June know it's the fledgling flyers?

[Stillchuckingit]

A warm welcome to the June Fledgling Flyers' thread.

If the state of your house is getting you down, this is the thread where we follow the step-by-step Flylady housekeeping system (in our own, unique, relaxed style ) with lots of chat and support along the way and where lace-up shoes are definitely optional.

A huge thank you to Linzer for keeping us all on track so splendidly during May and thank you to DroitwichMummy for the thread title.

As usual, we will be following the Flylady three-pronged approach:

1. Baby-steps (a daily step to establish routines)
2. Then baby-steps + 15 mins daily decluttering
3. (And once decluttered) babysteps + daily missions

If you are feeling overwhelmed by clutter and mess, you can make a difference, one step at a time.

For more information, have a look here. You don't need to sign up to Flylady e-mails (we advise you not to do so in fact - you will be overwhelmed - all the information you need can be gleaned from this thread).

All long-standing members, intermittent returnees, lurkers and newcomers welcome!!

Linzer - thanks for the kind and encouraging words. I'm not feeling too despondent about it, thanks to the other positive stuff that's been going on. If anything, it may help our case to get support for him. After all, I had argued that he needed individual help to get through the day and this wasn't provided. DS feels bad about not being able to go (though I've told him it's not his fault and we don't mind) and commented that I looked 'tired'. He has just done the washing up for me to help .

CHB - DS's meltdowns used to be quite spectacular and I remember the exhaustion I used to feel from coping with them. It is hard not to get dragged into the emotion of it all, no matter how calm you stay on the outside. Physical exercise sounds like an excellent way of dealing with it, although not if you feel you've overdone it. Maybe now's the time to be kind to yourself.

No, DS doesn't get another taster day, but he did have a sort of mini taster when he went for a morning a couple of weeks' ago, so at least he has had a visit.

Thanks for the chocolate cake!

< brushes cake crumbs onto floor>

Am going to be a literal Flylady now, as I am going after those thunder flies. What can I do to get rid of them, apart from spray? They keep reappearing outside our kitchen window and sneaking back in. I will try pouring bleach down our drains and see if that stops them.

Toffee my BIL has the dreaded fruitflies in his house and he uses those sticky sheet thingys that you hang down from the ceiling and that has worked quite well if you don't fancy the spray. Sorry to hear about the taster day not going to plan, you and your grandfather have an amazing attitude

Feet to hear about the nit situation - little buggers.

swan having two colours on a thread is very confusing

Have made an excellent start to DD cake. Made an igloo and lighthouse, 1 penguin and 3 puffles plus sojme other little bits. The hard bit is going to be icing the blue waves to the cake convicingly without buggering up the whole effect. Not going to attempt it today though.

Sun is shining and washing is on line. I have also made an appointment to have my birthday facial my MIL bought me beginning of last month. Can't have it until next Thursday now as she's fully booked - least i can relax knowing DD party will be had by then.

Dh at home, he sent me to the office to do cataloguing for school, and he did laundry at home, most confusing . We are having a nice day so far although now dcs have returned and rot is setting in.

Pink, buttercream waves?

Listened to a song on Radio 2 last night picking up ds1 from Scouts which has lodged in my brain, Ben Howard, "Wolves" -looked it up on youtube and there are surfers

Toffee poor ds, but I suspect I would have done that if I was him (I certainly remember phases of that at university, and as you say it can only help you get support you need for later. I certainly think some things can be utterly panic inducing and others things - one just feels fine and totally normal.

Fruitflies and silverfish have been vanquished, thanks to this Flylady and a bottle of toxic spray, plus bleach poured down the drains and in the bins. I never knew there were so many bugs living in my kitchen . Silverfish kept running out from cracks in the floorboards. I don't usually mind them, but they were taking over the place. I dread to think how many are living under the floor.

