Fledgling Flyers Olympic August thread.

[BitchyDragons]

Ok so not the wittiest of titles but this month we have the Olympics, holidays, return of football season and heading into the new school year. It's going to be a busy one...

Firstly thanks to Blue and Ellie who kept us on track last month!

Right, most of you should know how this works. It's a three pronged attack.
Phase one: The babysteps master these and you will be working like clockwork.
Phase two: Adding in Decluttering this will help you keep on top of the amount of stuff contributing to CHAOS.
Phase three: Missions Targeted activities to keep the chaos at bay and starting the deep cleaning.

The golden duster of Flying is stage 4: deep cleaning. This is for most, unrealistic and should only be considered once you have completely decluttered. PA might achieve this simply by virtue of some extreme life decluttering. Although I probably won't recommend her method.

Now for those of you who are completely lost, lets rewind a bit.
CHAOS: Can't have anyone over syndrome. Yep you know that state where you are embarrassed to have play dates fucking hate that phrase or people pop in unexpectedly.
The fly lady approach works by breaking the house down into tiny activities which you do repeatedly yep sounds bad written like that but bare with me and then build up into a routine that becomes habit and you stop thinking about it no really, you do.

Clearer? Yeah ok. I have probably lost you but there is loads of support and help on this thread. If you are confused then ask. However, as this thread starts on the 1st on August I refuse to post the first babystep until later today.

This thread comes with a warning: For those of you who have not yet encountered my leadership of the thread. Be afraid, very afraid aware that I have a rather unorthodox approach and that things can get a tad unpredictable. Starting with a namechange. So who?s on board this month?

Oh and spot markers can help themselves to a magic eraser and ensure there are no marks on the thread for the start of the month. Let?s start as we mean to go on

Hi all, feeling overwhelmed, but having some nice moments in the middle of it all.

Bitchy - very good advice. But I do occasionally remember and laugh at our flying duel!!

Need to get some paid work done this evening, and then crashing into bed. This work is taking a long time for me to get my head around. I originally didn't want to start until DSs were back at school/nursery but they were struggling and asked me to take some typing work earlier so I have - it's going to take me some time to get up to speed on it though, at the moment it's taking a long time for each job which is leaving me with no time to myself when the DSs are in bed (up late at night and early in the morning doing it).

It feels as though the house is falling down around me - although it isn't actually getting any worse, but it's not getting any better either and I have so much that I need to get done.

Off to visit a friend tomorrow who was hit by a car (as a pedestrian - went through the windscreen, thankfully he's a tough old sod and has escaped with just a few scratches and a broken leg).

Right, back to work while I can still see straight!!!!

Flying duel was tres amusing ChitChat I have a scary scary ta da list in the pipe line. But it is going to be a late one.

TA DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Attic of doom

Slight downside is that the rest of the house looks like a bomb's hit it......

Ta da
move table
move 3 bookcases to temp locations
hoover landing and top half of stairs
Empty 2 wardrobes
Remove all posters/schedules etc off wardrobes
tidy enough of ds' room to move wardrobes
Move boxes off cupboards x2
forget asthma and allergy meds before starting the great clean out/move around
Sit in corner for 5 mins whilst waiting for meds to work.
Clean both wardobes throughly
Move wardrobe 1 into temp position
Move wardrobe 2 into new position
Rehoover landing
Remove drawers from chest of drawers and take downstairs
Clear clothes off temp position on bed into ikea bag ready for sorting through and culling before going away
Start to tackle my bedroom floor
Empty shelves of bed.
remove matress and beddding to access storage space underneath
Move chest of drawers so bed can be moved
clean and remove everything from under be storage
move bed to temp position
Move stuff that should be stored on and under bed onto bed
Hoover everything including floor several times during this process.
Move contents for top box onto bed
transfer 2nd wardrobe to final location
put away top boxes
move bed to final postion
put away stuff into ds' cupboard and make bedroom fit for sleeping in
put stuff away in 2nd top box
empty 2 chest of drawers and clean
transfer to temp position
move bed to final position
move chest of drawers to final position
clear bed and put away stuff that is stored inside
return table
wash curtains
wash pillows and duvet
hoover and clean matress
sneeze my way through half a tissue box worth of tissues
Clear and clean windowsil
Clean windows
Fit blind
wash 2nd set of curtains
wash bedding
sort through games
Remake bed
Discuss September plans for ds - no result needs revisiting
Yell at ds who is playing yo-yo child and was still up at midnight
Put 2 bookcases back where they belong

