Fledglings Remember to FLY through November...

[BlueEyeshadow]

If your house is a mess and you are strugging with C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome) and S.T.U.F.F. (something that undermines family fun) then this is the thread where we (loosely) follow the step-by-step Flylady housekeeping system (in our own, unique, relaxed style) with lots of chat, support and wine along the way.

This little-and-often system is designed so that you can follow a series of steps and routines each day (which gradually become second nature) in weekly designated zones of the house; defining and minimising housework - which in theory should leave you with more time to do other more interesting things instead! At the same time it is intended to reduce that panicky "rabbit in headlights" feeling when you are overwhelmed and everything needs doing all at once. No problem if you miss a day or two; just jump right back in and it will all come around next month again anyway!

We advise not signing up to receive the Flylady e-mails as you will be inundated! All the information you need will be linked here on a daily basis.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's steps and routines using a three-pronged approach (dependent on the stage everyone is at):

• start or repeat baby steps

• repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

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

[And if you are really enthusiastic and have finished decluttering - you can go on to detailed deep cleaning in each zone.]

More info here on getting started and Flying lessons. Here's the launch pad for more experienced fledglings. Don't be put off by the barf-tastic language of the site - the underlying system is sound (and you may discover a few of our subversions of the vocabularly along the way).

Many thanks to SC for leading the thread through October (and for such a good OP, which I've blatantly cut and pasted) - - and I'll post the first babysteps and mission tomorrow evening.

All welcome!!

Why is it on a Friday night I alway feel more energetic. Am going to attempt my first flying in a while tonight. It may or may not happen.

Apologies for long absence. Things have been rather busy round here with lots of busy weeks and weekends and general craziness at work. DH got told yesterday that this job (he is a joiner in the construction industry for those of you who don't know) which was supposed to last until Christmas, finishes this week. This puts the wind up all our Christmas plans as we haven't bought a thing yet and were planning to get it all out of my wages next week but will need that to live off now. I know I am not poverty stricken etc. and the dc's are probably too spoilt anyway but am a bit that We are not going to be able to give them what they want for Christmas. I hate being stressed about money. People automatically think i am loaded because i am a teacher and don't get me wrong, not on bread line or anything, but by the time i have paid mortgage and childcare and all bills there is not a fat lot left. And that not a fat lot now has to cover Xmas. Sigh.......

Anyway, sorry for the self indulgent rant. Can't whinge to DH as it would make him feel shit. Feel better now.

feet and whoknows screen time is something I am really struggling with at the moment. DD isn't too bad although she does like to watch TV (prob too much) but DS is 9 and all he wants to do is play on his x-box or the laptop or his ipod (see comment up post about spoilt ). He doesn't have any friends on the street so can't play out at the weekends unless something is arranged as his BF lives the other side of town. We are always arguing about it and I often give in for a quiet life after a long day at work . i think i need to be more like you feet.

back later.

Ooooooo cookies.

burnt the bastard cookies. Going to have to rescue as many as possible with orange icing :( Cooking fail! However, the brownies are perfect and yummy. Help yourselves!

ta da
15 mins: cleaned en suite,
15 mins: cleaned en suite window.
dusted main bedroom and tidied up.
reorganised one storage box in main bedroom (clean laundry/bedding)
got the bins out in time for collection!
15 mins: cleaned kitchen, shone sink
shopped, put away shopping
Ironing for 15 minutes x 2

dd vacuumed whole house.

to do:
relax! that is enough.
will shine sink after dinner while everyone sorts kitchen.

I actually have a fecking ta da!

Ta Da:
Dining room tidied
Living room tidied
Washing x 2
Drying x 2
Washing up
DC's tea
Kitchen tidied

That will do for a Friday night! Am going to order takeaway and try and keep myself awake until The Walking Dead at 10. No small task seeing as I haven't made 9 o'clock for the last 3 nights .

im back...........got momentarilly lost under a tidal wave of the snots and sneezles!

my house is still a tip, however i have completed the wallpapering, and painted the walls - just the woodwork to do in the lounge, have put the coat rack up and the curtain poles for the door and windows are up and i managed 2 loads of washing today
i'm now nursing a bottle of wine and very soon a tub of carte d'or

Evening all.

Went round to friend's house after school with the boys and she'd got some animal glasses craft kits which her DS1 was dying to try out - nightmare! So fiddly that she and I ended up making them while 3 boys hid under the table shrieking and my DS2 played on his own in the other room!

Sorry to hear about financial worries Ellie - quite a few of us all too familiar with the perils of freelancing!

Brownies sound yummy, Bitchy and icing always helps!

Sorry you're having a tough time too, SC.

Big waves all round and another bottle of on the bar...

