August's 1st Anniversary Fledgling Flyers: It's our party and we'll fly if we want to.

[elliepac]

Welcome to the August edition of the Fledgling Flyers where we are going to attempt to restore order in our houses, chatting as we go.

This month is officially our first birthday so we are celebrating sink shining and swishing and swiping in style!

Here you can do any of the following:

• repeat or start baby steps (again!)

• repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

or

• reinforce babysteps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering

For those who are curious, these are the Babysteps which we all hope will restore order in our homes and make our lives a little bit easier with lots of support (and chat, and wine, and a little more chat )

So please come and join us for our birthday party, old and new, from August 1st.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the party! I will lead this month and pa is kindly going to stand in for me when I am on my jollies.

Being as tomorrow is our first birthday, I decree we shall have a party . I am going to plan it now. All ideas gratefully received!

See you tomorrow!

Oooh lovely shiny and new thread! AND I'm first on it

Happy birthday to us. Will there be cake?

oh can we have cocktail sausages and cheese & pineapple on sticks please?

DWM - definetly cake. cant have a birthday party without cake.

Pins list with good intentions on the wall.

Has shined sink in preparation of august birthday bash

sausage rolls and egg Mayo sandwiches please and vodka melon balls

Marking my place for the cake and anything else going new month of getting my house sorted!

If you had sat in my house a year ago, you would not recognise it is the same place. - well, you wouldnt have been able to sit, for a start!

A year on and it is not perfect, but I'm not perfect, but its alot better and far more manageable.

I havent done much flying today as I have been too busy making a huge rabbit run!! These rabbits are going to have a palace and grounds fit for a queen!! We should be picking them up on Tuesday, after nearly 2 months of waiting!

I'll supply a constant chocolate cake for the month. Always cooking here, so no trouble.

Want to thank you all for making the housework appear not so bad!! You are all a lovely bunch and all deserve to share the champagne that I am actually drinking tonight. - No joke, we are celebrating DH's last day at work!! Nothing to go to, but not concerned at the moment. So come and dip into champagne and chocolate cake.

I'm in....

Teamcullen discovers laptop under the washing moutain that has been femmenting since Easter and chases the dust bunnies over to PAs nuw rabbit run.

If I supply the wine and curled up egg butties, can I come to the party please.

Ive shinned my sink in preparation

Happy Birthday
All you teachers, please dont mark my spellings!
nuw new

Have got back from a lovely two days in London just in time for the party! Lots of wine and cake in order, I feel.

Just marking my place for the moment as I won't be able to get much flying done until I'm back home in about a fortnight. Having said that, there's plenty more decluttering to be done in our bedrooms here at my parents' and I'll try to do as many of the babysteps as I can in order to get the month off to a flying start.

teamcullen welcome anyone with a penchant for the cullens and carrying a tray of egg Mayo can be my pal.

(ps beware the proofreaders too )

Hello TC - welcome back.

marking my place
linzer - how much shopping did you do?

see you on tuesday!

Good morning everyone and a special welcome back to teamcullen.

Today is our birthday and pa and sc's anniversary. In honour of such a momentous occasion today we are going to shine our sinks. A very appropriate babystep for today I feel!

My own personal day looks like this :-

WM on
DW on
Tidy downstairs
Tidy upstairs
S/S bathroom
Cook SUnday roast
Go to cinema to see Toy Story 3 (again)
Prepare birthday tea!

Not sure how much I will get done because I can feel cba creeping up on me!

Back later.

Morning! Thanks for the breakfast ellie - bucks fizz going down a treat.

Already got a line of washing out & not sure what DS and I are going to get up to today. DH is at work so wherever we go will have to be on foot/train/bus. He fancies a train ride to the toy shop - having bought him a game for the DS on Friday, that won't be happening!

In an ideal world my list will look like:
ironing
another load (or 2) in WM
empty DW
cook chicken and freeze half
finish house blessing - dusting, wipe down doors & light switches, throw papers away, empty bins all left to do. DH did vacuumming on Friday and I changed the beds yesterday
s&s
shine sink

Back later for some cake

Morning everyone happy birthday

ellie enjoy toy story I loved it
nick hiya

Today list

get up
strip beds
remake beds
wm/dw
shine sink
s /s
visit in laws
make lamb chops a la jamie Oliver
put up tent in bag garden so can practise and to practise folding it again.

I think that's it. Should take dc somewhere but not sure where!

Have lovely Sunday

"Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary" or whatever it is.

Hopefully SC will put in an appearance for the celebration, if she is within 10 miles of a computer and without a million visitors!!

Welcome back DWM and Teamcullen

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. I believe Dh and I are starting on a new chapter today. For the first time in 22 years, he has no job. He is going to be around the place, doing housework and generally being a pain "help". I know I should be grateful, but I am such a control freak, I hate the thought of him doing what i know I should have done. (IYSWIM) And his OCD tendencies mean that he doesnt just wipe the kitchen top and think its done, he will remove everything from the kitchen, clean to within an inch of it life and replace where HE thinks it should go. I think this could be a real test of our marital harmony!! I hope he gets a job VERY soon!!!!

I ache all over this morning from rabbit run building. Job for this afternoon - rabbit run finishing!!
My sink is already super shiny, in celbration of a year of shininess.

Off to tame my birds nest with some serious hair straightening needed today.

Have a good day everyone.

