

I explained to him that there are too many toys to fit in the toy drawers and that we need to get rid of some (or move them to his bedroom). We started going through the toys, drawer by drawer. He agreed to throw away any broken toys (that he didn't LOVE enough to want us to fix - or that weren't fixable - or that we were NEVER going to get around to fixing). I was really impressed with him.

I don't really have a picture of what it was like before as it didn't really look that bad but there were a few things that wouldn't fit in the drawers and a few things that just seemed to "hang around".

I had also wanted to label the toy bins since we got the unit. At the time I started this my labels hadn't arrived and I wasn't sure if they would be right there so I'd drawn labels (pictures of what should go in each bin) directly onto the plastic bins. You can see what that looked like as I don't yet have labels for the top bins. I think the black labels look much nicer (bought on ebay).

This is what it looked like before (although it didn't stay that tidy and the tray/tidy thing on the top ended up just collecting clutter and became a bit of a dumping ground - I SOOOO wish I'd taken a BEFORE photo!).

 This is what it looks like after my labelling frenzy:

Because of all the things that we either chucked out or relocated to the kids' bedroom I've actually GAINED a drawer that has NOTHING in it (the blue bottom right one that has no label on it).

I moved the tray thing so that I could use the top of the toy storage unit to keep bigger toys and some of the larger cars that either wouldn't fit in the drawers or ended up having a single drawer to themselves. I quite like having these bigger toys "on display" like that. I'm also trying to get Joshua (Lala is a bit young at the moment) to get used to playing with one thing and then putting it away when he's done. The same with the craft table. He'll play with paints and then the paints will stay out and the paper will go all over the floor..... I'll get to how I reorganised that area though in a minute.

 

Now, from the top we have:

Food, Blocks (previously in a separate box in the corner of the room - I filled this bin and then bagged up what was left to give away)....

  

Little people/figures/animals

Books (previously didn't really have a place for books - not downstairs anyway)...

Tools, cars (this hasn't really changed although I did get rid of quite a few cars that were either never played with or broken)

And the bottom two bins contain:

Electronic or noisy toys (drums, laptops, piano toys etc)
Lala's toys (dolls, balls, more baby type toys).

I am very pleased with how nice my labels look. And Joshua was very excited watching me drawing the pictures. Hopefully it will help him know where to put things when he's finished playing with them. Although I have to keep reminding him not to just dump things all over the floor and then wander off and play with something else!

Sometimes I think that even if your house is generally a mess, you have to ignore the day to day mess and do something that you have been meaning to do for ages. I tried all day to get the kitchen under control but I couldn't concentrate. I think my brain needed to feel that I was achieving something that was not just going to be undone in an hour! So in the end I gave up on the kitchen and washing up and tackled the toys, as above. And once, I'd mostly finished with that, I moved onto the kitchen/craft table which was an utter mess. It wasn't just the table that was a mess. There was paper and craft bits all over the floor. It was horrendous:

 

I first of all cleared the windowsill (I didn't take a picture of this but it was dirty and needed cleaning) and wiped it down. Then I started clearing the table. Anything that needed washing I dumped in the sink, I got a binbag and got rid of any dried paint, used paper (non-masterpieces), "sticking" bits and bobs that were not in good condition and basically anything that looked like rubbish and gave the table a really good clean.

I relocated the paints from the top of the fridge to on top of the drawer unit and labelled the drawers:

 

I found an unused tin that had previously had sugar in it (before I moved all that stuff into glass jars during my larder rejig) and put pens and pencils in it. 

As you can see, the kids are enjoying having a nice clean table to play at! This was also the first time Lala had sat at the table to do drawing. She sat there for AGES happy as a happy happy thing (can't think of any clever comparisons right now, but she was QUIET and sat still so that shows how HAPPY she was! lol). 

 

In other news I got myself a new kitchen bin! Woopee!!! No more plastic bags hanging on the bottle opener for the dog to tear a hole in and empty all over the floor!

 

What to do when its all on top of you and you don't know where to start

I was looking at my blog last night and trying to work out what I was going to write about when my brain and house was in a huge funk. I was in a bit of a depression yesterday. I felt like I had a hangover. I didn't but exhaustion got the better of me and I was in a seriously bad mood and I couldn't bring myself to lift a finger.After a nice long sleep last night and a lie in the morning I've decided that I'm going to be more productive today and I can write about how I'm going to kick myself into shape.

What to do when you're overwhelmed?

