Today was a very big day for Charlie & Emma, my 2 kittens who are not really kittens anymore. Remember about a 18 months ago when I introduced them? May 8th, 2010 to be exact was when I showed them.

Well today they had their annual shots, they got their chip and the big neutering operation. I brought them to the vet at 8:30 this morning, called back at 1 PM to hear all was well and at 2Pm they where back at home, a bit drowsy still.. but home. Here is Emma in the back on the green blanket and Charlie in the front:

When I write this – a few hours later – they get better and better, although Emma is still a bit wobbly on her feet. Charlie is demanding food and Emma too follows hopefully when I walk into the kitchen. Officially they cannot have food until tomorrow, but I might give them a wee bit, because they haven’t eaten in a long time.

Today was also day 14 of FLYlady’s baby steps. I was to read an essay written by Kelly. It was about using calenders. For me not much I did not already know or do. I have my Rainlendar in sync with my Google calendar on my PC, and my Ticker File for my bills and other reminders. And it works fine. Like for instance today. My rainlendar states on yesterdays date Charlie and Emma should eat before 6PM, today it says I have to bring them to the vet between 8:30 and 9:30 am. And in todays folder of the Tickerfile I put their medical Passports so I would not forget that. Pretty organised huh?

Tomorrow is day 15: make your bed. I am making that on a daily base as well. Thats what I mean with the baby steps going slow. I know why its done this way, and it works, but maybe I’m more BO (born organized) then I thought. Anyways. dan_e is joining us as always in the weekends, so I might not be blogging until late Sunday evening or Monday during the day.

Like I said yesterday, I’m back into the blogging-mode so here we go.

Day 13 of the FLYlady baby staps states: Find one of Kelly’s missions and do it. I followed the link and saw todays mission is all about – and I quote – “flinging all those old, stretched out, worn out panties and bras that are just taking up space.” Well needless to say I wont show you any pictures of the results from the 15 minutes I spent digging into my drawer right? But I can assure you I got it done and my panties and bras are happy to have more space in their drawer.

Today I spent almost the rest of my time cross stitching. I am a big fan of the patterns from Maryse: Les grills de Maryse I don’t speak a word French, but Google-translate is my trustworthy companion on her blog. I’m stitching her 2011 monthly SAL and I’m almost finished with January.  Yes I know I’m way behind.. or wait. FLY lady says: You’re not behind! So Im just jumping in

This is my result so far:

My next step is to translate “Janvier” into “Januari” because I want my months to be in Dutch. But I have the alphabet grid as well so that should not be a problem.

Tomorrow’s baby step is to read an essay Kelly wrote. I’m glad its an easy step, because tomorrow my kitten-girls have an appointment with the vet to get their shots a identification chip, and they are also going to be neutered. I feel so sorry for them, but its the best thing to do. If I don’t, they keep having their periods of heat and have more risks of getting all kinds of nasty cancers. But still.. It will be a hard day for all 3 of us tomorrow. And I bet Dan_e will be thinking about them too. 

Day eleven was all about putting an inspirational page into my control journal. Since I was a bit busy decluttering my closet with clothes and shoes I’ll get to that today. I did however managed to delete all the flylady mail. Which is supposed to be today’s Baby Step.

So far I like the 31 days Baby Steps, although I must admit it is going way to slow for me. I must really hold back to not do more steps in one day.  Maybe it’s because my mind is set to decluttering and getting rid of “stuff.” I have held actions like yesterday before, actually it was the follow up on an major clean out earlier this year.

In February or March I took everything out of my closet and hung the hangers al “backwards.” I guess you heard of the trick before: hang your cloths backwards. When you are going to wear an item,  take it out, with hanger and after the laundry you automatically hang it back the “right” way in your closet. After an amount of time: a year, 6 months, whatever, check to see what’s still hanging backwards and get rid of it. It hasn’t been out of the closet for that period and you probably wont wear it anytime soon.

The last time dan_e and me went to IKEA we also got some white wooden clothes hangers. So yesterday I decided it was going to be D-day. First I took out my Artis sweater and fleece and put them on a white hanger. These are my volunteer job clothes and I have to wear them when I give a guided tour at our local zoo, so I keep them for sure.

