If your house is calling May Day, do not fear: May's Fledgling Flyers are here

[LinzerTorte]

Welcome to the May edition of the Fledgling Flyers' thread. Thank you to Nettie for her splendid leadership of last month's thread.

If you're living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome), this is the thread for you! We follow the tips on the FlyLady website in an attempt to restore order to our homes, but advise against signing up for the e-mails; all the information you need is on this thread.

Each day, I'll be posting the links that will enable you to do any of the following:

• start or repeat baby steps

• repeat babysteps and do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

or

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

More information about the babysteps is here.

So please join us - there's always plenty of chat, tea, cake, encouragement and the occasional to help us on our way!

Morning all .

Today;
school/work
house bleugh
laundry
unload/reload dw

Have a good day. BBL

Morning everyone

I am hoping for great things from myself today, but will most likely need to rein in my over enthusiasm a bit!

Mop kitchen floor
Strim lawn
weed at least 1 border (8 total)
washing x2
go to tip
buy new cat bed
buy eggs
go to room rescue our room
room rescue DD's room
go to B & Q
Dishwasher
Make tea

...now if only I could get this baby to go to sleep....

Well, I survived my first C25k run (although I need to find better headphones by Wednesday, as they kept falling out), have been to the doctor's and have been told to take it easy for the rest of the day (not because I'd overdone the running, I hasten to add!) - so I'm about to take my book and coffee out into the garden.

I've just checked today's mission and for some reason it's gone back to last Monday's mission. However, as DWM has already said, today's mission is to scrub the stove top and you can find it on the sneak peek.

Morning ladies

Another gorgeous sunny day here. So far i have: done

School run
Phoned GP re DD hayfever
Made an optician oppoint for me (long overdue)
Made and drunk 1st cup of coffee (most important)
Done some office work

Still to do:

Coffee morning with NCT group
Put ironing away
FLYlady mission
Cook a cottage pie for dinner
Take DD to Drama and remember her props
Routine cleaning and tidying

See you later

Morning all, just lost post () so will make this quick.
DS sick all yesterday so very little sleep for him or me for past 2 nights - at least toast is now staying down, not even water was staying put yesterday :(
All plans changed for early part of w/e as DS will be here so :

• Ring cooker people as bottom oven blew-up last night (3rd time in 4 years ) - done
• Morning routine
• Mission - done without realising it so will clear part of worktop and oil it instead
• Some work whilst DS watches Toy Story later
• Make soup with floppy veg and mint choc chip ice-cream
• Play games etc with DS
• Ironing - finish (did HUGE amount last night, seems to have bred overnight )

Sorry for lack of personals, they disappeared with vanished post :(

Hope everyone has a productive day :) (too many :( and in this post!)

early part of week

A few messages whilst I can remember
LadyinPink that was indeed a lovely birthday weekend, you've reminded me tocount my blessings too
Scatty parenting out of the box, great thought
Linzer I've now watched Stopover in Vienna three times, I feel obsessed by it (InterRailing, being a student, all that lark), and am trying to imagine you living in such a beautiful city, yet living what appears to be a "normal" existence - I think it probably means I live in a beautiful city too, but just haven't paid proper attention...)
Ellie glad someone else was ranting.
Marriage is a curious thing. My brother does sod all to help SIL and baby, but I notice she has her revenge by refusing to cook supper buy groceries or drive. I refuse to get up in the morning because dh refuses to throw away brown furniture. It all seems to be a subtle game of bluff and counter bluff.
Anyway my cousins came to lunch yesterday, with three kids, and I notice how they just help each other all the time, no bickering, no tactics. Very lovely.
And her 9 year old can play Grade 4 piano !

done
lunch went well yesterday, my brother, my cousin, and various children, lots of delicious food, family chat, children all played nicely although ds2 had a mini-tantrum, but then recovered and was found reading visiting six year old, book on Formula 1 House was a mess though before they even arrived...DH kept hissing at me "don't apologise, don't apologise" but still I felt I had to

mopped kitchen floor, and did washing up
that took the whole of Sunday really
and we managed to go to Mass too at 6pm, as children were Altar serving, which they very much enjoy.

SATS today, hope you are taking them with a pinch of salt, Toffee.

