In Flylady land, the weekend missions are a bit different. No serious cleaning tasks outside of the routines of shining the kitchen sink and such.
Saturdays are for family fun and Sundays are for renewing the spirit.
Saturday
Family fun is a bit different around here as the boys are older. G works every Saturday. My husband went to help a friend in the morning. And J had a band competition in the afternoon. So, I was on my own for a bit of fun in the morning. In keeping with my small fall bucket list, I went and visited a local farmer’s market. A successful outing. Found pretty flowers, apple jam, and salsa. I’m excited to try another visit to that location during the peak of the market season.
I suppose our real family fun was watching the band competition (2nd in their division, woohoo!) and then J going with me to get food after (Culver’s did not win any awards. First time for everything but they messed up our order. SIGH)
Sunday
It was an usually hot fall day and I spent most of it in my favorite place, outside! Also visited a couple different garden centers.
A lot of perennial plants on sale right now (best time to buy those! they might look a little sad now but they’ll bounce back and rebloom next year). Also, picked up some pansies (annuals around here) to give the front porch an extra boost of fall color.
Spent time pulling up some plants in the garden. I decided we’d seen the last of the spring-planted cucumbers so pulled it. Now my okra will see a bit more sun (I’m determined to have fall okra, even if I have to glue a bag of frozen okra to the plant). Pulled a bunch of weeds from the flower garden by the front porch before the rain moved into the area. And spent some time reading.
Preparing For Tomorrow
Overall, I’d say I stayed true to the Flylady schedule this weekend.
Tonight between watching the second half of the cringe-worthy (so far) Chiefs game, I need to wash masks, clean the kitchen sink (though it’s not too bad), get J’s lunch sorted, and figure out what to wear to work in the morning. Also, need to make sure I go to bed at a decent hour.
Yesterday was busy. Work. Had to help my son come up with senior gift ideas for his section members in band (no minute like the last minute, motto of teenagers everywhere I think). Make dinner. Football game.
Long day that started early. So, doing Flylady missions or even basics wasn’t really at the front of things for me.
However, I did load the dishes and empty the sink after dinner. Then, we went to the football game. After the very long football game night, I came home and went to bed without even looking at the sink again.
Figured I’d just deal with whatever happened over night this morning. Woke up to the strangest sight.
The sink remained empty overnight! There were very few dishes but they were all stacked beside the empty sink. Huh? Interesting. Maybe the kids are noticing. (I say the kids because it took very little time for my husband to toss his breakfast dishes in the sink.)
Anyway, I thought of this old commercial from the 80’s about an antiperspirant.
There slogan: so effective you can skip a day!
Ha, maybe the sink thing is going to be just that effective after all. (I didn’t mean to skip a blogging day in the series but really it was a long day yesterday & I was tired)
On that note, upstairs I go to clean out the sink for the night.
Probably a pretty quick post tonight. I just committed to being at work at 7a.m. tomorrow morning. Worked not quite a full day today but I’m still a bit tired.
I’m sitting here listening to random Christmas tunes as my son practices on the concert euphonium. Cheery enough. Thought I better take a moment to check in with how things went today.
Honestly, not much happened on the Flylady front as I was working. My husband had the day off and was kind enough to catch us up on the laundry.
I came home and made dinner, grilled chicken and salad (husband made that) with croissants (from Sam’s club) on the side. A few cut up vegetables and dip on the table while it all cooked.
Happy to report that even though I had to run the dishwasher twice after getting home from work (once while fixing dinner and again after for clean up), the counters and kitchen sink are indeed clear.
The task of the day was to wipe down the large appliances. So, I quickly did that. Quickly being the key word. I guess I’ll focus on the task more seriously on another day. Back to the progress not perfection thought. A little bit of something done is still better than doing nothing at all I suppose.
Funny thing is even though I know Flylady is all about using a timer, I’ve still not done that. I just do what I need to do and call it good. Not to say I haven’t used a timer in the past or won’t in the future. Just currently, I find I don’t need one.
What I do need is to go to bed at a decent hour. So I’ll end this with a question: Do you use a timer?
Today was a much better day than yesterday. Of course, a visit to the hairdresser always leaves me in better spirits. And I didn’t wake up with aching arms so that helped tremendously as well.
Today I did the Flylady missions from both yesterday and today. And tackled a few anti-procrastination day tasks. Including a few I didn’t even know I’d been ignoring.
Crumb tray of the toaster is now clean!
Started with yesterday’s task. Wash off the kitchen counters with hot soapy water. Sometimes (very rarely) lack of counter space is a good thing! Also, took a minute to wipe down the items on the counter as well. And clean the crumb tray on the toaster as noted up above.
Before:After:
Can’t see a lot of difference in the two photos but the counter is cleaner. Or rather was clean. For a second. Ha!
