Feisty Fledgling Flyers flutter through Feb with flair, finesse, flaws, failures, fortitude, feedback, fiascos, fabulousness, friendship and fun!

[sanschocolat]

[The fiascos are all mine btw !!]

And just for Just, February is the new January that was the new January before

If you are struggling 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 and cake 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 something 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!

It’s up to you, but 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!

Points to keep in mind:
(1)No perfectionism allowed - this is harder than you would imagine
(2)You are never behind just start where you are and anything you do is progress.
(3) It didn't get into a mess overnight, it won't get tidy over night - accept it will take time to get on top of things and you will be happier.

Humungous thanks to Bitchy for steering us through the hectic January thread and for the wise three-line mantra above.

All regulars, lurkers and newcomers welcome!!

Sans I take myself off for Time Outs sometimes, you know when it's a case or "them or me". Is 10yrs too young to let them be responsible for their own hwk and then suffer the consequences from the school if they don't do it? Or is that harsh?

I walk away sometimes too SC - otherwise I might explode. If DH is here sometimes I walk right out the door and into town. Otherwise I too hide on the computer.

Feeling depressed about the state of the house again. When I took the cats to the vets yesterday he found that one of them had fleas, I have been busy googling and horrifying myself with regimes that say "just hoover and spray the entire house every day for two weeks, including all the edges, behind and under all the furniture, all the beds oh and wash every soft item in the house at 60C". Well, I would love to have a house tidy enough to do that (and a non-leaky WM) but as things stand every room has furniture around every wall, if not actual furniture then storage boxes etc, the sofa and beds are too heavy for me to move, as for the general clutter, the DCs room seems to be permanently awash with stuff on the floor. It seems impossible to keep this place tidy.

Patty - I have that tendency too and can fritter away an empty day very easily, I am definitely more efficient with a busy schedule.

Sorry, am aware that I am being a bit me,me,me this week. Someone boot me up the bum.

Who - put a cat flea collar in your Hoover so any fleas hoovered up die. We have one cat and once this cat pops it's clogs we won't be getting any more for a number of reasons. Apparently it is cats that tend to bring fleas into the home rather than dogs.

Patty, thanks, good idea, will buy one tomorrow, actually might pop out to the supermarket and see if they have one later. I am hopeful that we aren't too infested as we have been treating the cats monthly and haven't seen any evidence other than flea dirt in the cat's coat (eggs in bedding,or cats scratching, or us scratching, or actual fleas). I've ordered some spray. Might give the cats an extra dose of flea treatment too.

Thanks Whoknows and Peanut I'm really comforted to know it's not just me. (And I should go out for a walk as I'm still really angry atm. ) Just feel like saying "well if you don't care about getting in to year 6, then why should we?".

I'm just generally feeling crochety/demoralised atm because going to see educational child psych tomorrow re: dd school & anxiety etc. Went to see headmistress in advance yesterday who gave me a list of six things that she perceives as wrong with my child. Feels like one huge parental fail on top of another .

Oh sorry to hear about the fleas Whoknows. I like the "just" in "just hoover and spray the entire house every day for two weeks etc etc" . Sounds like a bit of a nightmare. I'm sure the cat owning fledglings will be along soon to offer good advice!

Peanut thx - we've tried letting her fall on her own sword etc - in fact the school suggested it themselves. But when we did it in reality and dd forgot to take in hwk, or just didn't do it, we then got notes home or lectures about parental involvement.

Btw Peanut I think you are being very harsh on yourself. It's very hard to Fly and look after los at the same time. (It's natural that chores are the last thing you want to do in any rare free time you have!) I must admit to being much better with time management when under pressure too. The ideal for me was working 3 days and at home 2 days.

Wow Thinking101 you are on a roll! Hope you survived your long list!! Take it steady now!! And best of luck for Friday!!

Crikey Toffee that is a humungous list too!

Hope you feel better soon Bitchy!

Alice >"Spot clean? No such thing. I agree - you'll clean the whole thing. You know you will!!"
I agree - it is a Fat Fairy conspiracy - like hoovering up the middle of the room - you always end up doing the corners!!!

Arf at delittering Castle that would actually apply to my home office I'm afraid

Big waves back to Sillybilly Take it steady!!

