Part 2 - If you're house is cluttered and you're Mad as a Hare, join March Fledgling Flyers and get it all square

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

This is the second March Fledgling Flyers thread, all newcomers are welcome.

This is the thread that follows the Flylady website (loosely) for getting your home decluttered and your housework into routines, whilst dispensing tea and chat freely.

We have a fairly relaxed attitude to Flying and take some of the babysteps - such as getting dressed to lace-up shoes - with a pinch of salt. We also strongly advise against signing up for the FlyLady emails.

We will be following Flylady's tips on restoring order to our homes, using one of the following methods:

1. Babysteps
2. Babysteps + 15 mins daily decluttering
3. Babysteps + daily missions

Following the babysteps helps to establish daily routines and build a weekly plan.

If you are overwhelmed by the mess in your home, start with just one thing: shine your sink. It's amazing what you can achieve by just doing a bit at a time!

I'm also on a never-ending economy drive - but everytime I think I'm winning the price of petrol seems to go up and the bank balance is back where I started.

I've changed elec supplier, we always get comparisons on vehicle insurance, have cancelled our RAC so we use the cover now attached to our vehicle insurance, have cancelled various memberships - RSPB, VJMC etc etc.

I do need to look at our home insurance, and our various death and illness covers.

I try to menu plan and buy groceries carefully. I've switched my big shop every two or three weeks to online (as the delivery charge is less than the fuel to go to the town).

Unfortunately DS keeps growing and I always seem to need new trousers, socks, shoes etc.

I will be hunting through MN for help and tips as well.

Dh has just rung to say he is having lunch OUT with the two kids. Ah well, he is not going to change, as long as he has cash in his pocket....

I've shone sink, made lunch (half) will reheat for supper. Now need to take ds out. Tip, turf. Can I face it?

A tip from one of my friends is that apparently Oxfam is good for school uniform because they have that system where you get a £5 voucher for brining in M&S clothes. Which is good in itself if you have M&S clothes to get rid of.

I use cashback websites for pretty well everything I buy online, it all adds up. Even stuff you can buy on the high street, for example order stuff from Boots / M&S / Waterstones for high street pick up in your local store, get cashback on it. I also managed to haggle £50 off my car insurance this year even though I couldn't get a lower quote anywhere else.

good afternoon

had a lovely day so far

made pancakes for breakfast
homemade carrot and coriander soup for lunch
trip to new playpark with dc (stared longlingly at the school i desperately want ds to go to in september)
bike ride with dc
bubble fun with tennis rackets in the garden
cleaned kitchen cooker with new e-cloth (my first one)
dw on
td on
bed made
s/s done

still to do
home bless
hotspotting
tidying dc rooms again
hoovering
mopping.

ach well ive had a nice day and done something with dc so anything else i manage is a bonus.

whoknows glad you managed some cinema time with dh. have started using quidco for a few purchases but im not organised enough just yet to keep track of them and hate trailing around trying to find codes.
ellie hope ds parade went well.
scatty enjoy your walk
sc yes i can see where you are coming from dh is boss aat work too but i would gladly relinquish control of the cooking. never in a month of sundays, think last time dh cooked me a dinner was 1996.
pa scampi can only be eaten with a jacket potato and peas, definately no tartar sauce. eewwwwyyuuukk.
toffee have a lovely dinner out with dh. can you send your mum round here after please. she sound fab. she could be the flymum for flyersunderpressure
lady my clock automatically updated but we had no time issues today anyway. hope dd wasn't too disappointed
swan gosh lovely for your mum, cant she sneak you in to her suitcase? lol at dh eating out anyway. mine is exactly the same.
cobwebs sounds like you are doing all the right things on economy drive. i find on-line shopping makes a big difference as i am not to be trusted in a supermarket. we also get the milk delivered an extravagance but saves money as don't have trips for milk which turn into even more stuff didn't really need.
lost hope you are having a fantabulously fun weekend with friends
linzer im afraid im one for avoiding eggs at easter and we have a reciprocal money exchange between my db/ds's where we can use it for a day trip or whatever people want. We manage to go to the lamb feeding at one of the local farm parks instead of having hundreds of eggs.

Ahh thats better i feel like ive caught up. fingers crossed i haven't missed anyone

Im going to get moving and try and tackle upstairs again.

enjoy rest of your sundays

Excellent money saving tips! I have taken note.

Had a lovely walk through the park etc. Made unschduled stop at cafe as we were out much longer than planned (and didn't bring anything with us) . This economising takes a bit of planning I see (not my strong point).

Tea up so BBL.

Evening all! Had a lovely day today and am officially moving out of the naughty corner just for today as have actually done something!

Done:-
washing x lots
Tidied and cleaned downstairs
Cleaned bathroom
Tidied all bedrooms
Prepped, cooked, eaten and cleared away roast chicken and chocolate pudding for 9 people.
Had lovely time with bf's
Clothes ironed and laid out for morning
Bags packed

And that will do for today! I must say the lighter nights do help with getting stuff done, less inclined to retire to sofa! Lots of good money saving tips here that i shall be taking note of.