Shockingly I haven't actually finished but as mu back hurts, I have sneezed as stupid amount, my lungs are tender, and I am tired. I am calling it quits. Jumping in the shower and heading to bed in my clean bed. Just got to wait for my bedding to finished drying.

So Monday is a bank holiday in the UK so I hope you are all able to enjoy yourselves a bit!

In theory Monday is Home bluergh day.
Babystep 27 is What is for tea?
And we are in a new zone: The Living room
Missions are [[www.flylady.net/c/sp.php here]

Can't believe September is nearly here. Will c&p the going back to school stuff to help remind you.
A summary of the top tips for going back to school from the fly lady:

1. set up a system for letters/bags,
2. make sure you have the stationary supplies and spare sets/re-ordering system in place (most of us will be spared this),
3. try to go through uniforms for what will last early and only buy what is needed to be replaced. Is it labelled?
4. Don't leave it to last minute.
5. Set up routines for the dc for morning, after school and before bedtime with clear tasks for then to do (eg packing bags /laying out clothes the night before, teeth/clothes/make bed before school etc)
6. The last tip was the most useful: A week before school is due to restart, move the bedtime back 15mins per night until bedtime is back into term time mode and mornings start at school time.

Also is there anyone that wants to take over leading the thread in September?

arses

missions here

Bitchy Flippin heck, what are you on? I hope you have had a good nights sleep after all that lot!

Too hot to move any muscles that are not essential here today. I have just done a morning of language study and plan an afternoon of lying down with my Kindle! Heat is making me and DH argumentative!! Not my fault at all you understand!!

Not a very good few days here. Saturday was the moto crash, grazes are now healing nicely. Yesterday DD4 crashed her bicycle into a wall and was knocked out. I watched her like a hawk for the rest of the day, but she seems fine. Bike, however, is mangled and needs to be carried to a repair man.
Then this morning when DH was taking the moto to a garage to be repaired (damage repair from the crash) he got bitten by a dog. I went into hyper rabies panic! We have contacted the clinic and I am now on "bite watch" as well as "concussion watch".
WHy cant life be simple?

Off now to lie down with my beloved Kindle for a while........

Have a good bank holiday to everyone in the UK.

PA - oh my, you really need to hang onto that positive attitude at the moment! I hope all is well with your DH and DD. Could your family just, maybe, not go out for the next few months ?

Bitchy - I'm speechless. Have they put you on steroids? My friend went hyper on steriods. I can't even read your list it is scaring me so much. On a more serious note, thanks for reposting the going-back-to-school tips. I am starting with the bedtime stuff already - and a right pain it is too, as it involves me waking DS2 up earlier than he wants, so that he will get sleepier earlier in the evening. And just when I'm enjoying a nice, quiet cup of tea too...

Anyway, I'm back from my Mum's. Had a wonderful time, was throughly cossetted and am now feeling better than I have in ages. Am still not drinking alcohol . Have loads to get ready before the boys go back to school/home ed next week, but at least I have the energy to do it all now.

Today's list looks like this:

Put washing on done
Walk dog
Put out kitchen hotspot
Sweep/hoover kitchen floor
Wipe down kitchen floor (am cheating - bought some wipes)
Put clean washing up away
Reload d/w
Put out clean dishcloth and towel in kitchen
Clean kitchen windows
Put more washing on (endless cycle of washing today)
Hoover throughout downstairs
Put piano hotspot out
Room rescue dining room
Room rescue sitting room
Swish and swipe bathroom
Possibly go to DH's workplace to help out for a couple of hours
Go through DS2's school uniform and order new stuff

JustGettingOnWithIt - just seen, further up the thread, that you are going through a hard time. I'm so sorry and I hope life turns a corner soon.

