Is it October already the fledglings utter? We'll Fly with our broom sticks and start to declutter...

[Slimchance]

If 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 and 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 zones of the house which are designated weekly; defining and minimising housework - which in theory should leave you with loads more time to do someting more interesting 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!

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!

Humungous thanks to Whoknows for leading us through the tricky start to the academic year ....

All welcome!!

Sorry Engels hope you're as ok as you can be

Sorry Engels, it happened to me twice before Ds came along and again before DD did, it's hard .

Ellie - hope FIL's condition turns out to not be too serious.

Ta-da!

Tidying etc
Run vac round downstairs
Make mincemeat
Supermarket shopping
Pilates class
DD and friend to ballet
DS and three friends to Cubs
Dinner - veg box offering (kale stir fried with onion and garlic rejected by all but me).
OU work
Homework supervision with DD, luckily maths, which she likes (and so do I).
Watching GBBO in bed now.

There is a cat fast asleep in the bottom of my wardrobe, going to have to watch out for that as we have one giant wardrobe with sliding doors, a side each, going to have to be careful not to shut cats in.

Sorry to hear that Engels, and about FIL, Ellie.

Waves to Tigger and MilkTrayLady :)

Has been a better day here, although still precious little flying going on. Did get 3 baskets of clean laundry put away though.

Ooh a late stop in from me. Must get to bed, but didn't want to fall off the wagon so soon!

A week of Anti-Procrastination is happening at the castle.
Current mission is to choose photos for our wedding album (some of you may recall me promising to do that over a year ago ).... have spent hours at it tonight and last night. Still not quite there yet though. Determined to have decisions made and emailed off by the weekend!

Ta da: dinner and laundry rebooted. It's a start!

Engels I'm sorry to hear about your bean. Fingers crossed that you're mistaken, hugs x
SC your poor DH, I hope he can be seen to soon.
Ellie hoping that your FiL will be okay.

Weary wingflaps to everyone else x

*

Today's baby-step, no. 16, for Tues 16th Oct is one to ignore because it's about looking at Flylady e-mails. Just keep doing previous, helpful steps.

We are in Zone 3 this week; the bathroom plus one extra room.

Once zone 3 is totally clutter-free, you can go on to detailed cleaning.

Today's mission is: here. 15 mins cleaning bathroom vanity unity and 5 mins de-junking the "dash & stash" room.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day. Do something you have been putting off!

The habit for October is still clearing paper clutter.

Today's flight plan which summarises all the above, is here.

Have a good Wednesday everyone!

Oops, sorry, glaring error there.

Obviously, today is WEDNESDAY 16th, not Tuesday ...

Good morning everyone!

Engels so very sorry to hear about your bean .

Ellie hope your fil is OK and that he recovers well from what sounds like an awful ordeal. Glad cocks mollified yesterday too.

You are definitely on a roll Whoknows! I'm afraid GBBO got recorded here in favour of the footie. Will be watching with dd this evening instead.

Tiger that looks like a very respectable list to me!

[Spies Bitchy among comfy cushions and waves.]

Waves also to Pushme Swan Castle Blue Feetheart Honu Trazzles Just Milktraylady Goth Nicknacks Jemima PA Shakeandvac Refoca Violet MrsFHTC Jdub Mercury and anyone else who is lurking or who I've missed.

Have a good anti-procrastination day fledglings!

Yuurgh. Had awful night's sleep. Was freezing cold all day yesterday (to the point where I was wearing a coat indoors while doing office admin and going out for a walk around the block every so often to get warm!) so stoked up the heating, and then woke up at 4.30am about to combust! Must try and get radiator system sorted!

Dreadfully disorganised this morning too because last night's evening routine was hi-jacked by the footie. If I don't get everything done before I sit down nowadays - it remains undone .

Busy all day yesterday with "immediate" stuff - just not getting to the decluttering. Got to try and pack those 15 mins in there.