Better go as i still have my homework to do!

Evening all,

Well, I shifted Mount Washmore, 4 lots done, dried and put away, including changing the DCs bedclothes. Didn't get a lot else done, however managed Sainsburys shop and went for a run. The sun came out by later morning, so all was nice.

Ellie - the powers that be just don't seem to get that you need to hold onto your childcare for when you get another job do they? I had a row with the tax credits office about this when I was made redundant, I wanted to keep my options open jobwise so I didn't want to take DD out of nursery (it had long waiting lists) but no, my TCs stopped the minute I wasn't working. In the end I kept her in till the end of that term as the nurseyr grant thing helped and then decided to bite the bullet and stay at home till she started school, but that's not the point really. Anyway, glad you had a lovely day today and are more on top of things again.

Scatty - your walk sounds lovely. Agree that you've got to plan aheda to economise, the amount of times we've taken the DCs out and forgotten water bottles and had to buy v.expensive ones, very annoying.

Nettie - another nice day, pancakes for breakfast, yum!

Swan - oh dear, what is your mum like? Mine have an uncanny knack of booking their holidays for the school hols too, just when the DCs would like to spend more time with them.

LadyisPink - oops, well, I remembered the clocks this time, but I do remember turning up at Tesco one Sunday morning when the clocks had gone back and wondering where everybody was!

SC - some good economy tips there. Your cleaning materials reminds me of a thread I read a long time ago on here, the title was something like "What things do you keep secret from your DH" - all sorts of secrets from people's pasts, and then one poster said "DH is a bit of an eco-warrior and thinks I use bicarb and lemon juice to clean the house but I've got a secret stash of Cillit Bang!" Made me laugh. Do you get Cillit Bang in Belgium?

Cobwebs - hope DS has fully recovered from bumped head.

Toffee - hope you made the most of your mum's last day staying with you.

Waves e-cloth at everybody else. Back in a minute with some links.

Monday

Babystep Eat, drink and rest!

Mission

Sneak Peek for the Week

This week's zone is The Living Room.

It's nearly the end of the month! Would anyone care to take over? Also, we will need a new thread title again.

I would like to step into the throws. Although slightly nervous of link posting. But would love to give it a try if noone minds

Suggested thread titles for whoever takes over.

April fledgling flyers: April Fools we are not, babysteps and decluttering makes us lot hot!

April Fledgling Flyers: Our thread support is vast and mighty
To make sure we get it all righty. (think this was part if someone's suggestions earlier on this thread)

Go nettie the thread title queen strikes again . i think you will make a fabulous leader. Will quite happily be back-up.

Ellie you made me nervous re: church parade, as dd has Brownies parade on Mother's Day and I was wondering if today was Mother's Day so out of loop

Ds2 woke us at 6.30 (it was 4.30 yest[GRR] and dh was just about to tell him off when he remembered about clocks, and said oh it's 7.30, that's alright then...

Well you have to spend money to save money in my humble opinion...
due to dh spending a pleasant hour or two in pizzeria and no washing up to do, I was able to steel myself to go to the tip, and the garden centre.

done
bought 5 sacks of assorted composts £20
I sack of manure £5
I sack of plum coloured gravel £5
I enormous terracotta pot £20
economized on turf by buying shady grass seed for the worn patches (£6.98)
economized on bedding plants by buying flower seeds (all of £5)
twins also received loads of birthday seeds from friends

So £wise, I hope that's garden sorted for another year

Also on my return I found dh cutting the hedge! 2 months earlier than he normally does. The power of pizza!

alsodone
church and altar serving x 2
two tantrums before we made it there, and ds forgot to ring the bell, but very proud of them! and bonus of bumping into some nice friends...

nettie did you get your school admission result yet?

Nettie - thank you for volunteering. Why don't you practise a few links while we're still on this thread?

Thank you for volunteering to look after us next month nettie.

Am definetly in the naughty corner this weekend but it has been lots of fun and seen lots of friends, done lots of things and slept not enough because have been enjoying myself too much. Expect to be in the naughty corner tomo as am going to have to spend the day recovering. But definetly worth it

Hope you are all sleeping well and have had good weekends. Good flying weeks to you all.

Just finished painting wooden heart photo holders for party on Friday. One not very successful, so will need to sand down and repaint tomorrow.

Off to bed now (when I've finished cleaning up the table, and put the cakes away)

We had a cake crisis this afternoon - DS wanted to take fairy cake with blue icing and a cherry for his lunchbox tomorrow. Unfortunately I had no blue food colouring left, so I negotiated traffic light ones instead.

Did a good bit of decluttering this morning - DM's moped has gone to a new home via freecycle.

Morning ladies,

Feeling decidedly jaded this morning. Most unlike me as I am a morning person, but I am sure my brain will wake up after a .

Bit of a weird week this week and incredibly busy, so I might not be around until the April thread.