Step 1 - Have a shower
It might sound obvious but I always feel fresher after a shower, brushing teeth and getting dressed.

Step 2 - Decide not to make anymore mess
It can seem like a vicous circle when you are trying to tidy up mess that has been hanging around for a while if you are making more mess as you go along. So this morning, I've vowed that I will put away anything I use and if I see something that needs putting away (cups that need to be brought down to the kitchen etc), if I have free hands, I'll deal with them.

Step 3 - Do what you can
If you are like me, you will get stumped by the fact that you can't start with the washing up because there is no hot water cos you had a bath and forgot to put the water back on to heat. So what? Start emptying the dishwasher and filling it back up again. Heat enough water in the kettle so you can wipe a few surfaces.

Step 4 - DON'T PANIC! Do one thing at a time
Don't be put off by the fact that there is so much to do. Decide what area you're going to start on. Either a particular area of the worksurface (this is what works for me) and bit by bit, clear the clutter. Then move onto the next bit.

This is what I've done:

1. Cleared one surface so I could put my laptop in kitchen and write as I tidied
2. Emptied dishwasher
3. Filled dishwasher back up
4. Took all stuff off sink drainer (a lot of it had been there so long it had got dirty again so put it to right of sink)
5. Emptied sink (I can't start until I have an empty and clean sink). 
6. Still not got enough hot water to do a full sink of washing up so filled a little bit with some water from the kettle and wiped down some of the crumb-ladened surfaces down, then sprayed them with cleaning spray, wiped them clean and buffed them with a dry towel (I moved any obstacles out of the way - like the toaster and kettle etc so I could clean under and behind them)
7. Washed a load of bottles (I like to do them before anything else so the water is nice and clean and hot)
8. Put them together and put them away
9. Done another load of washing up

Its not finished yet. I've still not done ALL of the washing up that needs doing. The sitting room is still a mess (even though twice I've tidied it up - not much you can do while the kids are up unless you refuse to allow them to play!). The point is that now the kitchen looks much better than it did and I feel a bit better and I feel like I'm not living in a dump! And I've also had some time to relax.

OK, I've not managed to tidy up my entire house today. Some areas are still pretty messy but I've made a start and I actually (kind of) enjoyed doing it. 

House mess shame / Making boxes for sunglasses/suncream/phone/camera/etc

Talking to my mum today she made a little joke when I mentioned that I find it hard to keep everything in order in the house after 2 days of working in a row (I was saying how I was quite happy my working days were changing to Monday, Wednesday & Friday). She joked that surely I wouldn't find it a problem with all my organising systems in place. I love her but it made me feel uncomfortable. She didn't met the point and I want to make sure that anyone else doesn't misunderstand me! I am not all of a sudden an expert. My house is not suddenly tidy!!! Some of the systems I try don't work for me. But I try them (I need to revisit them I think for the blog so I can say what went wrong) & when it doesn't work I try something else. Yes, sometimes I'll decorate a box to make it pretty when I should be getting on with the laundry. But I do it because it makes me happy. And some of my "systems" do help me and make things run more smoothly. But I am still the person who hasn't hoovered when you come round (cos I don't DO hoovering). I'll only tidy up the kids toys until they've gone to bed cos otherwise they'll just make it messy again. And most of the time I don't mind.


Apart from when someone says they don't feel comfortable being in your home because it's messy. That hurts a bit. Especially when it's from someone you love. maybe that's why I keep trying. Because deep down I feel like a failure for not keeping on top of it.


Or maybe it's because when I have one little thing organised and pretty, even if it's just my make-up drawer, it makes me feel good. It makes me feel in control. And it makes me feel like I've accomplished something.


Here is what I did today while I SHOULD REALLY have been putting loads of laundry on:

Its a box to put sunglasses (in one side of the divider) and suncream (in the other) in. So they have a place to live (as they are always just HANGING AROUND in my house in the summer. 

Notice how nice my little chalkboard labels look.....

I was so pleased with the above that I did another smaller one for my phone & camera....

In fact, I was so pleased I made yet ANOTHER one. So now I have a whole set. A place for everything....

Organising the Larder

I had SOOOOO much fun this weekend reorganising our pullout larder cupboard. Apparently, according to a dear friend of mine (grumble grumble) it isn't REALLY a larder, but its where I put all our flour and sauces and tins, so I'm going to call it my larder. So take that Mrs Lisa Smarty Pants. Hehe. Hate you really! xxx


Anyway, so I hadn't actually planned on organising the larder (although it desperately needed doing) because we were planning on replacing the pull out cupboard mechanism with an actual cupboard, because, clever as the pull out thingy is, its not all that practical because you can't pull it out as far as I for one would like and so you can never quite see everything that's in there. 