Ta da:
demonstrated perfectly why packing a gym kit the night before is better than doing it in a rush the next morning when you are half asleep [left half of it on bed ]
morning routine inc dw, wm, s&s, rabbits, prep for fortnightly ironing lady (who now comes weekly but alternates with cleaning)
caught up with thread

To do:
15 mins power walk [pathetic I know but am hopelessly unfit atm and am building up to more each day]
make more veggie soup
make tray-bake
do big sort of sheets
school run (half day)
proper lunch for dd
hwk supervision
chase dd in to bath
home office desk
surfaces in boudoir - ANTI-PROCRASTINATION ALERT!!!
trip to chemist
admin
office post
30 mins French
30 mins paper decluttering
ring friend
watch GBBO recording
evening routine

Have a good one everybody!

Another quiet day on the flying front yesterday.

• D/W emptied
• Upstairs hoovered
• Shirts/uniform for rest of week ironed
• DD to Brownies
• Tea made and sink shined

Managed to get the top of DD's quilt almost finished. Just 2 borders to add today. Wondering about making DS a quilt with a simple Jack Skellington design and if I can have it finished in time for Xmas

As the footie was on DD and I sat with a laptop each, headphones on, watching GBBO and I confess I cried at the end

Engels ((hugs))

Ellie - glad you got those boys to apologise. Teenagers can be terribly thoughtless sometimes. Sorry to hear about your FIL. Hope he recovers soon.

SC - horrible to have such a poor night sleep . I hope you manage to catch up on sleep today - and get the heating sorted.

Welcome to Tigger and milktraylady.

to all the regulars.

Have seen DS1 off to his first lessons this morning. He was playing it very cool and didn't want any fuss, so we acted as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

I should be making inroads into decluttering all the home ed stuff. But am drinking tea and MN-ing first .

Hope everyone has a good and productive day.

Good morning.

I fucking love ds' sleep meds.

toffee hang onto the home ed stuff for a bit. As fab as Ds1's progress is, wobbles are something that some kids have and you will kick yourself if you declutter too quickly. Otoh Woo Hoo go Toffee's Ds1!!!!!

I have no fucking clue what anyone has written my brain is full of sludgy bleurghy cotton wool. I know what i should be doing but i have no motivation or get up and go.

ta da
at smiley happy chirpy helpful ds this morning as wish it was a quick for me to recover
write envelop for parcel should has sent last week
Make car slightly tidier before taking it to garage
find paperwork for meeting later
sort potential plans for weekend
drink coffee
Sort out possible plan for next week
Write card for parcel
find a few bits for c*s stocking that i put in a safe place and go oh i'd forgotten about that.
Check internet stuff

Write i suppose i should stop procrastinating and get more paperwork done. More importantly get those important email sent.

Need. more. coffee. need more sleep and hours in the day

rest of yesterday went very well,

we had friends round for drink, kitchen looked lovely, stayed up late talking about all manner of stuff, felt very nice to be sociable!
children behaved beautifully as boys were watching football
we woke up late and still managed to get everyone off to school as Dd has two lovely days off school, inset followed by Strike - feeling very pleased that boys' school is so near in emergencies like hangovers!

and I have made inroads on the Boudoir tidying, finally
also made a curry this morning which is in the low oven simmering

WhoknowsI think we forget that we need vitamins too, not just the pesky kids - so a delicious kale meal that only we will eat is still worthwhile! I remember when my thyroid was tested, consultant being very suprised how my B vitamins levels were so good, all thanks to the amount of green leafy stuff and nuts I consumed. Dh rejected last night's stew, as usual in favour of olives and camembert [sigh]

Still procrastinating on the paperwork and emails but have added stuff to the ta da list...

ta da
at smiley happy chirpy helpful ds this morning as wish it was a quick for me to recover
write envelop for parcel should has sent last week
Make car slightly tidier before taking it to garage
find paperwork for meeting later
sort potential plans for weekend
drink coffee
Sort out possible plan for next week
Write card for parcel
find a few bits for c*s stocking that i put in a safe place and go oh i'd forgotten about that.
Check internet stuff
fold odd sock mountain
finish folding
wrap present for parcel and pull all parcel bits together
sort out how to finish dress off that has been abandoned for a while
sort out school trip stuff
Drink far far far too much coffee
finally eat breakfst

A quick flutter through to say Cheerio! Off on my sunny holiday and will return to you all in November-( how the hell did that happen?)

