December already! Fledgings will sleigh the pre-Christmas clutter (and eat all the mince pies)

[GoingGoingGoth]

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 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!

Thanks to BlueEyeshadow and SlimChance for the November thread.

All welcome!! And remember that December is the new January!

Gawd Rowingboat I'm obviously losing my marbles ... Dixon of DG impression doesn't really work in the evening does it ?

Slimchance I am actually loving the nativity stuff here, minus of course the costume angst. Where I grew up, there were Christmas programmes in school and Christmas programmes in church. Nativity in church only. Never church stuff in school. People practically had kittens over it. I enjoy the crossover of the nativity into the school.

Hello I'm back, decided I couldn't face p when he got home with out wanting to physically hurt him, (wouldn't actually but really wanted to) so I took 2 kids and went to a friends, feared that if I took ds2 then I would get done for kidnap as he's not legally mine, but after a few beers with a friend when kids were tucked in and a chinese takeaway (slimming world has gone out of the window) and a bad nights sleep, I got home this morning and he had decided to take the day off work in order to sort things out. I was even more angry as it turns out he is overdrawn again, cue shouting at him in front of kids, (hangs head in shame, brought the kids sweets out of guilt, yada yada) and going to school with a sore throat. I got home and was able to speak to him without shouting. He was apologetic and full of promises, I swear if he breaks them I will leave him. but on the upside, I got home to a spotless house, as he'd been up all night fretting that I had left him for good and he needed something to take his mind off it, he even cleaned the bin!!!

Well done Slim I am mightily impressed by your linguistic skills

Swan great news. Congratulations on new arrivals.

Alice I'm actually quite nostalgic for nativity as we couldn't get away with it here as International School and must avoid all mention ofthe C word

Ta da
Work
3 sets of marking/feedback before/after lessons
Washing up
Old paper out
Sorted today's post and put away a few stray bits from kitchen/dining table
Family photo in front of Christmas tree (DH got his tripod down and everything)
Chased up email about photos (apparently I forgot to put my house number in the order - oops!)
Checked email
Drove DH demented by starting to sing my favourite things (I can blame you lot for that!)
DS in bed

To do
Should sort out script for teacher's performance and song for leaving colleague, and check scripts for class performances.....
Shower and wash hair
Layout clothes for tomorrow
Waiting for postNL man to arrive with my package

Thanks but don't be too impressed Engels given the amount of time I've lived here, my language skills are pretty poor really ... but today was good because it's the humour I miss .. can't really do it unless you are confident of all the nuances etc (which I'm not) ... and then you are afraid of making some cultural faux pas so you end up being a bit passive/timid really ... which becomes rather tedious/frustrating after a while hence me blurting on here a lot.

Ohhhhh ... I do like the thought of imminent parcels! Bet it will look fab! Your list reminds me that I must get a 'Christmas' pic of dd ready to send to trillions of cousins ...

Bit extreme of you Gossip to go through all of that just to get your bin cleaned ....very clever strategy though !! Just kidding!!! Seriously, glad you had the opportunity to talk x

Kind of the reverse here Alice dd goes to very religious school but no hint of a nativity play! (There is a Christmas card competition, and a Christmas market, and a carol concert, but no play ... bit odd but there you are.) Hope yours goes well anyway!

Just about survived maths project with three ten year olds - pizza used to demonstrate fractions before being consumed. Last one has just left and dd's gone up to bed. Bit jealous of dh tonight because he is off on a jolly with all his colleagues making an Italian three-course dinner at a cookery school and then eating it! So it's off to admire Michel Roux and his sausage cooked three ways ... ...

G'night all!

Leaving on naughty corner bar - help yourselves

(don't normally drink Mon-Thurs but what the heck - it's that time of year)

Ta da
Spent half an hour laying down in DS's room as I woke him up byt turning the hall light off and he went into full on meltdown "MAMA!" mode in his bedroom.
Signed for parcel and dress is amazing but way too nice to wear to work on a normal day so will try and whip it out for end of term do with parents and students next week (though I should be sweating it out backstage in blacks!) It's this... topvintage.nl/nl/vintage-retro/50s-momo-swing-dress-eggplant-black-polka-dot?
Now just have to wait for my boots!
Shower and hair
Laid out clothes for tomorrow

Too tired to work on teacher's performance so will try and be creative and get some done during lessons tomorrow

LINKS FOR 11 DECEMBER 2013

*
Babystep 11 is to add an Insprarational page to our Control Journals.

This week we are in Zone 2 Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room. Detailed cleaning list for those that can be bothered here

Sneak Peek for the week's missions, today's is attack to the sink with a toothbrush.