Welcome to the thread, cherry and cakes.

PMPY - congratulations on dealing with the attic of doom .

ChitChat - sorry you are juggling work and school holidays. Hope your friend is ok.

lauren - no more talk about Christmas lists, please! (Have two boys' birthdays to get through first).

Waves to blue, castle and everyone else (sorry, too numerous to mention).

Bitchy, that is a damn fine list. I love moving furniture around.

PA, blimey, hope everyone's ok!

Been moderately productive over the weekend, I am determined to finish the decorating I started last week! Been ploughing on with it, but we changed our minds about the paint colour and miscalculated quantity. DH just gone out for another tin, and informed me as he left that there wasn't any more of that colour when he bought it yesterday! So he'll be trekking round all the diy shops looking for it all day as I will finish.
Plenty to be getting on with though.

ta da
breakfast etc.
masking tape for decorating done

to do
drink coffee
laundry - fold, hang, sort a load-in
empty bins, rubbish and recycling out
kitchen - wash pots, wipe sides, sweep
decluttering stuff to go back into mud room

I have a confession to make though. Can't remember when I last shined the kitchen sink

Toffee no steroids now although really should take my steroid inhaler for a few days. Just got fed up of my lungs hurting and the fact they were never going to stop until I got control of my room and got rid of a lot of dust.

List can be abreviated to move furniture between 3 rooms crisis tidy and deep clean my room.

I should finish tidying and clean and returning stuff today but I can't breathe properly and every single muscle in my body hates me. So today the list goes like this:

Dry second set of curtains and rehang
wash 2 sets of training kit
me and ds to training
The rest will late.

Will do personals later. Ds has been lovely and let me sleep this morning but is now terribly fractious and needs attention.

Fab list, Bitchy!

Today's ta da!
2 baskets of laundry sorted
Wiped mysterious marks off kitchen walls
Swept floors x loads
Cooked lunch
Lunch washing up, kitchen rescued
Washing done and dried
Been to park with boys and DH
Emptied recycling

To do:
Mission
Boys to friends' house for afternoon
Exercise
More laundry to sort
Shoes to put away

Ta da list:

Put washing on
Walked dog (delegated to DS1)
Put out kitchen hotspot nope
Swept/hoovered kitchen floor
Wiped down kitchen floor
Hoovered up kitchen spider
Put clean washing up away
Reloaded d/w
Put out clean dishcloth and towel in kitchen
Cleaned kitchen windows (also did mirrors)
Put more washing on
Hoovered throughout downstairs
Put piano hotspot out nope
Room rescued dining room
Room rescued sitting room
Swish'd and swipe'd bathroom
Went to DH's workplace to help out for a couple of hours
Go through DS2's school uniform and order new stuff to do this eve
Also, unpacked several bags of our holiday stuff and put it away
Polished the brass door knobs
Watered window boxes
And dealt with lots of phone calls and emails
And managed a trip to Aldi (bought some cheap home ed supplies there )

I feel as if the house was out of my control whilst I was ill and I'm determined to wrestle it back into shape before school starts next week, as I want to be able to concentrate on home ed then, not decluttering and tidying up.

Sigh. I'm looking around the sitting room, as per the mission, and practically everything is in the wrong place. There's too much stuff that I don't like and don't want, but other people do. There's too much of the boys' stuff with nowhere else to put it. Too many books - and I never thought I'd say that!

In the interests of trying not to boast, my sitting room is the one room which is immaculate. Nothing is here that doesn't belong and tonight I have started burning some candles which are a bit past it (decoratively). Might treat myself to some new ones!