Take care everyone. :)

Thanks for all your good wishes. Have been trying to keep busy today.

castle we got married 2 years ago and still have no wedding photos to show for it!

sc arf at going outside to warm up - our house is naturally very chilly. We are used to it but our visitors are not!

Enjoy your holiday nicknacks

Ta da
Ds packed off to nursery
Retail therapy ( got myself a smart winter coat - sorely needed - some skinny jeans, a cheapo jumper from new look, a snuggly hat and thick woolly tights for the winter and a fabulous 60s style winter dress with owl print)
Hoovered downstairs
Coffee tab2
Watered plants
Yesterday's wash away
Load in machine
What's for dinner - split pea soup defrosting
Episode of Downton

My plans for this evening are to get on with planning my November novel. Going to write a whodunnit so need to come up with some interesting characters (at the moment all I have is the setting and a very vague outline - I.e. there will be a murder ). Today is a non school work day. Tomorrow too I guess as we are heading to the zoo!

All I have done all morning is iron! But at least it is all done (bar a wardrobe full of DH's shirts!) until I have to wash again

Really cross with myself. We had an appointment booked today to get our water pipes checked (new compulsory meter has detected a leak) - I had it in my head that the appt was at 1pm and toddled off to work, at 10.30 thought I'd better check the calendar on my phone, it was meant to be 10 o'clock. Arses. Tried to ring the water board and spend 10 mins on hold, they took down the details but I couldn't actually speak to anyone about it. Got home and found a curt note through the door (don't blame them). Bloody water meter.

Engels - your description of your your novel is highly amusing.

I am feeling ridiculously cold atm. So tired, so cold. And yet there is the joys of parent's evening to go to, and a car to rescue from the garage, which hopefully will be fixed. I have just written the to do list for tomo. BIG mistake. :( going to be a seriously crazy day tomo. Crazy day for fri. Mad crazy exhausting weekend.

Evening all.

A bit of a bumwhacker day. Yet again, did no paper clearing - not even a measly 15 mins - arrrggh!!

[Fluffs up pillows and hands steaming bowl of butternut squash soup to Bitchy] No wonder you are tired after that mahoosive ta da list. Hope you survive the parents evening.

Whoknows really sympathise with utility company probs and all accompanying hassles. Had second round of huge dispute with gas/electricity suppliers today who are threatening to disconnect us because of administrative cock-up by bank (they didn't change standing order as instructed) which has all got very complicated. Then discovered that last month's electric bill was twice what it is normally [an horrendous amount with which you could power a small factory - dh horrified] and suspect there is something fishy is going on. But it is no-one's fault of course and you just bet passed from pillar to post.

In addition, shattered a bottle of very good cognac (I was using it in baking - honestly) all over stone kitchen floor still at least floor will be fairly sterile now.

[Knitting question diversion - if any of you are skilled knitters - pls could you advise on the following:
Received a keenly anticipated scarf that someone kindly knitted for me and it is 80 cm too long (I know) ... but knitted in alternate stripes ... so possibly retrieveable .. I don't know... it's so beautiful I daren't try and separate it in to two in case it all unravels on me. Any ideas?]

On the positive did manage to do:
two loads of laundry
make more veggie soup
made a sultana and spice tray bake
made falafels (which tasted good but texture was wrong)
made quick trip to chemist
school run (half day)
cooked spag bol for dd
did hwk supervision which went remarkably smoothly!
supervised learning of Jacques Prévert poem about two snails attending the funeral of a leaf
supervised recorder and guitar practice
played charades with dd
chased dd in to bath
decluttered bathroom mantelpiece
rang a friend
sent numerous administrative e-mails
made loads of irate admin calls
on-line banking
and my lovely ironing lady came [bliss!]

and am just to go out for power walk or to misquote Flylady, 15 mins of A.L.M (arsing loving movement) and do 30 mins French.

Held over for tomorrow:
surfaces in boudoir -must do this!!
office post - must do this too!
paper declutteirng!!
sort sheets

Top marks for getting to the bottom of the ironing pile Dizzy (well you can delegate the shirts ...) Your quilt project sounds lovely.

Have a brilliant time on holiday Nicknacks! The thought of warm sunshine sounds very inviting right now.

