October is here, leaves are swirly, Fly with the Fledglings if your sink is surly

[MrsDinky]

Welcome to the October 2010 Fledgling Flying thread!

This is where from the 1st of the month, we attempt to declutter and follow the 30-step wisdom of the Fat Fairy, with lots of chat and support and mutual motivation along the way. (More info available here!

Many thanks to our September thread leader StillCounting for guiding us through the traumatic back to work and school period with lots of support and guidance!

As usual we will be following a three-pronged approach (and don't worry - we are all at different stages):

• 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.

Together we can do it! All newcomers welcome!

Quote from my earlier post: "Both kids at school today so I can catch up on some chores."

OK, my list looks almost exactly identical to the one I posted earlier, except that I did do the errands. That took me until 2.30, which meant I just had time to get home and eat some bread and butter before dashing off to school.

Am now revising my list. Bearing in mind MIL is coming tomorrow, I think my priority now is crisis cleaning.

Mini - I have started Christmas shopping too and one of today's errands was to buy Christmas wrapping paper. Like you, there is a good reason for it: I am visiting family this week and have to take Christmas presents with me as I may not see them again before Christmas. It is making me feel very organised though. I even bought the first few stocking fillers today! [smug emoticon]

I love the fact that you are buying a present for your unborn baby.

New list:

Crisis clean!

Elliepac - sympathy from me too. Seems so counterproductive to put teachers under such stress. I thought the kids did enough of that without the inspectors piling it on too!

I've felt quite low today as I still didn't manage to get DD back to school. She's been off for two weeks and now it's half term. At least the hospital now know what bug's causing her chest infection and have given her different antibiotics so I hope that will help. I've got a bad case of cabin fever and am feeling sorry for myself! We've been out for a bit and now I should get on with household stuff.

So, for this evening:
Fill DW
Make dinner
Hang laundry (should have done yesterday)
Unpack laundry from launderette
Tidy kitchen
Tidy living room.

Am feeling guilty. The only things I've done today have been the "fun" things on my list: go to soft play and have lunch with friend. Had to do an emergency BabyScout bath and it just seems to have shot the whole day to pieces.

Mini and Toffee -- I'm almost done my shopping, too. It's a fab feeling! Want to start wrapping but haven't gotten there yet. Will wrap my family's presents when we're in the States next month, otherwise the paper gets ripped or TSA opens the gifts and I have to redo it anyway.

Should do a couple more tasks but feeling very lazy today....

Hi all, scan today was lovely, baby obliging, everything looked good and afterward I bought myself some maternity jeans as am FED up of struggling with ordinary ones now.

Did manage a few jobs this morning so can put my feet up for a bit now.

Swish and Swipe done
Sink Shine done
Ironing all done [hgrin]
DW done
WM done
Beds done
Food shopping done

Now just gotta take DD to dance class and then stick a pizza in the oven... [hhmm]

Anything good on the telly tonight??

List update. it feels like a totally unproductive

Bank
school tour done
pick up blades attempted and failed and drop off music. done
Txt coach done
2 important phonecalls
Important paperwork
Heat packs to sort muscles.
Ds' bedding - he lied, [hhmm] dry and smells fresh
Dentist for check ups done
Sort out sound desentisation wrt rink done and swimming done
Put ds' name on swimming lesson waiting list done
Trip to trafford centre done but didnt find what was looking for [hhmm]

Didnt manage yesterday so seem to have made today errands day.

Good news wrt to scan sittinghippo

Right must rescue tea and fish spare chair and folder out of the loft for ds.