Wednesday focus is Anti-procrastination day so go do those awful jobs you know you've been avoiding.

December's monthly habit is Pampering.

Flight Plan for today.

*
Christmas Holiday Cruise Mission 8 is a choice of 2 missions, to either prepare your guest room or check your serving dishes are clean/shiny.

Phew, children safely tucked up - Ds1 being a complete football hooligan atm incredibly loud and cracking bad jokes all the time about bad films

done
loaded dw
picked up ds2 from school by car
nap before that
unpacked vegetable box
food recycling
wash in
exercise

and an exciting drama - at 6pm , ds2 found he had taken a classmate's bag home - cue search for classmate's house (we aren't allowed any nos of classmembers unless we find them out ourselves) luckily a bit of detective work yielded his address in the homework diary. And it was only about 20 mins away. Cue a long walk/bus journey at 6.30pm escaped making supper

Felt very guilty about poor boy's missing bag and what he must have been through in past two hours searching for it and wondering where it had gone. However when I dropped if off he looked distinctly peeved as if he had been hoping to get out of the homework . His mother was very grateful though I felt she should have expressed some exasperation at my annoying son. Ds2 certainly was screaming with horror when he discovered he had the WRONG bag - this classmate seemed much more phlegmatic. The contents of his bag were certainly considerably neater - no scrunched up bits of paper for a start

I must admit I kept thinking it would be no great loss if Ds2's bag never turns up, as his books are full of illegible writing and computer printouts (which are still on the computer saved) But I'm sure the bag will turn up tomorrow [sigh] and then we'll have to start work again.

In the meantime, we did
French
English
ICT (at school)

SUMMARY

Everyone has been chatty today!

[Sneaks in after the round-up and pretends she's been here all day]

Not much Flying today, but have managed:

All morning at school for "mathemagician" - less exciting than it sounds.
Made weird cross-over gingery butternut pork quinoa pasta thing - actually quite tasty
First carol service of the year with choir
Cleaned up kitchen
Teensy bit of work.

Highly relieved not to be expected to provide any costumes for school plays, but have just realised next choir carol concert clashes with DS1's school play! Aagh!! [Adds "find babysitter" to tomorrow's to do list.]

Glad DS1 made it in to school, Toffee.

Good to hear of multilingual puns too, SC.

Big waves to everyone else. Night all.

I was going to go to bed 2hrs ago. And then I opened pinterest. least i have a few days before i have to stick to baby step 17.

Right water and sleep... Busy busy day tomo.

Ta-da!

Morning routine, school run etc
Pilates class
Town for errands
Home for lunch
Various admin/email/paperwork tasks plus cleared a lot of stray paper into recycling
Ran vac round
Few more Christmas things out of loft
Wrote more Christmas cards and a couple of birthday cards
Booked DD's birthday party for Jan.
School run
Tea for DCs
Baked cakes with DCs
DS and friends to Cubs
Took DD to Sainsburys to do her Christmas shopping
DCs to bed
Made Jamie Oliver Make ahead gravy for Christmas - smell has driven cats bonkers.
Glugged mulled wine
More Christmas cards (nearly all done now)

Off to bed now, night all.

Only flying I did today was in a plane! Twice!

I SAW THE REAL SANTA!!!!!

Spent the morning working, then went to DS2's nativity and - surprise! - he was in the front row. I have never had such a good view of him in the Xmas concert before .

Dropped MIL back home, before going into town to post some work stuff, then catch up on Xmas shopping. Have managed to tick more people off the list.

Came home to find DH had cleared up the kitchen and done the washing up .

Very busy day tomorrow and the next day. I have made a long Bitchy-style list so that I don't forget anything. Glad that tomorrow is anti-procrastination day because I have a lot on that particular list.

Have just developed a cold sore, which is annoying, so I'm slathering on the cream and hoping it won't turn into anything worse. There is only so much make up can cover up.

Congratulations on the arrival of your twin nieces, Swan. Sorry I missed that announcement earlier.

Wow, you did it! Fantastic news, silly. Am so happy that you made it. Did J like Santa?

In the words of Hugh Grant "fck, fck, fckity, fck"! Just pushed the wrong button and my post was deleted. Just rounds up the sh*tty day I've had perfectly!!!

Noticed at school run time that my car had a flat tyre (luckily not needed as school literally round the corner), so then spent 2 hours - even with the help of a manly neighbour - trying unsuccessfully trying to undo the nut that holds the spare tyre under the car . So tomorrow I am going to have to upgrade my AA membership or find a local tyre service that will come to the house and sort it out.