**
No missions for the weekend. Tomorrow is Family Fun Day (whether you like it or not... )

Another important Babystep: swish and swipe.

SC the irony is that you lived in a cosy modern townhouse you would now be pining for a project.
I pine for an enormous falling down house where there are rooms to hide the junk, but I'm sure I wouldn't if I had one
I think you are now JUSTIFIED (3 years after first expressing feelings of frustration over house situation to your DH and us) in saying you need a date for something, anything to happen. A timeline in which cheese soufflees and deliciousnous will feature regularily but it MATTERS to you that some plastering is done if there are any pennies spare.

Anyway I have had another row with dh, mostly over screentime for kids, so reading stuff on here was timely.
Ds1 is very tired, and has a big schedule for choir for rest of term. The brother saga continues. House continues to be a mess.

But, School Trip went very well. As usual a real boost to the morale, and I am always so proud of ds2 on school trips; he behaves so charmingly especially in the Science Museum! None of my own kids in my allotted group of ten 10 year olds, which was probably a blessing, but hard work. Glad I'm not a teacher, as always

Feet we have a spurious no telly until 5.45 rule, which is regularily trashed.
I have been disconnecting tv so that ds2 isn't getting up on watching it first thing but he managed to find a second extension cable. He is an addict. He watched 4 hours today, after school trip in different permutations. I gave up. Ds1 screams his head off if he's watching something and I turn it off, and this becoming a serious problem, so we are letting him watch less and less unless properly scheduled..ie: a film or with us, like Big Bang Theory. He is an addict too. They are both useless at playing by themselves, although ds1 will happily listen to music/pootle for hours if you can disconnect him.

Quick check in before Friday is over! After being absent all week I finally have a tiny bit of flying to report!
Cleared the huge pile of washed and dried clothes in the spare room and ironed anything needing ironing. Also washed up dishes from yesterday and today (please Santa, if you can hear me....a dishwasher?)

Have been in and out of hospital for the last ten days visiting my aunt who has just been diagnosed with cancer and it isn't treatable, so we are all a bit sad in our family these days. Haven't told anyone my good news yet (7 weeks today) as it would be awful if it all went wrong, and everyone would be even sadder. So I'm waiting til Christmas Eve I think (12 weeks on Dec 28th). If I can manage to pull the wool over their eyes that long!

Have just read over the last page or so, must catch up tomorrow!
Hoping those of you trying to sort your Christmas plans manage to come up with suitable solutions.
SC I think you need to take DH in hand! Gale force winds are not cool inside the house. Tell him how miserable the house is making you, and see if there is any way you can make some repairs/renovations. Failing that, the bunnies new living accommodation sounds fab! xx
Lauren I am very ! A summerhouse! Lovely! You are really getting sorted ahead of schedule! Good for you !

Ooh tired now, am off to bed. Nite all!

We've always had a telly at 6pm rule, since DS was about 2, but it does get relaxed, especially since we are often out at activities at 6 now. However they don't push their luck on it as much as they do the small screens. As a result I turn a blind eye to DS getting up and watching it between 7 and 7.30am when the rest of us get up as he is brilliant at doing all his morning stuff on time.

I enforced my rule of half an hour of small screen time each tonight fairly successfully, DS used his on MoshiMonsters.com then burst into tears when he realised he couldn't watch the Formula 1 practice session on the Ipad. We agreed he could check the results and no more and that was ok. He can play by himself but true to his AS tendencies he plays the same game ad infinitum with small variations and a loud commentary that drives me mad.

Anyway Ta-da!

Sorted out a mountain of clean washing
Emailed some friends
Cleaned kitchen
School runs
Finally got DD to learn her lines for Cinderella show next week
Errands in town
DD to drama club
Ds to Sainsburys where I got shouted at for bad driving in the car park (it was practically empty and I took a shortcut against the arrows, hardly the crime of the century)
Pick DD up again
Crocheted my first ever snowflake
Tried to teach DD French knitting, she is a mouse in Cinderella and needs a tail so thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.

Well done on the snowflake, Whoknows.
you'll have to crochet up a storm now!

Hello happyturtle I love your name! Don't think we've 'met' before!
Well done on the crochet WhoKnows and. Blue.
You are inspiring me to start back on my knitting project! Have the entire collection of the Art of Knitting (for the first blanket) and have only knit about 14/90 squares!

Quiet day on the fly front. Collecting my mum from hospital (visiting aunt) and driving her home (3hrs), then will drive back tomorrow.
Enjoy family fun day everyone! xx

Very sorry to hear about your aunt, Castle . I'm sure your good news will help your family cope. I was pregnant with DS2 when my FIL was dying and his birth turned what would have been a sad first Christmas without FIL into a very happy one.