After the death spray, I hoovered both kitchen and dining room and mopped the floor. Kitchen is now looking presentable. Am having a break, then will start on the sitting room, which is a tip at the moment and needs to be presentable for the dyslexia tutor and psychiatrist tomorrow.

It's lovely not having to collect DS at 3! Am going to attempt a quick nap, although Tesco is bound to knock on the door as soon as I fall asleep (due between 4 and 6).

LadyInPink - I will bear those sticky things in mind if my blitz doesn't work, thank you. We used them in France last year and they were quite effective, although I didn't like seeing all those dead flies hanging from the ceiling!

Your Club Penguin cake sounds amazing. I was quite sorry when DS1 stopped playing that game because it was so attractive. I particularly liked the puffles. Nice that you have a facial to look forward to after the stress of the party is over.

A mixture of washing up liquid, water and balsamic vinegar is really good for trapping of fruit flies. They also like wine dregs and get trapped in the bottle. No taste though - they didn't like Kiwi sauvignon...

But I'm working.

X-posted, Swan. Yes, the taster day certainly fell into the 'utterly panic inducing' slot for DS and he has no way of coping with his panic at the moment, so I'm not surprised he couldn't do it.

Hope your nice day continues.

Tesco have been, so DS has treats to eat and I can sneak off quietly and have a nap.

Is that true, Blue? It's true they like wine dregs - I think it might be our empty wine bottles that are attracting them . I don't think these particular fruit flies have very good palates though. They will drink anything!

Toffee Our cleaner made up a not-very-pleasant smelling mixture last summer that was supposed to get rid of all our fruit flies - it def. had vinegar and wine in it, and possibly washing-up liquid too. I think it did help to some extent, but wasn't 100% effective.

Au contraire Blue, sauvignon blanc tastes of gooseberries, which I can't stand and the fruit flies obviously share my good taste.

Lady The cake sounds fabulous. DH made a pirate cake for DS's birthday last year, which looked quite impressive, but he will have to up the ante this year as DS wants a fire station cake.

The children are driving me mad. DD2 and DS both have friends over, and the boys just won't stop quarrelling (over a bread roll atm). I'd thought food might distract them and made them a picnic, but I'm not sure being outdoors is a good idea with all the noise they're making.

Oh to have a DH who makes birthday cakes at yours Linzer

Thanks for the tip swan have bought some royal icing sugar as apparently that makes stiff peaks but if that fails i'm going back to tried and tested failsafe buttercream icing!

Glad you're well on your way to having a fruitfly free house Toffee

I've bought a tent Unfortunately it was a bit heavier than I reckoned 15 kg was ifysim. I chose it last week from Argos catalogue, then found it was £100 less when I came to buy it! Wow, I must have caught the tail end of the camping season....

Dd and I have had a successful outing to buy tent, summerweight sleeping bags and 4 pairs of shoes including school shoes for Sept. Dh had to rescue us from the bus-stop though I couldn't walk another step carrying that tent

Linzer Boys are still biffing each other at football though, it seems to brng out the worst of sibling aggression when I pick them up, they are full of beans on the way down. Dh says the only answer is Total Involvement.

Bedtime!!!Aha

evening all
Thanks for all the welcomes back!

toffee no I'm not your son's psychiatrist! Sounds like you have met someone helpful at last though. Glad you feel you are making some progress.
swan Hi! Dog ownership is fab. I love our doggy.

have read back some of thread and am slowly catching up with everyone...will get better at individuals....

life here has been so busy! I have been working 4 full days/week which feels a lot and it has been REALLY busy at work so all just very full on. I constantly feel as if I am playing catch up, and never seem to be organised enough to remember everything (eg had no idea DD2 needed to be at pond dipping session and not regular cubs last week cue a lot of frantic last minute running round and shouting....I have NO recollection of seeing the relevant letter ever LOL)
The nanny we hired in Jan has been good in many ways, mostly because DS2 is happier here with her than at nursery, but sadly she is totally useless at any household/organisational/cooking/thinking type stuff! Also she is not very good at dealing withDD3 who has Aspergers and is a bit difficult at times.... she also costs us a fortune LOL so in Sep DS2 is going to a different nursery and I will be switching my hours to spread over 5 days so I can do school pick up 4 days/week. I am looking forward to that as I do feel I dont get enough time with the older dc doing 4 full days...