Monday - All day work, do print run off 600 booklets - waitrose shopping tonight
Tuesday - Work all day - fold print run, finance meeting for church in the evening (bunfight expected )
Wednesday - Hospital appointment with DD4 on the mainland (just have to do some sopping while I am there!)
Thursday - DD1 is travelling down, governors meeting, church meeting in evening.
Friday - work, then rest of day with DD1
Saturday - booked on a ladies retreat day - cant wait!!!

Not a lot of time for any extra flying other than to aim to get to the end of the week without the house falling into CHAOS.

I have just realised that the cat snuggled up next to me is not actually one of mine what a cheek!!!!

MAssive waves to everyone, hope you will excuse my popping in and out and not saying a lot of any use (whats new there then? )

Morning all .

LOL at inposter cat PA good luck with your busy week ahead.

Today:
try to get dc to school (very sleepy due to clock change).
laundry
house bless
make appt GP re headaches

BBL

Morning all!

Bit of a disaster! Having remembered the time change perfectly well this w/e, we managed to oversleep by an hour this morning! We had stupidly changed/checked every clock in the house except on second floor where we sleep!! Cue mass panic and headless chicken impressions!! Dh late for meeting, me late for taking car in for service, dd late for school swimming. NOT a good start to the week.

lol at secret Cillit Bang stash Whoknows

Thank you for volunteering for April thread Nettie!! Very kind of you. If some other kind soul doesn't mind doing May, I hereby put myself forward for June.

Sound like you had a great weekend Lost

lol at trespassing cat PA ...have a good week and enjoy the shopping!!

Crikey ihate you were up late!! Good luck with party preparations.

Congrats on your productive sunday Ellie. Have a good week.

Swan your garden is shaping up nicely!

Waves to Scatty and eveyrone else ...

I will be travelling for work again this week so have just two days to make inroads in to home office...2 or 3 hrs after work today and 6 tomorrow ...

Tally-ho!!

Good morning everyone

just lost my last post

oooo im a little nervous now ive out me hand in for april thread. i'll have to post on my laptop more often and it doesn't auto correct my bad typing skills heres a link practise

www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Breaks.asp

Its my lie in so i am in bed talking to you

dh day off but i forgot and have booked to go swimming with some mummy friends. in my defence he doesn't always manage to have day off.

todays list
s/s
dw
wm
td
get dc dressed as dh has dumped dc in front of tv and is sitting asleep on sofa
make bed
try and stay tidy
deal with hotspot in the kitchen (been trying for two weeks)

swan good planning on garden sounds very organised. i still have vegetable seeds from before ds now 4 was born Dont hear about primary school submissions until 4th april. i feel like imwaiting on exam results
pa hope you have a good week and see you in April if not before. grr at strange cat. my own cat is bad enough (has scratched upnew carpet and peed on it!)
whoknows in awe of your running efforts. have couch to 5 on phone and tried a couple of times on treadmill but thats all.
lost glad you had a lovely weekend, sounds fab, totally deserve your spot back to chill in the naughty corner.
cobwebs painting and cake making hope ds is ok with his traffic light one. dc been nagging me for weeks to make cakes

right better get up and get everyone moving or noone is doing anything today.

Have lovely Mondays [coffee]

link posting worked but not very pretty

www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Breaks.asp

how do i get it a bit nicer looking

scatty have good day
sc ow at oversleeping. hope day gets better, good luck with work trip.

Nettie - have a look at the bottom of the screen next to where all the smileys are, there's a bit there showing how to do the links.

PA - LOL at cat!

SC - I was just shutting my eyes last night when I remembered I hadn't changed my alarm clock. I also lost the DCs reading books this morning, having filled in their reading diaries downstairs last night, I normally put them straight back in their book bags, picked up book bags this morning and they felt very light, couldn't find reading books anywhere so we had to go withou them. Halfway to school I remembered that I had cleared up a lot of paper from the lounge last night and sure enough got back from school and found them in the recycling bin.

This morning I am going to find myself an ISA with more than a smidgeon of interest paying on it. Back later.

SC we didn't oversleep, but we were all sleepy and extremely disorganised this morning. No ties to be found, dcs suddenly demanding props for Easter production, ds2 being total refusenik about putting his socks and "where are my shoes?" "where you left them" [draws veil over catastrophic swan household] Throw in an obsession with new lego model, a zhu zhu pet that someone had stepped on, and dh suddenly announcing he hates his job, and worst of all no tights for me! Runs upstairs and changes into jeans after all...

Deep breath. I need to organise things on Sunday night.
I thought I had, but I think it needs to be OCD organisation for Mondays, and no lovely little supper drinking wine with dh!

Thankyou for the thread Nettie and admiration for linking.
dh takes days off too when I'm not quite expecting it..
Who when I worked in library at school (it is closed atm due to buildign work) I always used to think that at least the children who didn't bring their books back in had taken them out of the bag and read them(which was not true of all the children, sadly)

PA we've lost our cat (we have two) he's very affectionate, and hope that he's snuggling up to someone like you. He's marmalade btw. Tried everything to find him but I just hope he's found a new home if he's lost.