Congratulations Sittinghippo, so glad your scan went well x

good eveining

hippo so glad scan went well, love scans so lovely to see them.
scout i think those are the best kind of days when its all fun.
bat well done on your list. some days are unproductive whatever you try, i think you did well. PS i loved the dragon tale on facebook [hgrin] i cant wait for new harry potter film [hgrin]
just hope DD gets on really well on knew anti-bio. i totally agree with your comment about ofted by the way.
toffee hope you have a nice visit with mil
mm ah so cool buying your new little fella a present before he is here. How are you doing? when exactly are you due again?
swan what an odd statement for a heeadmaster to say! We know how to cheat the system?!? hope Gaelic football (whatever it is) went well today
ellie im so sorry its been such a trying time. I hope the result is better than the impression their niggly attitude gave you.
toffee what is in your halloween box, sounds fab. I want one!

been a funny old day, totally manic at work. managed to get most of what i had to do done today.
came home moped floors and did some washing. made dinner for friends who are in the neighbourhood but not heard from them all day. Do you tink i can heat it up tomorrow, even though the mince was ready prepared before and has now been defrosted and recooked?
dc now in bed dh at work and im ready for bed. (ignoring bedtime routine)

huge waves to anyone ive missed [hgrin]

Evening all ...Just Flying in and out. So sorry to have been absent for past couple of days: all fine but (as with many of you on here) the past week was rather an eventful one including: dd being tested for mononucleosis (sp?), a computer meltdown and an attempted but thankfully unsucessful burglary of our house at 2 am when dh was still travelling !! Reasonably on top of routines though (thank you MrsD!)

Getting rid of all of dd's old baby clothes and baby equipment at church sale tomorrow and am massively behind with prep. as I keep snivelling in to my tea as I hold up little dresses and shoes [wimp emoticon]!!!

Have sped read rest of thread and will try and catch up properly next week ....

A very warm welcome to Redhappy

Congrats on scan Sittinghippo!!!

Terrific news re your dh's med results Swan!!

Glad you are taking it easy Mini

PA (if you are back) hope you had a great trip!

Ellie Ofsted inspection sounds utterly exhausting, demoralising and unfair! Hope you manage to get some proper r&r this w/e.

Bob so very sorry to hear the news about your dp's best friend. That is so very sad and such a shock for everyone.

Waves to Pushmepullyou

Hope your ma is enjoying her visit Feetheart

Mahoosive waves to eveyrone else!

Have a good w/e one and all!

Not sure about the mince Nettie - I tend to stick with one re-heating only, partic. meat from frozen but am no expert ....hope your friends turned up ...

[SC connects extra-weight-bearing broom to super-charger] and shuffles off to bed ...

great name Warlock! And you must keep some of the little dresses - she will love looking at them when you are a granny (in 20 years of course!)

can't quite remember what was on my list (not a great paster)
doneanyway
s & s bathrooms
mopped bathroom floors
washed three loads
changed and remade beds
worktops
hoovered downstairs
bin, recycling
dw
dd's singing lesson
bacon sandwiches for tea
and lasagne for dh
summer uniform and short trousers extracted from drawers
tidied three bedrooms and sorted ds1's books and desk

our bedroom is still shrouded in mystery or shall I say I haven't even dared look up there (threw some laundry in and ran away) Manana

oh and I made some nice Kale soup too. Only veg left now is a swede, a pumpkin and some brussels sprouts [hconfused]

That was brave to get through an attempted burglary Did you call police? So glad that no-one got in. I remember my dad's burglar alarm went off and he was too frightened to confront burglars and pretended to himself that cat had set it off. Meanwhile they were so frightened by alarm that they dropped the loot and ran out of house.

Evening all,

Well, have survived the hell that is the KS1 school disco, I was there as a helper but wanted to keep an eye on my DCs after the goings on of the last couple of weeks. It was a spooky disco, and my two found it a bit scary TBH, with all the masks and stuff, prefer it when it's a "normal" one. I'm not a Hallowe'en fan at all myself either.

SC hello, about the burglar, glad it was unsuccessful. About 15 years ago I came home from work one day and found that someone had attempoted to break in, it was quite a shock. The worst thing however was that as soon as I arrrived all the neighbours appeared and trooped through the house to see the damage to the back door, the shame, the night before's washing up was still piled up, the living room was strewn with newspapers etc, it was so embarrassing. It did encourage me to be a bit more diligent with my washing up, so some good came of it!