Anyway...I am trying to get back into some good habits....I am finding I can be quite productive in a morning before work...I do need to work on having a bit more motivation in the evenings though LOL

so today I have done:
6 dc up dressed and breakfasted
loaded WM
made my bed
tidied mine and littlies bedroom
hoovered bedrooms and landing
bathrooms S&S
gritted my teeth through major meltdown from dd3
school drop off - remembering £1.00 for DD3 trip on Thurs
work
home
4 mile run
dinner - chicken casserole
stories with littlies
bedtime littlies

now going to chill for an hour or so....then:
Re-load and run WM
tidy kitchen
tidy lounge
early bed and read book

BBtomorrow folks

swan tent sounds good! we put ours up in the garden a few weeks ago, so I could convince myself it was actually big enough for us all and that I could actually cope with a weekend camping....havent managed to book anywhere yet though LOL

Well today will be an epic fail on everything except early night. Anyone fancy the night shift with ds? didnt think so.

Night all.

Not much flying again here today, although I did manage to call some washing machine repairmen. Now need to arrange for somebody to come and look at the thing. Had a slightly stressful afternoon due to lovely babysitter having car problems so I was resenting looking after the boys instead of getting on with various work things I'd said I'd do... Also dropped the bread knife on my toe which didn't help! DS2 has also woken up coughing a couple of times already tonight. :(

Still, DS2 also won us a family ticket to the Castle museum in the raffle, and tomorrow is music, work and house bleugh day. Got to drop off the playgroup application form for him as well.

Toffee - the washing up liquid/balsamic thing certainly caught a lot of flies, although it took several days to get them all. I don't like using chemical things though. You need a nice bubbly mixture so the fruity smell attracts them and the bubbles trap them.

Linzer - I generally prefer the boys making a noise outdoors, although I suppose it depends on your neighbours! DS1 decided to whack DS2 over the head with a wooden dinosaur this afternoon which certainly increased the volume. :(

swan - £100 off is always good. :)

- hot chocolate for CHB. Hope tonight gets better.

Waves to OM and everyone else. Night.

Very quick round-up tonight. Sorry it is appearing at such a strange hour ... my sleep patterns are all over the place atm...

So today Toffee has been wielding a death spray and killing drunken flies

Linzer has been refereeing bread fights and has taken us down memory lane and reminded us of Wimbledon and exam-revision season

Blue has been refereeing dinosaur disputes and narrowly avoid skewering her toe with the bread knife

Pink has been constructing mini-igloos

CHB has been going for the burn

Swan has been role-swapping with her dh, howling with wolves and buying a tent

and Overflowingmum has been, well, what can I say, overflowing with activities ....the mere line "6 dc, up, breakfasted and dressed" brings me out in a cold sweat frankly but she has also managed to work, sort out nanny arrangements, Fly, launder, do school runs, cook and go out for a run!!!! Cripes!!! [SC bows down in awe]

Huge waves to everyone else!!

*

Baby-step no. 22 for Wednesday 22 June is here and is quite a useful one. It's all about how to create a control journal (link contains 19 steps as to how to do this)

We are still in Zone 4, the master bedroom here

And the mission for tomorrow will appear here once the Flylady site updates itself. Sorting out bottom of wardrobe and chucking two pairs of shoes.

For a sneak peak at the week?s missions, look here Again, this may need to update itself.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day

See you in the morning!

Still - your round up made me laugh .

