Flying into September - a new term for the Fledglings

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Welcome to the September Fledgling Flylady Thread.

This thread is for people with CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome). We follow Flylady, the website with a mission!

All are welcome on this thread, experienced flyers and newcomers alike.

We try to follow the commandments of Flylady as we run our homes, loosely anyway. In between there's lots of chat and support as we go through our daily lives. We have coffee, cake, and a naughty corner for those who want to chat but CBA with their house some days. However you follow it, this thread is designed to make your life a little easier and more fun.

For those who are new to the system (and those needing a refresher), there are several aspects to the system:

1. Babysteps. These build a routine. Some are really useful, some are downright odd and some are, quite frankly, there to be ignored. They build a good foundation though.

1. Decluttering. Flylade is evangelical about clutter. In order to feel good about our homes we need to ditch the clutter. Flylady divides the home into zones, week by week and repeating monthly. As well as babysteps, we have to declutter in the relevant zone. Once that is achieved we move on to...

1. Missions. Also in the current zone, these are targetted tasks to tackle one particular aspect. One a day, they vary month to month.

1. Deep Cleaning. Once we have completely decluttered (some of us seem to be stuck permanently on that stage) there are deep cleaning lists for each zone. Achieve that and your house will be spotless!

One last thing - the Flylady website encourages us to subscribe to her emails - one word - DON"T! You will be overwhelmed by them. Instead come to this thread every morning and the relevant links for the day will be there waiting for you except when the thread leader has been on the

A big thank you to Bitchy for last month, and also for doing this Sunday's links as I am off camping.

Has he been assessed for dyslexia Swan? Out of the box thinking is difficult. Ds was struggling with that last night. It was an open ended task you the sort write a description about character of book. He needed to infer personality traits etc thankfully he was in a good mood and allowed me to ask targetted and pointed questions to help him focus his thinking. eg is he nice how do you know kinda thing. I like your suggestion. Dm used to do that for me, but she also dropped my form tutor/head of year an email to express her concerns about my problems with completing the homework. Admittedly in the end she gave up and I ended up with a private tutor to help me. But it is tough. Could he dictate his homework and complete it in the form of ideas and mind maps rather then written prose? So the focus isn't on the writing at all, the focus is in helping to get the thought process more targeted?

Today I have a huge ta da list!

Paperwork
food shopping.

Just heading out for a meeting and will then sort tea before ds to training and yet more meetings.

I find days like this can be really frustrating as there is little to show for it BUT the meetings are essential so really I need to stop being such a prefectionist and giving myself a harm time when really there is no need.

Not much Flying happening here, but lots of other stuff going on. Sorry for being AWOL.

Yesterday's huge list means there is less to do today

Ta Da
Put washing out on line (about 4 loads including the stuff that didn't quite dry yesterday)
Wiped around kitchen
Wiped around bathroom and toilets
Went to work
Dusted bedrooms
Brought dry washing in ready to iron
Booked Tesco home delivery slot
Filled bird feeders and watered pots and hanging baskets in the front garden

To Do
Wash dishes
Meet DS2 from school at 3.30 with his trumpet and music stand to take to wind band
Collect DS1 and DD from after school craft club at 4.30
Make dinner
Send DS1 on the bus to his piano lesson (he will meet DS2 and DH in the swimming pool as DS2 has a swimming lesson after wind band)
Massive ironing pile for while I am watching GBBO.

But first I am going for a run.

Hi all. Sorry to be a numpty. Have just prepared a word doc (a folding leaflet) for office in small font type with loads of boxes to put other bits of text in etc. Now I've finished and saved it, and gone back in to Internet, all the type on the screen has gone tiny too! Does anyone know what I've done and how to reverse it please? Thanks v. much!

Any chance of control + fixing it? (from a bigger numpty)

Thanks Just! Have just been to station and back to fetch dd and it seems to have fixed itself in my absence (before I had time to try your suggestion). I have no idea how that happened ....

So what happened to my long post this morning??? I even read it after I had posted it......well, I seem to remember reading it.

Well, today has not gone at all to plan, so as you did not see the plan that is quite alright!

Today I have been left speechless!!!! For anyone who knows me in RL this statement would have you in total shock!!!
I have been called by our local council for an appointment on Thursday morning to prove that I am not an illegal immigrant!! For goodness sake!!! I have lived on the Island for 43 of the last 47 years! (3 years nurse training between the age of 18 - 21 and last year in Cambodia) I am as Islander as they come. I have paid council tax every month while we were away and yet I need to prove that I am an islander. I don't know whether to be offended myself, or whether to laugh!!! It will be interesting to see what questions they ask on Thursday.