Engels see you have been Flying high! Love the sound of your purchases and v. v. exciting to hear about crime novel!!! Are you going to be setting it in the Netherlands?

Whoknows another one who loves kale here! Can't buy it here, the Belge are v. conservative when it comes to veg.

Swan great to hear you had such a lovely evening last night and that kitchen looked lovely. All your hard work has obviously paid off!

Toffee I completely forgot that it was your ds1's first day back at school today. Hope it went well!!

Big encouraging waves to everyone else!

Back in a mo with links.

**Tomorrow's Baby-step, no. 17, for Thurs 17th Oct is the one about getting to bed at a decent hour. You know it makes sense and so do I but I still don't do it.

We are in Zone 3 this week; the bathroom plus one extra room.

Once zone 3 is totally clutter-free, you can go on to detailed cleaning.

Today's mission is: make an inventory of every product you use regularly in the bathroom for when you run low, plus a 5 min declutter of "dash and stash" room. Is this a new baby-step or have I managed to miss it for the last 3 years?

Thursday is errand day dry cleaner, hairdressers, shopping, opticians, doctors etc.

The habit for October is still clearing paper clutter.

The flight plan which summarises all of the above, will update itself tomorrow.

Have a good day everyone!

*

Note to self: decluttering/tidying dd shoes
Spray new boots
Name tapes on warm tracksuit

G'night all!

Evening all, am trying to catch up on thread, so apologises if I've missed anything.

However I can Engels and look forward to knowing a crime writer.

SC not sure about the scarf, if it were mine I would probably give it a go and wreck it

Ellie

Waves belatedly at NickNacks

Daren't look at Bitchy's lists as normal and Dizzyday's ironing sounds impressive too!

Well parents went back today, so there was a unhappy little girl in the GothHouse (and DD was grumpy too) So we spent the day at the Science Centre, had lots of fun, and are going to the Kids club at the cinema tomorrow to see the new Percy Jackson film.

DD's birthday week is nearly over, she has a friend's party on Saturday and her own on Sunday.
Have remembered to pick up cake for her party, I think she thought I was going to make another one! It was good though

I didn't get the job at Lakeland, probably a good idea, I'd have ended up even bigger. Something WILL come up, and in the meantime I will have an organised house!

Hmm. A day of mixed success.

Ta da!
Stripped bed
Washing
Work
Reassembled Dyson
Put down shake & vac
Started hoovering
Dyson immediately broke again
Went next door to borrow hoover
Finished hoovering
More work
Made soup for lunch
More work
Cooked tea
Zumba
Cleaned kitchen
Got baby stuff out of loft to sort

Got iron out but put it away again as will have to iron maternity clothes for NCT sale and CBA to do ironing twice in one week!

Still need to remake bed.

Going sorry to hear about job. Glad DD had a good week though.

Toffee - hope DS1 had a good day.

SC - sounds like a productive day (apart from the cognac. Wasted alcohol always sad)

Been doing reasonably well at bed at a decent hour so need to get off the pooter now. Waves to everyone else. Night all.

DS1's first day back went really well and he came back all smiley and confident .

Am too sleepy to post anymore, so night all.

fantastic news Toffee

We have had a strange day. Ds2 has been offered a place at his First Choice Secondary, which is round the corner, but we have agonised and agonised and decided not to move him from what is his older brother's school. He feels settled there, it is a very good school, not that far away, and the SENCO is a lovely man. Ds1 loves it, it seems well rounded in what it offers and it is the devil we know! I know the first choice school is just as strict and academic and I don't think the homework situation will be any better there, and from what I hear the SEN dept is no more accessible on a day to day basis for a statemented or unstatemented child (ds is unstatemented) so I can't justify moving him now and putting him through a whole new set of adjustments/personal challenges. Ds2 doesn't want to move anyway being an Aspie he doesn't like change. I think we have made our decision but it is SOO frustrating that this place didn't come up two weeks into term or we would have moved him like a shot. Gah! My friend who is after us on the waiting list and desperately wanted a place too is having the same problem imagining moving HER daughter now, her daughter has settled into her 2nd choice school and doesn't want to move. I suppose that's why waiting lists move so rapidly. What a quandary. Beware of what you wish for, eh.