WhoKnows - goodness, you are really back on form now! I hope you're not doing too much.

Swan - I'm glad the school trip went well and that DS2 made you proud .

Blue - I hope you are wearing your animal glasses today?

Ellie - so sorry to hear about your DH's job and consequent money worries, but glad to see you are cheering yourself up with 'The Walking Dead' . We are still hooked. This series is so much better than the last one (apart from its brilliant finale).

Waves to SC, Feet, Bitchy, Lauren, Happy, Nightshade, PA, Trazzle (popping over to check on you and Joseph next ), Gossip, Madwoman... and sorry if I've missed anyone.

Today is Operation Guest Crisis Clean. DH is taking the DC over to his mums for the morning and I am going to go through the house room by room. Am exhausted just thinking about it. No idea what to do about the garden, which is an untended wilderness. Wish I could throw a blanket over it to hide it (it's almost small enough!).

Might get back here later to report on progress.

having a bad coping day for ds here. Plan is sort ds' training kit and then take him to a fixture. It will take most of the day. ds is currently in a deep bath after having woken me up with a major major screaming fit first thing. My head hurts and pain killers are the plan today.

morning all, sorry I haven't been on for a few days haven't done much flying as I had visitors round pretty much all day yesterday, which was really nice actually lots of coffee and tea making and biscuits :)

Ta da
Made beef in beer stew for tomorrow but I have just eaten some of it and it is yummy; I cooked it on the hob, not having an oven at the moment but it turned out fine
Cleaned out henhouse
Tidied kitchen
got rid of a lot of leaves from lawn
Walked dog

To Do
microwave (exploding cup of coffee)
declutter bedroom for 15 minutes
deleaf from garden
Shopping

Do you weigh yourselves everyday?

Bitchy - so sorry you are having a tough day already.

I have actually ventured into our garden . It is far from perfect, but at least it looks tidy now.

Ta da :

Transferred large amounts of Lego etc from bathroom back to DS2's bedroom
Washed bath, basin, walls, skirting board, shelves and loo in bathroom
Cleaned shower screen
Hoovered floor
Tidied shelves
Mopped floor
Polished taps till they sparkled (getting carried away there!)
Tidied and put away rubbish (boxes, toys, etc) in garden
Swept up leaves
Pruned bushes
Swept up debris again
Raked so-called 'lawn'
Put away hanging baskets
Put tables and chairs out neatly
Washed muddy boots in bath
Cleaned bath again
Collapsed

Right, that was my breaktime. Am tackling downstairs now.

I've actually done some flying .

Ta da:-
Tidied whole house
Polished whole house
Swept whole house
washing x lots
Drying x lots
Food Shop

The exhaust fell off my car yesterday so am currently sat waiting for DH's mechanic friend to come and fix it. He'd late and I was planning on taking DC's to park but I think that might be off. toffee has inspired me and i think i will go out in the garden and have a bit of a tidy up. Haven't been out there in so long i think the paddling pool is still inflated .

bitchy hope your day gets better. Sounds tough.

Back later.

Well done Ellie. Looks like you and I are having a very similar day.

I presented the newly tidied garden to DH when he came back this afternoon. He claimed that it didn't look any different . This is why the garden gets in a mess in the first place, because he doesn't notice it! (DS2 consoled me with "It does look better, Mummy").

More on my ta da list:

Kitchen surfaces wiped
Kitchen cupboards wiped
Radiator cleaned
Bin emptied and cleaned
Washing on
Dishwasher loaded and put on
Hotspot thoroughly put out - there is a surface underneath
Dishes put away
Hob cleaned and polished
Floor hoovered
Floor mopped
Dining-room floor hoovered and mopped
Sitting room and hall hoovered
Mirrors and windows cleaned
Brass knobs polished
Silver polished
Dusting done

Phew, this is exhausting. I wonder if this clean could last us till Christmas .

Now to tackle the clutter...

oh dear toffee it was not like that here today
tada!
no tidying up at all
took dd to shops. Bought disco clothes.
Bought some books for her friend's present.
And then did a terribly sybaritic thing which was to buy a Playmobil Farm for ds2 to put together himself..NOW.Anything to stop the screens! The screens!!!! Aargh...No use buying it for Xmas, as we have no time then to deal with all those hundreds of little red pieces...

Dh then was in a strop about me buying Playmobil.

Mum came to lunch, she was lovely. Dh has continued to be in a bad mood though..brief interlude of being polite to my mum but then he reverted.

Now have to take dd to her disco. A lot of aggro over the bottom half of her outfit, as is usual with all party preps (I remember how long it takes to get ready for parties) black tights, or white tights, that skirt doesn't go with that top, and no stars don't go with spots, and your hair looked lovely before...etc...I am so relieved not to be a teenager The fashion outrages I perpetrated.