I have had a lovely day actually, I went for lunch with DD3 and have spent the rest of the day doing enjoyable work at home on the laptop - it needed doing cos the laptop is now going in to be fixed tomorrow and I don't know when it will be returned to me......or if!!! If it is dead then I am going to have to wait til after Christmas to get a new one and pray that my dad gives me money for Christmas as he had done for the past few years, but I don't want to be greedy and assume anything!! That would be a total pain for the work I am trying to build up, too.

SC glad you got your font sorted...I was just getting ready to type out a reply when I noticed your update.

Huge waves to everyone, sorry for lack of personals.

Oh, forgot to mention - I had a phone call today and a lovely friend is coming to take all my junk to the tip tomorrow morning and he is then taking me to lunch!!! Result!!!! - I should add here he is a good friend, but a whole lot younger than me, happily married and more of a "son" than anything else - he actually lived with us for a while 13 years ago, nothing going on......just if anyone was putting 2 and 2 together and making 28!!!!!

Evening all. Good day in elliepac land today. Work was lovely, kids were lovely and meetings productive. Actually have a ta da list as well.

Ta da:/
Washing on
Maintenance tidy downstairs
Dinner cooked and cleared away
Washing up
Bathed DD
Work
Packed lunches made

Small but mighty.

Back later. Got to put DD to bed.

Is 28 his perchance PA

Best thing to say here is that everyone is still alive and it is now bedtime.

My maths was never up to much PA! Enjoy your lunch
Arf at your potential illegal immigrant status Perhaps you will be made to answer in-depth questions about tomato-growing and chines ... .

Yay to your productive days Ellie and Jemima!

Ditto Bitchy have been out of the house most of the day or doing work work with nowt much to show for it Flying-wise (nothing remotely related to my list anyway). Lovely weather to be out in though. Hope meetings bearable.

Sorry things are tough for ds2 at school Swan. Apologies if you already know about this (you may have even recommended it on here!) and just ignore this post if no use at all but Noel Janis-Norton's book, 'Calmer, Easier, Happier Homework' has several chapters on comprehension, writing, hand-writing, spelling and punctuation etc. Would be happy to send if helpful. (I've never been in a calm or happy enough state to read through it all )

Thanks again Just (will remember control + solution just in case)

Waves to Toffee HOpe all OK

And hope stairwell painting went ok Pushme

DD had a fabulous school trip and came home full of beans bursting to tell us everything they had done. But once she had eaten she was so tired she could hardly speak and had to be virtually lifted up the stairs to bed

Big wing flaps to everyone else ...

Just finished watching GBBO and v. sorry to see Eeyore Howard leave as he was my favourite ... wasn't too sure about his hemp flour cow pat currant bun though or his un-peachy buns ...

Oh SC - I was just about to watch Bake-off! Never mind. We've been saving it for Friday evenings as they are the only time we are all usually at home early evening, but probably going out this week.

Anyway, busy day here, not too much Flying, but here's a quick ta-da list.

3rd load of washing on line from last night
Morning routine
School
haircut
pilates class
shopping (errands)
lunch
more decluttering
pump up bike tyres
find ballet kit
DCs from school
hour of arguing about homework . She did it in the end, but frankly it was not up to scratch.
ballet with DD (cycled)
Home for tea and get washing off line
Cubs with DS and his friends, stayed to help then took all the boys home, back at 8.30.

DS to bed
Bit of crocheting.

Off upstairs in a minute to iron and put away all the clean clothes.

Links for Wednesday.

Babystep - read Flylady's personal testimonial. Go on, you know you want to.

Mission - more decluttering in the master bedroom.

Back from parents' meeting. A social occasion to met some of dd's friends and their parents. Sorted out annoying paperwork issue (none of school letters getting through to me!)

Bitchy thankyou for your feedback, it really helps to know what others can cajole their los into doing . Also I just need to admit to school how badly he writes and swallow my pride if he turns in gibberish.

SC I was chortling as she was the woman who wrote the book I was quoting at poor Whoknows earlier . Didn't know she wrote a special book on homework, although there were chapters in the other one, which I think I blanked out as they seemed impossible to enforce...I need to work on my ishoos here as basically I disapprove of homework [wobble] and I'm sure my children get a sulphurous whiff of my true emotions.

better go to bed!

Oh no Whoknows so sorry to post a spoiler. Extremely thoughtless of me. I win double numpty of the month award now

Your ta da list puts me to shame too ... you've done loads!