Before I go any further, let me show you what it looked like:

Pretty messy and cramped up right? Well after my “zoo-clothes” I checked out my pants. There was stil 3 pairs I some day hoped to be able to wear again, and they were hanging backwards. So they went out. I had some more sweaters a vest and some other shirts hanging backwards and except for a little black dress they all went. I still fit in the dress and I think any woman should own a little black dress. Just in case I have to go to some fancy party.

Then I put pretty much what I wanted to keep on the rest of the white hangers and put 3 very long dresses in clothes sleeves. These are my Viking re-enactment dresses I made myself and my wine red goth-like dress. I keep these  in case I might want go to a Castlefest again or another dressed up party. I might not be going to a Viking re-enactment event again, but I can’t part with my dresses (or my iron age leather shoes) yet so they stay.

And this is what it looks like right now:

Neat huh? The rest of my clothes that are still wearable and some of my shoes I wont wear anymore are ready to go to the recycling station in my neighbourhood. I am sure they find a nice new home.

Day 13 will be: Today I want you to find one of Kelly’s Missions and go and do it. They are fast and easy! This is going to introduce you to how we break our home into zones so that we never have to spring clean again.

No I did not stop following the baby steps, well only a little. I was sick a few days so I forgot about the getting dressed to lace shoes. I curled up on my couch with lots of water and my e-reader. My computer decided to stop working too, so I took a little break in blogging. But I’m back: I took a shower, decided to ignore my coughing again and plugged my snotty nose. I got dressed and started to read the BigTent messages and the baby steps form last week:

Day 7: Pick out your clothes. “Today we are going to add a new habit to our before bed routine. Tonight before you hop in bed; I want you to pick out what clothes you are going to wear tomorrow. You can lay them on a chair, on a shelf or hook in the bathroom or on a hanger on your closet door knob.” Did that when i started to get dressed every day.

Day 8: Get a three ring binder and put paper in it: “Today I want you to find an old three ring binder and just put some paper in it. Then at the top of one page write Morning Routine and on the top of another page write Before Bed Routine all in pencil. This is a working document; do not allow your perfectionism to interfere with the process. Now you can write your simple routines on each page.” I already kinda did that on day 3 or so…

Day 9: Declutter a few minutes at the time. “Today we are going to learn how to declutter our homes a few minutes at a time with some fun tools that I know you have been wondering about from the reminders you have been reading in our emails. Making it fun will get the job done!” Well I‘m decluttering already thats why I started with the FlyLady Baby Steps. So thats covered too. Plus the “Add a 5 minute room rescue to your Morning Routine” has been taken care off.

Day 10: You can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes. “Now set your timer for 15 minutes and go gather up all the trash you can find to throw away and put it in the garbage can outside. Then set your timer for another 15 minutes and sit down and put your feet up and read a favorite magazine till the timer goes off.”  Hmm I did not use a timer but I did do a lot today, including reading my magazine.

So here it is. My FlyLady days. I’ll start with Day 11 tomorrow: Add an Inspirational Page to your Control Journal.

For now some pictures off my declutter action today. I took care of the left side of my computer desk:

Before:

Charlie likes to must inspect empty spaces:

After:

A hot spot is, according to the Flylady website: “A Hot Spot is an area, when left unattended will gradually take over.”

Well I can think of a few of those places in my home, but the most important one is my desk in my bed room/art studio. I only have 1 bedroom so I keep my art supplies there, and also sleep there. Now I know all about the clutter free bedroom is clutter free sleep, but I only have 1 extra room and my living room/ dining room/ home office is full as it is. Besides I don’t want my cats to walk all over my freshly painted art journal pages.

So today’s assignment is:

“Now I want you to set your timer for 2 minutes and lets practice putting out your Hot Spot. You don’t have to work till you have finished; just do what you can in 2 minutes. Put your bills in one place. This will keep you from having to search for them.”

This is my desk before the 2 minutes:

And here after the 2 minutes:

2 minutes after that it looked like this:

So it was a less then 5 minutes effort and my desk looks ok again. We will not look at what lays on the floor and under the desk. That’s for the next 5 minutes I will spend here decluttering.

As for my bills: they are stacked neatly in my ticker file. I’m a huge GTD-fan and back on that wagon too. Taking one step at the time, but my mail and ticker file are running smoothly. I even stack my “to read” magazines in it, a brilliant suggestion made by dan_e.