Big waves to Eustacia Swan and eveyrone else!

Whoknows don't apologise (I'm writing 'me' 'me' posts every day )

Thanks btw Swan I must remember to put my 'customer' hat on next time I visit the school! Hope you can catch up on sleep tonight.

Dizzy so sorry to hear that your dd hasn't been selected - after all the work you both put in. To miss out by half a second is such tough luck! She's still done really brilliantly well to be so high in the ranking though. I hope she isn't too upset x

Yes, thanks for explanation re: multi-coloured Mumsnet logo! I was wondering aobut that too!

Hope I haven't missed out anyone!

WhoKnows - your comment on taking time out made me laugh: If DH is here sometimes I walk right out the door and into town.

Peanut - me too. In fact, the only reason I had a long list this morning was because a friend was visiting for lunch and I was embarrassed at the state of the house.

SC - am about to PM you.

Dinner ready. BBL.

Here I am. Coming on to whinge again. As if we haven't got enough on our plates, a whole load of apex tiles have just been blown off the roof. Unfortunately one of them also smashed through the rear windscreen of the car as well. FFS. Pissed off doesn't quite cover it.

whoknows - treat cat with frontline combo, hoover whole house (disturbs them) then spray with acclaim flea spray. hoover every other day. respray in two weeks.

comb the cats and wipe on wet kitchen roll. flea dirt will turn pink. comb every day until no mote evidence

Eustacia - thanks, yes, that's what the vet did to detect the fleas. What is Frontline Combo? I have to be careful what we use as one of them as had a bad reaction to Advantage. I've ordered Indorex flea spray and hot washed all their bedding. It's the hoovering every other day that makes my heart sink! I do the middles of the rooms that often, but the edges fairly rarely because of having to move so much stuff.

Ok, just googled, it is a different active ingredient from Advantage.

Maybe this is what I need to get me decluttering again.

Oh no Ellie. Come and join me in Whingers Corner

every time there is a gust another one flies off

oh SC I'm joining you in thinking that energy to convince children what is good for them is in limited supply.

BUT I don't think you can lead a horse to water. They may decide they want to come back and have a drink later, but not when you are hauling them. I think children get very worked up and the more worked up they are and convinced of something, the more useless it is to try and reason with them. Then when you think all is lost, they miraculously are in the mood. But never when YOU choose.

I am sitting in a v messy house
I've helped at Beavers (Valentines Cards)

and I've managed to get ds2 to write 5 sentences on the difference between Michael Craig Martin and Patrick Caulfield, keeping the whole exercise extremely SMART. He seems happy enough with the process once he knows it is going to be over in 20 mins. That is his concentration span. DH mentioned to me that ds2 is starting to be only interested in work that he has done himself..forged stuff he barely glances at. It is a real sea change for us..and a very good example of Fake it Till You Make it, in that we had to go through the forgery stage to even get him to sit down and start his work last term. Now he feels more confident that there is going to be a "result" he is much happier to participate.

oh dear better go - need to take off my anorak and do some housewifely duties, like putting kids to bed, washign etc.

whoknows we have three cats, hoovering is minimal, and the fleas are minimal too. You'll be fine.

done
oh yes, had a typical scene with dd. She denounced me for not providing her with a pair of running shoes that fit, so I went to Sport Direct on the bus at 4.45pm. Decided that I couldn't stand any more scenes about sportswear, bought her 4 pairs of white football socks (the long nylon ones) 3 gumshields, and then threw in two spare pairs of rugby boots (going up in half sizes) for ds2 fo good measure. NO MORE SCREAMING OVER PE KIT yay!

needless to say dd said the size 7 (that is a ladies size 7) were nearly crushing her toes, and she could wear them for a week but then would probably grow out of them 11 and she is wearing size 7 shoes!!!!! Hopefully they will do for ds2 though.

Thanks everyone for all the cat advice. For those of you who don't know, we're fairly new to this pet-owning lark and are on a steep learning curve. Two one year old rescue cats came to live with us in October, I had a lot of worries the first month or so, then we all settled down now it has all kicked off again this week. We're learning though.