Am going to bed at this silly hour because I browsed on MN for far too long, then finally found the energy to sort out the sitting room, as well as tackling the kitchen again (which had been cooked in and was therefore in a mess all over again). Ended up doing a late-night 'home bleugh', including polishing the brass door handles and cleaning all the mirrors . And all because we have visitors tomorrow (the dyslexia tutor and the psychiatrist) and I can't help worrying that they will judge my parenting skills by the state of my house. I should probably have gone to bed early instead so that I can think clearly tomorrow, but I can't switch off at the moment.

See you tomorrow.

Drifted onto Active Threads instead of going to bed (I know, I know, I will suffer for it in the morning....) and found this thread. It is one of the funniest things I've read on MN.

Stick with it - it gets better.

Morning all,

DS is at home today as he had a temperature yesterday evening, so I've had to cancel the English lesson and the friend who was supposed to be coming over this afternoon. He's in bed looking at books at the moment, but I can't imagine it will last very long as he seems fine this morning. However, he said he didn't want to go to kindergarten and, more importantly (as he very often says he wants to go but is fine once he's there), they have a 24 hour rule for temperatures so I didn't feel I should encourage him to go when he's not supposed to be there anyway.

My task today is to rescue the entire house. Yet again. How does it get into such a state the entire time? Will be back later to report on progress.

I have a long list of stuff to do today but most of which requires the reverse of flying (ie chaos creating) and none of which i can actually face right now. Am hoping that by the time i get some more coffee in me and ds to school i will have discovered the will to move.

Morning all .

Don't know where the past 2 days have gone! The addition of voluntary activities to the chaotic mix has tipped me over! But its great fun meeting new people and learning new things.

Today:
school (swim kit. Library fine)
work
buy food on the way home
school pick up
dd friend for tea
rainbows
beavers (help) (or HELP!)
take ds friend home from beavers
change sheets on spare bed

linzer hope ds is soon ok (but not too soon as you have house to sort out)
CHB hope the coffee works
OFM HELLO!! Great to see you again. Hope you're enjoying the job despite the logistical difficulties.

BBL (hopefully).

Just a quick :o - we got Olympic tickets!! Football at Wembley and volleyball. Swan, and anyone else, did you get any? Feeling VERY lucky :)

Off to look up rules of volleyball....................

feet no so far (but [whispers] I don't want to go anyway...I hate sport [blush.]
Well done! I'm very happy for you. [we may still get tickets...boo hoo]

OFM wrote a post last night, elle est disparu, so just admiration really PS. Must be frustrating about Nanny (other people's habits are always a mystery), but still she has done what it said on the tin, which is look after ds2 so that he was happy. P.S. Ds2 (a bit like your dd3) requires careful handling too, always difficult to explain to other adults all the intricacies (although his teachers are pretty good I must admit)

Scatty and admiration to you to for all the extra activities

Toffee Milton his Stilton - that is an immortal line The whole thread is completely surreal
hope you get through today - good luck with pysch and tutor

done
2 packed lunches
kitchen
washing away
finalised reycling

tried hoovering our bedroom, which far from being tidy and decluttered (did I claim it was seems to have developed a new intractable layer of muddle and dust under the bed. I've pulled out all the boxes of Hornby. And there I Stand. Given up now.... will return to the problem later.
Dh suddenly announced last night, "What am I do with a woman who never pairs socks! . He said I was stealing his socks, and that was why he needed so many, and had to wear the same pair two days running...

So I have promised him a week of sock pairing if he will abide by other rules...

now piano
then office work at school

OFM the post disparu, not you

Have rescued the house - sort of; it's certainly looking far better than it was. Also enjoyed spending some one-on-one time with DS, which is a fairly rare occurrence. An alphabet/first writing book arrived for him from my parents this morning, so we spent quite a while doing that. However, he's now lying on the sofa looking pathetic and complaining of feeling cold (31° forecast for today; it's certainly hot outside), so I've just fetched him a blanket.