I've also got my evening tidy up down to 15 minutes. This includes loading the dishwasher, washing pans, wiping sides down. The dc tidy the floor/toys and I Hoover. :)

The playroom needs a huge declutter but floor and table are tidy each evening too.

After two years I finally feel like this Flying lark is working. :)

Will be back tomorrow morning with a proper list. Hope you have all had lovely bank holiday weekends. :)

NickNacks! Still, have done a bit of moving stuff around, got DH to shift a load of paper, cleared several boxes of broken/outgrown toys, and it's not quite so bad now.

Next thing is to get rid of books that we're clearly never going to re-read, so as to make space for all the others!

I can't get to sleep. Got back from holidays yesterday, have spent most of today unpacking and washing, the house just looks generally untidy everywhere. The Dcs have been playing brilliant imaginative stuff that seems to involve getting thousands of small items outonto the floors, it is great but it would be a lot easier to just let them watch telly all day.

Feeling a bit glum, so much sad stuff in the news, the canoeing tragedy is playing on my mind, as we have just come back from Scotland, also someone I vaguely know was very seriously beaten up over the weekend, keep thinking about his poor family and checking FB/news sites for any update (it has been on local TV). I'm also feeling a bit sad about the impending return to school, the DCs are great company at the moment and we have all enjoyed the summer.

Right, going back to try and get some sleep.

Sorry I lied earlier [
babystep
missions
Tuesday is planning day!
Hope you are all sleeping.

I'm not.

Sorry Whoknows. It's hard to sleep sometimes when there is a lot going on isn't it :(
I have a funeral dilema that needs a decision by tomo. Fuck knows what the answer/solution is though. And I have put on half a fucking stone. Arsing Steroids :(

Morning all!

Sorry I haven't had chance to catch up with the thread but will be back this afternoon when things are a bit less hectic I've been up since 6 and the tide was out so I've had the dogs out on the beach. And DD had a run around! We were the only ones there it was lovely! I think sometimes when you live so close to a coast you don't always appreciate what's just there on your doorstep!

To do:
Walk dogs- one more time
Home bleugh at mams
DD laundry
Food shop
Fruit and veg shop
Bank
DD and mindees to park with my 2 dogs
Make sure paper work is ready for contracts signing tomorrow

I'm going to have to take mindees to food shop and bank with me today. I normally avoid it but I'm working past 6 every night this week and I'm sure parents want their children to eat

BBL!

lauren - going to the shops and bank is a great outing for little kids! You could even set them up with a pretend shop when they get home. That's the advantage of childminding - that the children are part of normal life, rather than inside a classroom/nursery all day. (Mind you, I heard of one childminder who used to take her mindees to the pub at lunchtime. I wonder if she set up a pretend pub for them when she got home too? ).

whoknows - I hope you managed to sleep eventually. Sounds as if you have a lot on your mind. It's lovely that you and the DC have had such a lovely summer though.

Bitchy - good luck with your dilemma.

Blue - we have too many books too and DH is now a convert to Kindle because it doesn't add to our excess. I have to say that I have never missed any of the books we have cleared out.

NickNacks - I am envious too. However, I have to say that our sitting room is in pretty good shape, since we decorated it and chucked all the clutter out. I refuse to let clutter build up in it again and, as a result, it is the easiest room to tidy. Decluttering is the key. I don't know how you manage to get your evening routine down to 15 mins though. I wish I could.

Have woken up with dreadful hayfever, so am very bad tempered whilst waiting for the antihistamines to work. The DC are, very wisely, staying out of my way. So far, this morning, I have:

Done boys' breakfasts and my own
Walked dog
Fed dog
Cleared old food out of fridge
Washed fridge containers and wiped down the inside
Put the rubbish out for today's collection
Put first load of washing on

To do list:

AM routine
Put yesterday's second load of washing away
Find library books
Phone calls
Put Ocado delivery away
Lunch
Take boys into town for haircut and new school shoes for DS2, plus trip to library

That'll do. I'm sure more will arise as the day goes on. Have a good day all.