DEfinitely keep a few of those little clothes, I have one or two of mine that my mum kept, and both my DCs like having some of their baby stuff to play with and look at still.

Sitting - that's lovely about the scan

Scout are you American? Whereabouts are you from?

Swan - if you can creat something tasty out of just those three veg you are a better cook than me. Maybe an early Christmas dinner?

I'm not going to do a full roundup tonight as it has already been done so well by SC and Nettie

Right, tomorrow's links in a minute. night night.

Saturday

Babystep Set your afternoon routine

Evening. I know another late one. Have just made some supper as was famished after training. Not training next week. Its a halloween foam party. Not my idea of fun so will try to catch up with a friend.

Just wanted to say hope everyone has a lovely weekend

The morning after the week before.....

Well, despite all the niggly despondency the outcome was good...the school got a good . So all is well! I am so glad we have half term this week.

Have a busy day today. It is mum's birthday today and we are going away tomorrow (me and the dc's are going to mum's caravan) for a couple of days. I was going to be all organised and clearly that has gone out of the window so need to sort myself out. So list looks like this:-

Tidy up
Washing up
Washing
Tesco to meet mum for Breakfast
Pay CM
General tidy/clean of whole house
Clean car out

I haven't had time to read thread as am only just starting to feel human again. Will try and catch up with you lovelyladies later today.

Have a good day everyone!
Pack suitcase

very late start today, but I have

done
changed our sheets
put new ones on
made dh take his clothes out of our room and hang them up downstairs (in the process finding several items he had lost
sorted out landing cupboard
sorted out our cupboard (a bit)
sorted laundry in our room
made dh take ds2 to football
made dh take ds1 and dd to park
arranged dd's sleepover tonight here (well phonecall not much else arranged)

I'm being unfair, dh has got up this morning and made kids breakfast, got dressed, entertained kids and I am still in pjs
head feeling a bit clearer after sorting,]
now tackling crumbs, yuk etc..

Ellie very relieved for you, but most importantly you know it's a good school. Envious of access to caravan.

Afternoon all.
This week all went to pot! Got a mild case of lurgy from the nursery children, symptoms of this were procrastination and lazyitis [hgrin] I'm furiously attempting to catch up today.

Ellie - I'm so glad that despite ofsteds nitpicking attention to detail. that you got your 'good'. Makes all the hard work worthwhile I'd imagine. Well done to you and your school.
We've been through a few inspection type thingies over the years and regardless of the attitude of the inspector (bad or good) I find it hard to be myself[hhmm].
We've recently had notification of an upcoming inspection from Estyn (the ofsted equivalent in Wales) Needles to say I'm crapping my pants [hgrin]

Right back to the grind for me otherwise I'll get sucked into the time vortex that is MN.
Will try to catch up later.

afternoon everyone

ellie thats so great that you got a brill result, well done. enjoy your weekend of r&r
here ooo im [henvy] of you living in wales, beautiful place.
Swan well done

i also had a late start, lovely lie in until 9.

have changed all bed sheets
been to kids end of season party at caravan park
thats about it for now. just having a sit down inbetween parties. The adult end of season of which i have no fancy dress outfit [hhmm] is tonight.

Both dc in bed even if not asleep. and friends due round in an hour. should be running around trying to tidy up but cba. dont know whether to cook dinner or not. Have text them but not heard back. reluctant to make some dinner in case they dont come round for dinner?? ahh its so confusing.

right im off to see if there is any chance of rustling up an oversided wild west outfit out of my wardrobe [hhmm]

Great news about the Ofsted result Ellie.