Whoknows cousin lives in a much smaller house than us, with three kids (same as us) and all her children share a room.
Yet her house is immaculate, not in a bad way, just tidy and uncluttered. She said they have nothing in their bedroom except beds and a clothes cupboard, so it is easy to tidy, and all three kids make their beds every morning, even the three year old. She still has room for loads of books and a piano; and her children are lovely, I feel like I learn a lot a lessons from her.

swan Your cousin sounds inspiring; I wonder if she would come over here and give me some advice.

As for Vienna, parts of the city are very impressive - but on the whole, I find it more built-up and less green than London. There seem to be so many huge and ugly apartment buildings in Vienna, far fewer parks and no nice little mews houses hidden away (although maybe I'm just viewing London through rose-tinted specs). It does have very nice coffee houses, though, and tis much quieter and greener and generally lovely (albeit no decent shops) where we live, about 30 minutes out of the city.

Swan - sounds like my neighbours, they have 3 DCs, older than ours and their house is spotless. The DH is obsessive about it though. Unlike mine! We just don't have the storage space to not have toys in the bedrooms. I feel that if we were moving into this house now with all the DCS and their stuff we would have furnished the entire place differently, but can't afford that now so have to make the best with what we've got which clearly isn't optimal for toy storage, most of ours are kept in the bedrooms. We have arranged things now so that both DCs sleep in DD's room in the bunkbeds and apart from that she just has a little desk and some shelves, so there is a big floor area to play in. DS's room has both wardrobes in plus his desk, his other bed, which is now the spare and some storage, so very little floor space, but he never played in his as much as DD does in hers, and we can all fit on her floor to play a boardgame in DD's room together before bed. It is also good having the clothes storage in a different room because I can go in there in the evening and put clean stuff away instead of leaving it just inside their doors to getmuddledupwiththedirtystuff put away the next morning.

I do want to watch Before Sunrise now, though. Perhaps it will be our Austrian version of Sliding Doors (when we saw it at the cinema, DH said - quite loudly but thankfully in German - "That's where we live!" upon seeing our street and then John Hannah coming out of the restaurant below our flat).

WhoKnows The answer is to get rid of all the toys. (I am very tempted sometimes - the DC can learn to use their imagination more by playing with wooden spoons and old socks, and I shall send them out into the garden whatever the weather.)

done lots

does not look like it ...

and baked a quiche

again

any one know where dh has hidden the charger for the mini vacum cleaner

Whoknows the thing about my cousin and her dh is that they are not obsessively smart at all, and don't worry about marks or mess, just somewhere along the way they stopped acquiring possessions...I think they started in a very small flat with two dcs and then only moved house when they had a third baby. They both work parttime.

Linzer well I think the soundtrack to Stopover definitely helped all indie record and classical

I cricked my neck this morning when I was yawning
done
very basic housebless
but have stalled now after throwing various socks into various bedrooms
piano practice
dw
breakfast
recycling
what's for dinner, fried potatoes, baked chicken, veg, salad

todo
make up our bed again wth summer weight blankets
make up ds1's bed
make up dd's bed
put away all clothes in drawers

hoover playroom again (centre only)
hoover whole house

Oh, I feel so sleepy already,and busy afternoon after pickup: singing, ballet, Cubs x 2, homework
coffee does not seem to be helping

Cinders - in a box in the cupboard under the stairs hidden behind the old bread machine. If my house is anything to go by.

Note to self: must put bread machine on Freecycle.

Swan - that is the problem isn't it? For me half the fun of decluttering is the "oh good, now there's room for me to buy a such and such" moment.

Have played games, fallen asleep on sofa with DS and had lunch. Not sure any of that counts as Flying.

DS now watching Walking with Dinosaurs and I need to work.