Am rather fragile today, after a night out to celebrate a neighbour's birthday yesterday, but I think a glass of buck's fizz might pep me up. Happy birthday to this thread! DH says he has noticed a real difference since I started 'flying'. This thread keeps me motivated and entertained, so thank you to all of you.

PA - Good luck with your new chapter. My DH was out of work for a year and he said that it was one of the happiest years of his life. He was able to do all the things he doesn't usually have time to do and he was able to help me with childcare and picking up from school, which was a bonus for me and the children.

Teamcullen - I promise to switch off my inner proofreading tendencies when I read your entries. Welcome to the party!

Ellie - thank you for all your work on this thread.

Must go and be sociable with MIL downstairs. Am really feeling far too tired and fragile to be sociable. Here goes....

Good morning all. Thanks for breakfast Ellie, those croissants were lovely with a bit of nutella.

Thankyou for all the welcome back messages everybody. My mission is to try and complete a whole month of babysteps, maybe not the really stupid ones and maybe not the dressed to shoes at 7am but i will try.

Plan for today

washing on
brush and mop all floors (except my bedroom because you cant see it)
bathroom swish and swipe
tidy garden (if the rain stays off)
general tidy as I go

DH has gone fishing for the day so I can get on without him in the way. Just need the DCs to behave now

Well, starting today with the washing mountain from our camping trip. I posted on July thread yesterday that we had a lovely week on the Isle of Wight camping (waves at PA), but came home with a large and very wet tent, about 10 loads of washing, mountains of other stuff to put away, and found that the boiler had packed up, and tripped out the electricity, hence defrosting the freezer and leaving us with no hot water. So spent last night cooking what was salvageable from the freezer, luckily it was still all cold so we didn't come back to rotten gone off stuff. Was very sad flushing 3 lots of home made ice cream plus lots of stocks, sauces, gravies etc down the sink though .

So today is going to be catching up day, tomorrow will have to get the boiler man in and hope he can fix it, it is old but so far has been very good, really don't want to change to one of the modern ones not to mention the cost .

Will catch up with you all gradually.

Happy Birthday to one and all
Puts brioche and plum compote on table for celebratory brunch and grabs Bucks Fizz whilst there is some left.

I have been here since January and inspite of real life getting in the way at times (how very dare it!) Flying has made a big difference - I have developed routines that suit me and if I follow them I know the house can be tamed.

We went slightly mad yesterday and came home with 25lbs of wild plums
So far we have made compote for breakfast this morning (and many other mornings), I have a HUGE vat of jam on the go and plans for Delia's Spicy Plum Chutney and Plum Ketchup and Nigella's Plum cake. Need a trip to Bookers tomorrow for industrial quantities of sugar and vinegar

Will try and finish morning routine, do monthly invoicing, do more things with plums then we are off to the Mela - big Asian festival. Have never made it before as we are usually away at this time of year. Am looking forward to lots of good food, fantastic colours and some decent music.

Hope everyone has a happy birthday, here's to the next 12 months

Afternoon!

Lovely bunting Nick, it looks lovely and sparkly in here.

Ellie- enjoy toy story again. Ds would like to see the new cats and dogs film. he has never been to the cinema. SO it could be interesting.

MrsD glad to hear you have a lovely trip about the boiler, car etc conspiracy you came home to.

teamcullen I know what you mean. My aim this month is to get past the early night babystep. I seem to have fallen off the babysteps before or by that one. WOuld be nice to have a whole month of sucess.

toffee you feeling less fragile now?

PA good luck with having a helpful dh around your feet.

Waves at nettie, DWM and everyone else who is lurking.

bother. was feeling so chuffed to have actually got my braing to remember what i wanted to post i forgot my list

Shine sink
DW 1 load on one to go
Cook giant vat of risto using up the mushrooms that need eating and to save cooking tomo done
Washing 1 load on mutter to go
teach ds how to play othello.
hear ds in reading another book for the library summer reading challenge.
Water potatoe done

Waves at linzer and feetheart

Just passing by, forgot to wish the thread Happy Birthday so caught up was I with all my unpacking and boiler problems. Well, the tent is dry and away, the 5th load of washing is in the machine, the boiler seems to have recovered, though I'm still going to phone the repair man tomorrow, it's due a service soon anyway.

Have to say both the packing and unpacking for this holiday have been made much easier since Flying, as by and large everything has a home now, instead of just being randomly shoved in attic/shed/understairs so we know where to find it in the first place to pack, and can put it all away again now for next time.

Well done to Ellie for going to Toy Story again, we went on Friday for DH's birthday, he enjoyed it, no one else did, DD though it was scary, DS just thought it was boring and so did I, in fact I fell asleep half way through. Luckily we went to the cheap cinema in Ryde, not the expensive multiplex.

A&D - thank you for reminding me, need to get the DCs off to the library and signed up ffor the reading thing.

Where has the day gone? DS and I ended up in the park playing tennis (he's practising for tennis club in a couple of weeks).
Have got some of my list done though and I think I can get most of the rest done

ironing
another load (or 2) in WM done and on the washing line
empty DW done
cook chicken and freeze half
finish house blessing - dusting, wipe down doors & light switches, throw papers away, empty bins all left to do. DH did vacuumming on Friday and I changed the beds yesterday done bins & papers
s&s
shine sink

Must think about tea - that chicken should be defrosted by now - back later