The other task was to clean around the sink faucet. With a toothbrush. Our sink faucet is newer so I just used the Power Dawn soap and a rag. (Forgot to take an after photo!)
Still quite a few things I didn’t do today but her motto of Progress and not perfection is returning to my mind a bit. My main goal is to clean the sink each night.
A Few Anti-Procrastination Tasks Completed Today
They’ll sound simple but they were really bugging me so I’m glad to have them done.
Took the tag off my new indoor fall rug for the front door. Seriously, it’s been there a week and I didn’t take the tag off of it. First, I wanted to make sure I liked it (I did) and then, I just kept thinking oh, I’ll do it in a minute. It’s done now.
Clean out my purse. Pretty sure this is a Friday thing in Flylady land but it’s been at least 2-3 months. So many grocery lists! Now, I know exactly what I have in there including enough cash for a small cup of coffee out somewhere.
Started to do my on-line training (finally) for work. However, I did stop as I have questions. Since I work tomorrow, I figured I should get answers before continuing.
Made a plan with J to get together tomorrow and look at his dual credit English bill. He just needs to log on to his account so I can get it paid by the deadline.
And used up the tomatoes on the counter before they went bad, BLT for lunch. It was yummy! Also, finally got around to making spicy black-eyed peas for dinner (with ham and cornbread)
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Tomorrow is back to the working world for me so we’ll see how I do on the tasks. However, the sink is already cleaned for tonight so I’m actually going to get to bed before 10:30. Exciting stuff.
Did you get any long neglected items crossed off your list today?
Trying very hard to post every day for this series. However, there’s not a lot to report today.
Not even a series of fun photos to share. I did not sleep well last night. Then, I decided to do some serious weed trimming in the lot next door. Seems we had a couple of people trying to get into the backdoor of that house (owner is currently not living there and the house/yard is in a bit of disarray).
Grumpy from not enough sleep. So sore from the weed trimming. Did I mention I used hedge trimmers and not a weed eater to do all this? Add in the adrenaline as I was so scared a snake was in the mess and the word for today was exhaustion. (Probably were snakes but thankfully, I didn’t see any. Wore my snow boots for the work just in case)
Am I making excuses? Probably. However, the only thing that happened in the housekeeping arena around here was the unloading/loading of the dishwasher. A switch of laundry from the washer to the dryer. No folding!
And I made dinner. Fried pork chops and baked potatoes. All I had in me tonight. Didn’t help that my husband came home and said trimming the crazy weeds (some were over my head!) in the back didn’t help and probably made it easier for people. UGH. And a second UGH for the sadness I felt as I cut down my bird habitat areas thinking it a necessary and helpful task for the safety of everyone. I did leave some areas, just wanted a line of sight to their backdoor.
So, I’ve rubbed on the Aspercreme and taken an Advil. Still hurt, being old and out of shape is no fun. Now, I’m off to clean the kitchen sink and go to bed.
So today started kitchen week in Flylady land. Kitchen week sounds like it should be more fun. Like I should be baking yummy treats all week or something.
Can I just confess something here? Cleaning the kitchen is one of my very least favorite chores. Honestly, if we were divvying up chores in a house, I’d pick the bathroom over the kitchen. Of course, that’s only if the living room and bedrooms were already taken. Unless they were teenager bedrooms, then I’d still take the bathroom, I think.
So, I did do most of the kitchen items on the “flight plan” for Monday.
threw away 27 pieces of trash (counted recycle items in my total including the plastic containers I thought I might reuse…not like we don’t have enough containers already)
cleared out our mail hotspot. Brought a few bills down here to pay. Recycled a few old catalogs I’d been keeping for their coupons, not counted in 27 items.
Cleared most the clutter off the kitchen table.
Pantry peek was already done. Happy to report I did buy less than usual at the store. On a mission for us to use up what we already have here.
Things I did not do:
Most of the weekly home blessing tasks. No vacuuming, mopping, or sheet changing happened here.
No dusting or polishing of mirrors and doors either.
Didn’t really need to purge many catalogs and magazines as I do that out of habit the last week of each month
The only thing on the weekly home blessing task I completed (except just now realizing I forgot the trash down here) was to empty all the trash cans. Kind of an easy one to remember as tomorrow is our trash day. And not on the list, I did so much laundry. Still need to finish up a few loads of that tomorrow as well.
Speaking of trash…
The Monday Mission
I sort of last minute cleaned my kitchen trash can. Didn’t really follow the directions as I didn’t get to it until it was almost dark outside. May go ahead and do a better job of things with it tomorrow if time allows. However, I did wipe it off as it was quite disgusting. It probably needs another coat of paint or to be tossed and replaced with a new metal trashcan. Something to ponder. Anyway, here are the less than exciting (and kind of gross) before and after photos of the trash can.