I have looked under the stairs

which dh has turned into a workroom ....

he is not a midget ...

okay the hunt goes on

oohhhh a sleep on the sofa

ds is blasting music out.....

done
hoovered stairs, landing
3 x bedrooms
taken dd to singing and both twins to ballet afterwards

Ds1 said the SATs were about Caves Toffee but he seemed more interested in his Dragon's Den (as in money making idea, not dragons) sheet for the Fete in July. He is not in the least bit stressed and is clearly revelling in having no homework, and being told to take things easy by his teachers. This morning he waved a piece of paper about SATs at us, saying he needed a good breakfast. Dh obligingly produced a strawberry tart

My cricked neck is making me feel totally knackered and useless, in the vague hope that it might be flu, not a crick, I have taken some Lemsip.
Now to send ds1 to football,
force ds2 to Cubs and give him supper first
squeeze in dd's spellings somewhere, and ds2's spellings oh dear where?

luckily I've decided Scouts is too late for SATs boy, so don't have to go to the Scout hut three times this evening...

Right, need to list what I have done, got a bit slack lately.

Morning routine including scrub cooker top - done
Get hair cut, errands in town, buy stuff in charity shop (oops!) - done
Thorough sweep / hoover kitchen floor and put down ant stuff as they were getting in - done
School gardening club - done, we are harvesting our first crops of salad leave and radishes already - done
Investigate what sort of car we want to replace DH's with - done, VW Touran top of the list at the moment, anyone got one?
Home gardening - done
Phone up window company to ask for a quote for getting front door replaced (falling to bits) - done
Play GoGo football with DS - done
Tea - done
Take DS to Beavers - done. Good news, he is going to get his Chief Scout Bronze Award later this week,
Running - done. I have finished my Couch to 5K! - Hooray.

Well, I think I will put my feet up once the DCs are in bed. But first I am going to make myself a playlist for my next run, one downside of the C25K is their choice of music! Linzer - how are you getting on?

swan have done the same thing to my neck before and was so concerned i went to A&E to ask their advice - not much they could do but i used a hot neck wrap and ibrupofen and that eased it over a couple of days and I was right as rain after that. I hope that helps, and take care.

Managed to finish my list Just found out DD got the main part in her Drama play which i get to watch in July so very proud and she got a head teacher award today too (she never gets any awards so this was a huge boost and a great start to the week despite her hayfever)

Watered the garden as been quite hot again today and put down slug pellets as the snails are all around my newly planted marigolds They have already munched through lots of my foxgloves but so far my hosta is untouched (it's in a pot, but they still got to it last year)

Hope you all have a lovely evening (no ironing tonight eh feet maybe just a - did my ironing last night too so that will be it for the week)

See you all tomorrow - have fil coming to sort my hot bath tap out. No water comes out the tap so DD can't have a bath tonight, think a washer thingy has gone, has happened with the cold tap before too, so annoying)

I'm here, I'm here! Marking my spot :)

Real life intruded for awhile, but I am back and ready to clean!

Forgot to say, I'm putting in a Lakeland order later - any suggestions anyone? I am getting some vacuum bags for packing for camping.

Well done on finishing C25k, WhoKnows! I didn't find today's run (my first) quite as exhausting as I'd feared, so will be interested to see if I have a "muscle hangover" (as the Germans/Austrians call it) tomorrow. My main problem - as I said above - was the fact that my headphones kept falling out, so I shall be trying a different pair on Wednesday.

Re Lakeland, I bought the sink cleaner a month or two ago and am really pleased with it. I should really put in an order soon too, as I think the coupon I have expires next month.

Back in a minute with the round-up.

And here, as promised, is today's round-up:

DWM has a full freezer and an ironing mountain to conquer, and found the mission for us.

PA was about to walk to her long day at work and was looking forward to putting her winter clothes away.

Cinders has been productive, baked a quiche and was trying to locate a charger.

scatty had a day of work, home bleugh and laundry to look forward to.

PMPY was feeling very enthusiastic but was waiting for the baby to go to sleep so that she could get started.

Lady has made appointments, drunk coffee and had plans for more (you can never drink too much coffee, I feel).

feetheart has a poorly DS and a temperamental oven, and inadvertendly did the mission (I do like it when you discover you?ve already done the mission without realising it).

swan was pondering revenge and the ways in which we get back at our DHs, was feeling inspired by her cousin and has cricked her neck - ouch.

WhoKnows has been rearranging bedroom furniture, harvesting crops, investigating cars and has finished Couch to 5 K ? yay!

Lady has finished her list, was justifiably proud of her DD and has been busy in the garden.

CheerfulYank popped in to let us know she?s raring to go again.

Well
did I find the charger

no

vanished
puffed

weg