Not really toffee you got round to doing the afternoon stuff, I didn't. I have however continued washing a pace and have washed, dried and put away 4 loads including all uniforms/work clothes so am feeling a little smug as that is normally a Sunday afternoon job!

I gave up on the garden idea as the sun went in and the wind picked up. Instead I have had a lovely afternoon with dc's. We got all the crafty stuff out and spent a couple of hours making random creations and then snuggled on the sofa and watched a DVD.

It's been a strange Saturday as DH has been at work and he's still not home. Left the house at 6 this morning bless him and he is working tomorrow too.

Anyway, better get dinner finished. The masterchef level cooking going on in my house tonight is breaded chicken, frozen potato wedges and baked beans.

Ah, but your afternoon with your DC sounds much nicer than mine, Ellie (mine was punctuated by lots of "Go away, can't you see I'm busy?" ).

My DC would love your MasterChef meal, Ellie .

Swan - at your Playmobil purchase. DS2 has moved onto Lego and I'm sorry about it. I miss all those little sets to put together. I did find him playing with the Christmas set the other day though, so am hopeful he will rekindle his interest.

Sorry your DH has been grumpy. It takes time to adjust to the pressures of being self employed. My DH tends to get tetchy when he sees my hair appointments on the calendar ("How much?!").

Stopped cleaning to cook dinner: the usual pasta for DS2 and chicken curry for DS1 and me. DH is out. Feels odd without him here.

Final ta da :

Moved half of the coats / jackets in the hall into our wardrobes
Tidied hall
Tidied sitting room
Washed up after dinner
Glass of

Planning to do some ironing tonight. Still have more decluttering to do, but I might leave it till tomorrow morning. At least we are going out for lunch with our visitor, so I don't have to cook.

Do you know swan I had to look up what sybaritic meant , call myself a teacher . Sympathies re grumpy DH. Mine is a little grumpy too tonight but that comes from a long day working outside in the cold. Have run him a hot bath, cooked him a steak and left him to kill zombies on his x-box, he has calmed down a bit.

My afternoon was lovely toffee , i fecking hate gardening anyway. I would love a beautiful garden, instead I have something that resembles a cross between the Amazonian jungle and Toys R Us. Neither DH or I have green fingers so I am afraid it is doomed. It gets its yearly clean up just before DS's August birthday when we tend to have a bbq and lots of family round. That's it apart from the odd lawnmow. Think I need to invest in a gardener. Oh and did you see the Walking Dead last night . This series is brilliant so far! Who would have thought I, who gets scared watching Neighbour, would count a programme about zombies as my favourite.

consils I do weigh myself everyday . It has become a bit of an obsession. It does fluctuate daily though and I know I should stick to once a week but I can never resist. I suppose the risk is you de-motivate because the weight does fluctuate. I find I tend to stick at the same weight for a couple of weeks and then suddenly drop 4 or 5 pounds. Bizarre I know.

Cubs have just text to say there is a Church parade tomorrow. Nice to have a lot of notice. Don't think I can be bothered to take DS, he has been to all the other recent ones. Does that make me bad person . The only reason I can't be bothered is I have seen the weather forecast tomorrow and was planning to spend the entire day in my pj's as it was the first weekend day in aaaaaagees where I didn't have anywhere to be.....it was....sigh.

bitchy did your day get any better?

Anyway, DH sorted, DC's settled having a sleepover with DVD's in DS's room. Casualty for me.

Hi Everyone.

I just wanted to pop back and say thank you to you all for your support and lovely kind words last week. I did read it all but made me a bit teary thinking of everything over too much so I hid from Flying for a bit.

Anyway, happily things are a bit better. I realised I probably do expect quite a lot from DH. He does put DD to bed if he's here, he's in charge of the food shop and finances, takes the cars to get fixed, mows lawn, does at least half of the running around of DC to activities. I know I sound like I'm making excuses for him now but I am genuinely feeling better. He's also stepped up a bit and I've calmed down so hopefully we'll meet in the middle!

So will slope back into the thread and post my list for tomorrow.

(DH is working so is forgiven for not helping:))

Feed bath dress dd ready to get picked up
Mop kitchen
Finish laundry
Put all clean clothes away
Hoover stairs
Write invoices
Write card & wrap gift
Drop DS at party
Collect DD
Collect DS
Tidy my room
Tidy dd room
Pack sport kits
Lay out uniforms
Hoover upstairs
Dust upstairs
Clean bathroom
Wipe out fridge
Get ds's to shower
Ds's to do homework
Cook roast
Get boys to clean out car

Hmm lots more to do but I think that's pushing it. :)