Oh, and hoovered up a few spiders as it's spider season here. Am waiting for an order of Dethlac to arrive, as recommended on another thread. Am determined to wage war against the eight-legged monsters - I want this house to be a spider-free zone!

Well, managed to get to sleep about 4 in the end, woken at 7 by alarm. DH had arranged for a man to come and fix our Sky dish as it hadn't been working, I have totally delegated all telecomms stuff to him (apart from my mobile and laptop) so when he arrived at 8 I said I was going to stay upstairs and try and get a bit more sleep till DH went to work. The plan was then that I was going to take the DCs to a local tourist attraction relevant to next term's topic for DS. Then, Sky man managed to fall off his ladder and sprain his wrist, he was OK but couldn't carry on, so he had to phone in, Sky said they could send someone this afternoon, DH really couldn't stay at home for that so I reluctantly cancelled the trip, but decided we would go to the nearest big town instead. Went outside and realised DH had taken the car with the car seats in, so we couldn't even do that, we have had a quick trip into town on foot instead. Now we have to wait in all afternoon for another Sky man.

So, I am grumpy and my house is a mess but I have no excuse not to do something about it! I am very fed up with DH and his lack of tidiness at the moment, it is really getting me down. He is completely oblivious to mess and anything you want to do you have to spell out to him step by step. It's like having an extra child.

NickNacks - wow, a 15 min evening routine. Mine takes hours. Although it includes more things - ironing / putting washing away, clothes out, packed lunches to make, any stuff for school the next day, reading/handwriting with DCs etc.

Toffee - my mum swears by conkers to keep spiders out, we live near loads of horse chestnut trees and gather carrier bags of them every year for her. We are embarking on a revamp of the lounge too, ordered a new sofa yesterday and want to redecorate, carpet and have new shelving put up before it arrives.

Bitchy - hope you can sort out funeral arrangements OK. I would offer to take over the thread but am hoping i will go in for my surgery in Sept and that would rule me out for at least a week or so I imagine, from talking to others who have had the same. I will do a month again sometime soon though.

Lauren - beach sounds fabulous, we live about 45 mins from several, but any hint of good weather and there are horrendous traffic problems in all roads leading to them so we tend to only go in winter! We could avoid it by getting up early but no none in our house is up for that apart from maybe me and I CBA to make the rest of them do it.

Well maybe I distribute my evening routine into different areas!

I do a wash each day, dry and fold and have a basket in my room it goes in until Sunday evening when the dc are in the bath and I have chance to put it all away. I don't iron! All the kits get packed straight onto their bags and into tub (below).

Children have school dinners so no lunches to be made. We have a large tub in the dining room in which all school paraphernalia goes. All kits have their own drawstring bags so they can stay packed and just grab the one needed in the morning. All book bags and instruments are also kept there. List on fridge tells dc what bags are needed for each day.

Homework is done straight after mindees go home at 6pm whilst I wins down paperwork, choose next day's dinner, look at my diary/calendar and do any admin I need to like phone calls or school reply slips.

The dc tidy up their toys/junk at 6.45. Dd goes to bedat 7pm, ds2 7.15, ds1at 7.30. I like to be sat down for 7.30 so I literally rush around for 15 mins making it look as fab as poss. I stack the DW, wash the pots (soaking from dinner so hardly any effort), run the Hoover round and put things back in their homes. That's it! Then kettle goes on and I sit on my rear end for the evening.

Apologies for epic post!

That sounds fantastically organised! I am rarely sat down before 9, although the DCs don't go to bed till 8.30. We don't have the space to all do our paperwork together only having a small kitchen table, computer in another room and each DC tends to need 1 to1 on homework, plus we don't eat till after 6 so by the time it's cleared, it's quite late. I do have a control centre in the hall where all bags, kits etc line up under the calendar, that works well. Am going to see if I can streamline it a bit more I think. I cannot bear to have a whole weeks worth if clothes to put away at once though, find that soul destroying.