Tomorrow’s task sounds so much simpler, just a serious wipe down of the counter tops. Speaking of tomorrow, I’ll end this here so I can get upstairs and clean out the kitchen sink.
However, let’s not end this post with trashy photos. Here’s a fall decoration that belonged to my late mother-in-law. I’m pondering where to hang it.
Good Morning! It’s a beautiful fall morning around here and though my post is going up a little later, our Monday started off great.
Everyone (except the college kid who doesn’t have classes until tonight) woke up not only on time but a little early and in decent moods.
Joining in with the Happy Homemaker Monday link up hosted by Sandra over at Diary Of A Stay At Home Mom. Definitely, a great way to start off the week.
Breakfast Time…What Is On The Plate This Morning
Boring usual. However, I did treat myself to a caramel macchiato at the grocery store. Last Saturday, we visited our new favorite local bakery.
No kolaches this time but they did have their yummy cinnamon rolls and eclairs “donuts”. Eclairs are their specialty and I guess people were asking for donuts which they don’t do so this was their answer. Pistachio cream in the center. Note we split the eclairs “donut” between my husband, myself, and saved some for G. When we came home for a break from the band competition (the beauty of being local) in the late afternoon, G spent at least 15 minutes talking about the wonder and deliciousness of the eclairs “donut”. The cinnamon rolls lasted the entire weekend with someone eating the end of last one either late last night or early this morning.
Looking Around The House
So much stuff everywhere. Hoping to alleviate that a bit today.
Finished a pretty good thriller titled Good As Dead by Susan Walter last week, bit predictable but not until the very end. It was a September First Reads and now, I’ve moved on to the October selections. I’m reading The Passing Storm by Christine Nolfi. Good enough for a before bed on my phone kind of read. Also reading my library book, Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire by Jen Hatmaker. Need to finish it as I think it’s due back to the library soon.
On The TV This Week
The Voice, La Brea, Masked Singer, and I’m re-watching Lost on Hulu (La Brea seems to be a bit of a Lost knockoff. As I told my husband, I might as well watch the real thing. I’ll still watch the new show for awhile as well but I’m not going to get excited about missing episodes unless it gets quite a bit better). Really, the only one listed I make time to watch is Masked Singer.
The Weather Outside Is
Beautiful but still fairly warm. Okay with me but even I wouldn’t mind a few raindrops. It did rain on Saturday but it was spotty around our area, enough chances that the band director brought our band kids back early but not enough to really wet the ground around here. Friends just to the east of us got a good downpour. More watering of gardens and flowers for me this week.
On The Menu This Week
J’s schedule is a little different this week as his baritone teacher is out of town and the band practices are moved around as well. So, I get to be slightly more relaxed this week.
MONDAY: Skillet Lasagna
TUESDAY: Grilled Balsamic Chicken, vegetables *J has early morning band practice*
WEDNESDAY: Ham steaks, spicy black-eyed peas, cornbread, and salad *I have a hair appointment at 9* *J has evening band practice at 6*
THURSDAY: Fried pork chops, baked potatoes, something else? *I’m on standby to work 8:15-4:45*
FRIDAY: OUT/Subway/Football Game tradition *I work 11-1*
If I Have A Few Minutes To Myself I Will
Be outside doing something or just sitting on the front porch
New Recipe I Tried Or Want To Try This Week
Tonight’s skillet lasagna is a new one from last month’s grocery store magazine. It calls for a lot of fresh herbs which I just happen to have growing in pots on the porch.
One Of My Simple Pleasures
Love the scent of fresh, blooming lavender
Going outside each morning to check on the flowers and vegetable garden, watering things if needed and just observing the changes in the flowers plus inhaling the scents of it all.
Favorite Photo From The Camera
Morning glories always make me smile!
Praying For
Friends, Family (Especially my estranged sister and niece, had a dream about them 2 nights in a row. Odd? I do miss them.), Strangers. Those who have recently lost loved ones or who are sick and struggling whether with physical or mental pain or simply to get by. An end to this pandemic. Kindness to overtake all the bitterness out there.
Quote For The Week
I liked my AM Daily Bible Devotion this morning.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)
So, I’m going to show you some cringe-worthy photos here in a moment. This portable outdoor charcoal grill was also cringe-worthy in my husband’s opinion. I’m really just sharing the photo to not start with the scary ones.
The story with the grill is that he bought it for me because I don’t care for hamburgers on the smoker. There is just something about a hamburger cooked over charcoal that smokers and gas grills don’t quite achieve. This portable, charcoal grill is what love looks like after 20+ years of marriage. The grill didn’t work very well though the hamburgers were still very good. However, I digress from the topic at hand.
If you’ve been following along, you might recall how I said the Flylady e-mails said this upcoming week was kitchen week. Still so many e-mails. Of course, I’ve not cleaned my e-mail out in a bit. I always plan to do it every week but it doesn’t always happen.