So I was just generally tidying up and trying to make the kitchen a bit cleaner, tidier and prettier and so I took everything off our little glass corner shelves, cleaned them and put things back but I found some nice jars so I put things back in jars. I only took a before picture of one of the shelves but you can imagine it. It was all dusty, it had on it a load of stuff, including a salt grinder that didn't even work (I figured we'd never get round to fixing it and have since taken to crumbling sea salt into food when cooking anyway and if we need another one we can buy one) so I threw that away. I cleaned the shelves down and put back the things in their nice new shiny (not new, but looked new as I washed and polished them). This is the before:

Ok, it doesn't look terrible, but I think this looks much better:

I had bought this jar to put sweets and things in and it was living on the window sill but I think it looks much nicer here. The kitchen roll holder that has no kitchen roll on it (we've run out) has been moved back to the window sill (that needs tidying up too but I think that's a job for another day). 


Here is the other shelf, which I think looks great. The jar at the back has black peppercorns in it. The white stuff is salt. The bigger jar in the middle has turkish red chilli in it (we love that stuff) and the smaller jar has 100% chocolate in it. My husband uses it for cooking and wanted me to leave it out (it was in a yucky plastic container before). 

I actually found a few smaller kilner type jars (like the one at the back above) hiding among the herbs so I crushed enough black pepper to fill that one (our pepper grinder died too) but I forgot to take a picture of that. 


While I was busy tidying the kitchen and doing this my husband was out with both kids (bliss for me - to be able to potter about in the house on my own). Then he came back, gave me some large kilner jars (a pack of three for about £7 from TK Maxx) and then said he was going to go to Guildford as he'd been unable to find some crocs for my daughter cos her feet are too fat, bless her (she's only 18 months but has monster boats like her mum). I doubly loved my husband at that moment. MORE time to myself AND lovely new organisey-type jars? Heaven! Yes I know, I'm selfish. But you have to make the most of time to yourself as a mum when the opportunity arises plus, as he's away Monday to Friday next week I feel a lot less guilty for enjoying it than I might otherwise have done. 


Here are a couple of BEFORE photos. Apologies for the quality of the photos. It was very sunny and the light was in COMPLETELY the wrong part of the room for the photos. HOW inconsiderate!

Anyway, so I started pulling things out of the larder to see what was there. I got everything out and loaded the nice clean/clear work surfaces with STUFF! 


Then, I had to go out to drive to Binsted to see if I could find out who owned a particular plot of land (long story) and on the way back ACCIDENTALLY went to TKMaxx and splurged on some more kilner jars (two big big ones for cereal, a set of large ones and a set of smaller ones). I also got a lovely small clipboard and notepad:

And some very pretty boxes:

But anyway, I digress..... Here is how my "larder" looked AFTER I put as many things as I could into jars:

I love how the big cereal jars look. One for bran flakes and one for weetobix. But that will probably change depending on what we use most. I may even get some more. Would be handy to have some of those big ones for pasta shapes and maybe oats as well - for porridge. 


I also love how the pulses and nuts and things look in jars.


And its amazing how much more space we got. Another benefit is that its a lot cleaner because the flour bags are gone. Because of the design of the metal cupboards the paper bags would catch on the metal bits as you got them out which would mean the bags would end up with holes in which would mean spilled flour/sugar etc. No such problem with jars. 


I did have to leave a few things in their packaging unfortunately, but I may well be unpackaging them in the future!


Oops. Baby waking up so have to leave it at that for one night. 

Cleaning out the fridge

Finally got around to cleaning out my fridge this weekend. 


OK, I probably shouldn't do this but I'm not proud so here goes. This is what it looked like before:

You can't really see the full extent of it but its pretty chaotic and messy! 

Oh and dirty.... yuck:

I emptied everything out and layed it all out on the worksurfaces. 

JJ attacking the Babybels

Cleaned the fridge to make it shiny!

Then put things back and labelled them as I went:

This is actually what I did with the cheese LAST time I did the fridge - this time we didn't have enough cheese to bother doing it again. It is in bags though in the box. 

Then I put everything back on the shelves, nice and neatly:

 Feel really good for having done it. Just hope we can keep it clean!