DD is finally on the mend and DH has taken her out for a large part of today so I'm feeling happier today. My DSs persuaded me to upgrade my phone. I've only ever had one and it truly is past its sell-by date, so I'm getting a Blackberry, which is amazing for me as I'm a bit of a technophobe.

To do:

• put away all laundry (should have done yesterday)

-return to phone shop with photo ID to collect blackberry -tidy bedroom

Done today:

Printed out Flylady's Christmas countdown list from Jaz's very helpful thread
Cottage pie cooked
Big crisis clean
Hoovering everywhere
Washing on
Three beds changed and remade
MIL welcomed. Lunch, etc.

DS2 needed lots of attention this morning, which meant that all the above took three times as long as it needed to. And he decided to get creative with boxes and sellotape just as I was trying to throw all the boxes out for recycling. But he did try to help me by mopping the kitchen floor (did a good job too).

Shortly off to a party and early bonfire night celebration. [hsmile]

Have a good Sunday all. Hope you all get lie ins.

Have spent too long on a thread about the bloody MMR this eve so I thought It was time for me to come home to you guys

Ellie pleased to hear that your result was good - it just sounds sooo horribly stressful.

just13 new phones, all shiny with their neat box and leaflets etc are lovely!

swan you have put me to shame as I haven't done much else today apart from take DDs to a halloween/birthday party and do a bit of shopping on the way back.

Toffee I had forgotten about the christmas thread - thank you, I will go there in a minute.

I haven't done anything laundry related for 3 days so guess what i'll be doing tomorrow.

Tonight:
Tidy kitchen
Put washing on

Tomorrow:
Morning routine of emptying dishwasher, breakfast - make and tidy up, feed animals
More loads of washing/ironing
Clean out chickens
DDs homework and reading
Sew name tags on the new school kit
Plan transport to Diwali celebration in neighbouring town (train/ drive??)
Make shopping list for christmas cake ingredients

I am going to have to devise two lots of morning / eve routines; one for the days I am at home, and one for the days I am at work. Hmmm.

Evening all. i have just been browsing the fat fairy's site and remember from last year that I meant but failed to look at these. Christmas missions As i am trying to be uber organised and failing miserably I thought i would try to get ahead. I am pleased to see that i have done the missions so far.

As for today have:
had a lie in
taken ds to buy a costume for fancy dress party
Got lost in City
15mins on lounge clutter
thought about christmas
started a new christmas tradition with ds. because we are starting to split the christmas up and to finally set some of our own christmas traditions not being stuck with those of the ex's family's. Ds and I are making our own up. it will be nice
Considered wrapping presents bought. Considered but decided to mn instead.

But am planning on an early night so will say sleep tight and have a good day tomo.

No cleaning/tidying done today except for sorting out BabyScout's breakfast dishes. But had a lovely family day with MrScout and BabyScout. Went to see Nan-in-Law to celebrate her 94th birthday. PiL and one of my SiL there as well. Was lovely day. Came home, put BabyScout to bed. Oh, I did put a load of BabyScout laundry on after he went to bed, so I guess I have done SOMETHING today.

Yes, MrsD, I am American. From Philadelphia and my parents and siblings are still there. MrScout is English, so living here now.

Watching lots of guilty-pleasure tv with MrScout tonight.

Sunday Babystep

Thanks MrsD!

Right today was going to be take child training but he doesnt want to go so am going to tackle a list instead:

Laundry
Bedding
hover and clean ds' room
Print things out (letter/ds' charts/christmas control journal)
take child for walk / ride on bike/scooter
Garden:
clean out veg that has died
Empty water containers
Put away empty tubs
Plant bulbs
Sweep up leaves
if energy and time
Bed room - 15mins
Finish crafting secret santa pressie
Name new coat, gloves, bag etc Attach gloves to coat.
mend book x2

But neeed to hit ground running and it is more of a sluggish shuffle so going for coffee. Ds is about to be rewarded for not only letting me have a lie in but being on his best behaviour at the same time [hshock][hgrin]