Anyway, I know I share a lot of outside photos of birds and flowers and random nature on here. There is a reason for that. It’s prettier than sharing the inside of my home. So, in an effort of realness….a scary one at that, I’m going to share the pictures I snapped of my kitchen this afternoon just after we had lunch.
Note, some are blurry as the motivation for the perfect photo is hard to find when snapping photos of a messy kitchen.
View from living room looking into the kitchen
(Note this is also after our trip to Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart where we hadn’t put everything away yet) And now, the view from the other side.
The weird half open shade thing is because they always pull one down when playing video games due to reflections from outside.
A Couple of Close Ups
We all know keeping the kitchen table clear is a struggle.
The bottom of the cleaning rack. Ironically, a place I planned to “neatly” store the cleaning supplies. And no, I have no idea why we have 3 fire extinguishers sitting there. Just need to find a place for them as I think I moved them to make room for something else and now I can’t remember what that was.
Shall we turn to the galley? This area is home to our appliances, the sink, and the counter tops.
Galley Kitchen View
Apologies for the blurry photo. The light was giving me fits of frustration.
In Focus Close-Ups
Yes, those biscuits are from this morning. Sometimes dishes get “lost” over there if I’m facing the sink cleaning things. And here’s the sink area, remember please, this was right after lunch. And yes, I did clean up a bit after the photo. However, it is still a bit of a mess.
Hopefully, my cringe worthy photos showed you a real side of things around here and maybe even made you feel better about your home. Here let’s clear our minds of all the mess with a soothing fall photo of a random acorn on the deck table.
My plan for the series this week is to show my kitchen progress as I follow along with the missions for each day. Contingent, of course, upon my work schedule (showing the progress, not doing the missions. I do plan to do them no matter what).
For now, I’m off to clean out my kitchen sink for the night.
NOTE: This post is part of my 31 Days series, FlyBaby Reborn. Making a landing page for all the posts is on the list for this week. Meanwhile, for more information, find my first post in the series here.
It’s 11 PM on Saturday night and way past my bedtime. Instead I’m posting here after spending about 30 minutes working on this:
A graphic designer, I am not. However, at least I have a button/photo for this series. Didn’t want to bore you with sink photos every night.
And yes, I did clean out the sink tonight. I wanted to skip it but weather cut our band competition time short (the band got in their performance but opted to come home rather than stay for the awards portion). So, I had no excuse. Even threw in a load of laundry.
Had a chuckle reading through a few of the many (had forgot how many e-mails!) Flylady e-mails as next week is apparently kitchen week. And one of the tasks involved the pantry. Said don’t take everything out to re-organize it. Funny because earlier today I half-emptied the pantry thinking I’d do just that.
We’ll see what happens during the course of the new week. For tonight, I’m keeping this way past my bedtime post short and ending it here.
So the first creature I’m sharing here isn’t technically a bird. However, I was so excited it decided to visit my front porch petunias early Wednesday morning. Made getting up at 5a.m. to get a kid off to band practice completely worth the lost sleep.
Who ever thought I’d be so excited over a moth? What a moth? Yes, a moth!
Sphinx Moth
Originally I called this a hummingbird moth as it acts like a hummingbird but I do think what I had was actually a sphinx moth and not a clearwing. However, I’m still not entirely sure. Still, beautiful and just as fun to watch as a hummingbird! Note, it was barely light out when I took these photos and I didn’t want to scare it away with a flash so they’re not the best photos but I hope you enjoy them anyway.
My New Front Porch Bench
And since I’m sharing photos that aren’t technically birds, how about a view of the back of my new bench? We picked it up on sale last week! I’d been looking to replace the bench on our front porch for about a year now, not ever finding something I liked well enough. The people at Orscheln said every time they put one of these benches together, it sold. (And they had to then take it apart like they did for us) These birds don’t cost much to feed!
Finally, so I don’t get kicked off linking up with The Bird Depot on a technicality, I figure I’d better give you a bird. Note I didn’t say the bird, that’d be a completely different post. Probably about the school car line. No, I don’t give any one “the bird” during it but I can’t say I’m not tempted at times.
Actual Birds
Sticking with my theme of being in the front yard for this post. I did finally capture a photo of the neighbor’s chickens. I don’t see the roosters in this photo but I can almost always hear them. Glad they are across the street and not next door.
And while I’ve not seen as many backyard birds lately (probably thanks to a certain Coopers Hawk hanging out), seems fitting to end this nutty post with one I did spot. The ever busy nuthatch!
Between my morning glories (finally) blooming and the moth, it was a fun week to be outside if only just around the back and front yard.
Morning glory flowers, not birds
What birds (or other winged creatures) did you spot this week?
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