PA Meant to say ... I'm sure I read your earlier post too... that is so wierd that it has disappeared.

Oh no Swan don't tell me, that was the "say it once and give up" book wasn't it? [Treble numpty of the month award]

G'night all!

Waves from the naughty corner - have done zero flying for days. Do have an excuse though - the Dyson's broken and we're waiting to see if they'll answer DH's email about a replacement part. How thrilling is that?!

Tomorrow will be lots of errands in the morning and hoping the threatened promised work turns up in the afternoon instead.

Glad DD had a good time, SC.

Bitchy - glad everyone still alive at least!

Re: GBBO I didn't like Howard either and wasn't sorry to see him go. In the beginning I thought he would last quite a long time and annoy me for weeks so I was happy to be proved wrong.

Ta Da
School uniforms in the tumble dryer (raining here again)
DS2's swimming kit and my running kit in the washing machine

To Do
Wash dishes
Wipe around kitchen
Wipe around bathroom and toilets
Dry rest of washing
Ironing
Make Shepherd's Pie for dinner
Chase up DD's missing homework bag (which also contains 2 library books - aaargh!)

But first I need to go to work. Hope you all have a good day!

Another one pleased that Howard has gone. I am also getting increasingly annoyed with Ruby giving the "sorry - it is rubbish" pathetic look. I really liked her for the first couple of weeks, now she grates on me.

SC - so pleased that I am not the only one who read my post yesterday - or are we both going insane????

I read your post PA I find all the Kafkaesque aspects of local government/law and order bloodcurdling/amusing. We had the police tell us off for having green things in our front garden which might conceal burglars Obviously the ideal house to have to prevent crime was a concrete forecourt And we have never been burgled in the last 15 years, whereas five other people in the street have... There must be some simple computer programme which picks up people who have come from Far East in last year and checks their status, and that's how they have decided to check you out. Weird but scary too that we are all being watched...

Well today has been a bit hairraising. Ds2 had nervous breakdown at breakfast over some bit of homework that he had forgotten to do last week and had a lesson for today. ICT of course, therefore impossible for technodinosaur parents to solve, resulting in DH having a breakdown too and screaming and swearing that he wasn't going to spend every waking moment just dealing with homework. Ds2 locked himself in bathroom with school refusal-itis, I was crying, Dh was shaking. Needless to say we pretended ds2 was sick today as there was really no other solution. This is the culmination of the last three weeks of ds2 getting increasingly tense about his homework - so I am going to ring up the SENCO today and talk it all through. The issue today was that neither of us knew how to save some work on an Memory Stick but it could have been anything, a malfunctioning printer, a lost book, a computer that sticks...Ds2 cannot deal with these problems and I don't SEE WHY WE HAVE TO FEEL SO STRESSED BY SCHOOLWORK!!!!! aaargh rant over...school is meant to be good for ds2 not a source of screaming.

done
Dd off to school bright and early, dh walked her to the tube
Ds1 off to school with everything signed, including permission for a Rugby match tomorrow Yay!

Oh Swan - that puts my homework problems in the shade, poor you. Hope you manage to speak to the SENCO and get some plans in place for how to deal with it from now on.

I'm procrastinating, I have loads of cleaning to do. So, need to make a public to do list and spur myself on

To do. By midday. When I need to go to Sainsburys.

Clean bathroom
Clean kitchen counters and floor
Hoover downstairs
Dust
More washing

Home blessing basically.

Got a home visit this afternoon from the cat rescue (we have decided to go ahead with the cat/kitten acquisition).

WhoKnows a new cat/kitten?
Sorry all sensible comments to everyone else have just gone out of the window. sensible, who am I kidding

Nearly done at work now, just have to go in on Sunday, will make sure freezer is defrosted/switched off and everything clean, just in case I get a job there again next year. God help whoever gets it if I don't

Done
Morning routines
Dd to school
Greengrocers
Made hummus!

To do
Make a veggie casserole for dinner tonight - with dumplings
Weekly bleugh
Ironing
Laundry load - not rushing it's damp outside so back to drying in the flat
Collect DD
Supervise homework
DD to Woodcraft

re GBBO, I really thought Glenn would go this week, I think Howard when because his peach buns (which looked amazing) were such a disappointment. And Ruby is getting to be so annoying (although her buns did look overcooked)

Does getting the car in for service/MOT count as flying? I had to clean 4 carrier bags of rubbish out of it first...

swan sorry about the homework nightmare.

whoknows squeeeee about new kitten!