Blimey Ellie you are certainly entitled to whinge (don't think it qualifies as whinging actually as totally legitimate worry!!!) sounds horrible to have bits of roof flying off!! And sorry to hear about damage to car too! That is so unlucky/frustrating!

[Although if there is a "whingers corner" I will happily join if I may please Whoknows ]

Toffee thanks very much for your v. kind pm - have whinged again replied

Good luck with getting rid of the little blighters Whoknows!!

Big wing flaps to Eustacia and everyone else!!

[Checks that thinking101 is still alive following domestic intervention ]

Swan >"They may decide they want to come back and have a drink later, but not when you are hauling them" Yes, yes and oh yes!! I have cut and pasted your entire paragraph and saved it in word so I can refer to it often!! Thank you. That is very wise advice indeed. Trouble is, when dd does come back and is ready, I feel so annoyed about what happened earlier that I am ashamed to say I find it very difficult to respond positively which I know (as the adult) I must do. Must try and do better. Reserves of patience wearing thin.

Congrats to your ds2 and the progress he is making, and on success of your patient 'fake it until you make it' strategy. Reminds me of something Gareth Malone said on here in his Webchat last week. Something about boys especially needing tangible success as motivating force (not sure I have that quite right but was something along those lines).

And sympathies over growing feet frustrations! It is impossible to keep up! (Used to batch buy ballet shoes for same reason.)

*
Tomorrow's baby-step, no 13, for Thurs 13th Feb is an introduction to missions

We are still in zone 3: the Bathroom and one extra room here.

Declutter for 15 mins a day in this zone!

Once you have decluttered, you can if you wish go on to detailed cleaning.

Thursday's mission is here. Cleaning bathroom sink and counter tops. Wiping down light switch plates, door knobs and doors in dc bedroom.

The daily focus for Thursday is: errand day.

The monthly habit for February is still : decluttering 15 mins a day.

A summary of the above plus reminders can be found here in the flight plan which updates itself daily.

G'night all!

Oh ellie I feel your pain

We've lost a couple of tiles and the frame of a fairly sizeable window has blown out. The indoor raining has slowed from earlier on. Hopefully the window will stay in place. It's on our stairs so impossible to avoid as well. Bloody hate this storm! It's ridiculous!

Bloody hell SillyBilly the window frame blew out ???!!! Hope you are all OK and storm subsides quickly x

sans I hear yer re hmk. But at the parents evening my DS teacher was complimentry about the fact omework is always done and on time - which he said is often not the case for many others. It's nice to think our efforts are recognised even though we dont do the bloody things .

Today I have achieved a lot, I had to check myself that i wasnt actually pregnant and that this was nesting . But it's never enough is it the house just takes and takes. I did take apart my Ubend and it's complicated attached pipes that took a while, as did hoovering and shampooing carpet. So tomorrow plenty to do but less big jobs and no nasty dirty ones.

So I have living room that guests can sit in and toilet they can use without reporting me. (Downstair only)

My list for tomorrow

Change curtains over and matching cushions put out coordinating vase.
Kitchen
I still have huge pile of clutter to sort through
Put all bonfire documents in box done
Put box in garage (if it stops raining as it is detached)
Tidy DD's toys in corner storage boxes to buy?
Clean patio doors/kitchen window
Wipe down and polish table/chairs
Wipe over all door fronts/splashback/tiles
Declutter window sill/top of fridge
Empty container under leaky sink done
Wipe round fridge ready for shopping done
Mop floor
bedroom
Tidy clothes into folded piles per person. (biggest job
Store bags and boots in boxes
Sort laundry into piles
Charity shop bag
Change bedding
Dust/hoover
bathroom
Tidy products - find toothbrush tub
Wipe over tiles
Polish mirror/window
Mop
DD's bedroom
Charity shop bag
Fold away into draws/hang up
Dust Hoover
Change bedding
DS's bedroom
Put clothes away where possible
Shut the door

Landing and stairs
Wipe paint work
Hoover stairs

Other
Wait for tesco shop, Yodel, and Next courier.
Shops for toy storage - possibly a trip to ikea
Party decorations up.

sc yes, as best I can tell! There's a massive crack all round it and water was coming in in quite a reasonable amount. It's all still in place for the moment (just!) and I'm desperately hoping it stays so as the window is huge.