New Monday, new week, new goals?

July 26, 2020 dianedenmark

Happy Monday morning from (currently sunny) Copenhagen where I’m enjoying my staycation with the family! During the summer I try whenever possible to eat my breakfast down by the sea, combining it with my morning swim. My Besties couldn’t join me today, but I enjoyed a nice chat with the ladies at the bathing club – plus a chapter or two of my book – soaking up the suns rays. Bliss! (The rain will return soon enough, probably this afternoon.) My breakfast today was porridge oats with milk, cocoa nibs and fresh raspberries (my favourite fruit). Hot coffee with a wee splash of milk. Delicious!

Breakfast swim plus a few chapters…bliss!

I love the promise that Monday brings – a fresh start! We aren’t worrying about what happened last week. We are looking ahead and looking FORWARD to a new week. What are we going to achieve? What are your goals this week? Mine is very simple: to preserve the status quo!

Mondays for me usually include a spot of cleaning: my Flylady Weekly Home Blessing (a short upkeep clean of the “high traffic” areas of the house). You can find my “cheat sheet” for the tasks here in this blogpost. Sometimes I spread it over the week doing a couple of tasks per day (changing the sheets most often at the weekend) and sometimes I do it all at once. There is no rhyme or reason to it – it depends on my mood/the season/our plans.

Skoosh skoosh of windows in the living room, this week’s zone

But I’ve learned over the years to make sure to get it done, even during vacation time. Because otherwise things at home tend to start sliding…usually backwards! LOL! And, besides, I enjoy living in a cosy and clean home! I have lots of YouTube videos where I explain the Weekly Home Blessing Hour and “clean with you”. Click here for those.

I usually always mop last. Then take a break with my feet up.

Sometimes I set my timer and do 5-10 minutes on each task, most often I put on my cordless headphones and work on each task for one or two songs. But today I listened to my audiobook while I whizzed around. Then, when I had ticked off my tasks, I “rewarded” myself with picking some of our garden hydrangea/hortensia (currently in full bloom) to put on our nicely polished coffee table in the living room. All done (and dusted), woo hoo!

Hope you’re having a marvelous Monday! Enjoy what the week ahead has to offer!

LLAP! May the Danish hygge be with you! Hugs!

Diane

Weekly Home Blessling Hour https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxIYCyTLBED9z6PKxuWBFoCbiq6jw_j-A

Weekly Home Blessing Hour – Monday 13 July 2020

July 13, 2020 dianedenmark

Good morning! Diane in Denmark here with a brief check-in…it’s Monday morning and I’m going through my Flylady weekly upkeep clean: a spruce up of the high traffic areas of my house. If you’d like more help with the Flylady system, see my Flylady Refresher Course videos (I shall also post them at the bottom of this post).

Sometimes I split the WHB over the week but it’s the summer holidays here and I quite like to do it all in one go – that way, I’m free to do whatever I want for the rest of the week… I’ve got my cleaning caddy/cheat sheet at the ready (you can find it on my blog here). I wipe off what I accomplished last week and choose a task at random. First off today is dusting. Remember we are only doing the high traffic areas, this is not a deep clean!

I usually listen to music while I clean (one or two songs per task) but set a timer for 10 minutes if you have a tendency to go overboard with your cleaning. If you want me to “clean with you” during the Weekly Home Blessing, see these videos

When I’ve finished giving the living room and hall a quick dust, I like to “reward” myself by removing the old flowers and cutting some fresh blooms from the garden. Right now our hydrangeas/hortensias and sweet peas are blooming.

Change sheets. I do this fortnightly. This week it’s our turn, next week the kids will change their bedding. If you have pets or eat in bed, you’ll probably want to change your bedding weekly. Off with the Zara Home duvet cover set and on with the blue flower IKEA set.

For “mirrors/windows”, I like to do that particular task in the current Flylady zone. This week is zone 3 (the bathroom plus one other room), so I’ve done the main bathroom, the guest bathroom on the main floor, plus the hall mirror. Skoosh, skoosh!

When vacuuming, I plug in the hoover in the hall and I can easily reach the kitchen, bathroom, hall and part of the living room.

The only thing I won’t do from the list today is recycling/rubbish. That will either be done tonight after we finished eating dinner/are doing kitchen clean-up. Or it will be done on Wednesday, the day before our rubbish is collected.

Last two things for today are mopping and papers. I mop the kitchen, hall, bathroom on the ground floor (using my “skoosh skoosh” mop). Then, while it dries, I put my feet up for 5-10 minutes and go through the papers/books in my pamper and library baskets. Done, woo hoo!