DD had Brownies tonight and as it was their Xmas party with Chinese food she didn't want to miss it so had to shell out £15 for a taxi to take us 5 miles to the next village . Oh the joys of living in the middle of nowhere! I sat quietly in a corner and then we waited for DH to leg it back from work to collect us.

The evening then ended in a real high with me in tears and screaming at DH in anger and frustration! He is out on Friday at a works Xmas do and was telling me he was cancelling going to a works quiz night tomorrow (apparently he told me about this one at the weekend - but as I was out for most of it I don't know when!). This was on top of him finishing work early yesterday to go to London to see some old works colleagues. Being as one of these was complicit (or at least guilty of not saying anything to support him to save her own soul) 3 years ago when he was thrown out of a job for no other reason than his "face didn't fit". I let all the anger and frustration and pain I have felt since then out and now I feel like a wrung out dishrag .

Not sure that the "talk" we had afterwards resolved anything as he HATES his current job and brings home all his frustration and disappointment on at least a bi-daily basis.

I think I need to put a magic wand on my Xmas list as neither of us have the energy to carry on like we are

Silly so so glad you all got to go on your trip.

Silly - that's fantastic, so glad you made it, do tell us all about it later, please!

Toffee - just got a cold sore here as well .

Dizzy - hope today turns out better. There are mobile tyre fitters around, I've used one before. Sounds as though you really needed to get all that off your chest.

Busy day in prospect here, got to take DCs to school, run DH to work as it's his Christmas do tonight and he's taxxiing back, drive car to garage for a service, go to work myself (5 mins walk from garage ), retrieve car, retrieve DCs, make tea and get them back to school for 6.30 for their show.

I'm not going to the show tonight, we're going tomorrow, so I will get a couple of hours to myself this evening, which will be weird!

Busy day today, compounded by the fact that DS1 is home ill from school. He's actually just tired and draggy with a slight fever, so will probably spend most of the day tucked up on the sofa watching telly and playing on the ipad. He basically needs rest to fight off a viral infection that seems to be trying to settle in his lungs, aggravating his asthma.

I have a huge list of things to do. I've already started some, but will put my to dos and ta das on in a bit, at the very least after school run.

Morning all!

Just popped on to say "oh that is fantastic Silly!!!!!" So happy you got there!! That's made my day!

Dizzy sorry things are still difficult at home

Good luck with your busy days ahead Whoknows and Toffee

Whoknows I'm definitely going to check out Jamie's make-ahead gravy on line ...have you had it before? I always make the stock one or two days in advance, but didn't realise you could freeze entire gravy 3/4 through cooking process - wd be v. convenient.

[Sticks extra strong brew under nose of Bitchy] [I couldn't sleep last night either - was up till sodding 2.30 am having gone to bed at midnight]

Another gorgeous dress Engels!

Another gorgeous round-up Goth!

Hope ds2's bag turns up Swan

Stillwearingoldsocks ie cold meats (including turkey) glazed ham etc with chutneys, and lots of fresh accompanying salads ie fennel and endive with strong honey/mustard/lemon or orange dressing, can always add hot element (new pots, tiny chipolatas?). Cheese board on side?. Followed by trifle or fresh Christmassy fruit salad: pineapple, mango, pomegranate, with loads of lime juice and a lot bit of jollop? Any good?

Alternatively, but might be a bit rich only one day after Christmas, duck breasts are always useful for mass catering. Cold duck has a delicious flavour. Can roast in oven day before in hot oven (crispy skin), and then thinly slice cold kind of cross-wise with above dressed endive and fennel salad, watercress etc or make loads of celeriac and potato mash and a port and redcurrant faux gravy reduction thingy, ie redcurrant jelly, port, dollop mushroom ketchup, duck cooking juice, maybe bit of chicken stock etc??? Maybe???

Big waves to Blue and everyone else!

Those friendly builders (not) on the street have kindly turned off our water supply between 7.30am and 11 am today [really convenient time to do it ] having only giving us notice overnight; fortunately we are all usually up and dressed by then anyway but no dw or wm this morning which is a bit of a bummer.

Anyway, I'm in a bad mood now because there is no avoiding sorting the home office until dd comes home at lunch time - so I have 3.5 hours straight... just do not know what to do with the stuff that is in there.. [SC looks around her in horror] [wibbles]

Wish me luck - this is not going to be pleasant ...

Have a good day everyone!

Alice hope your ds recovers soon - and all the other poorly dc on here

Stillwearingoldsocks sorry - that should have started with "we usually go for cold buffet on boxing day too" ie etc

hands over to Goth