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!!

Evening!

I've come to the conclusion that my main problem is I'm bloody lazy and constantly tired.

Ta Da's
Filled DW and put on (still had ydays dirty crockery in)
Unload DW and reload with the mountain ink the sink
Two loads of laundry
Family dog walk
Clear up after returning from dog walk - mud everywhere/wet clothes
Feed/clothe/entertain Minis
Quick shop
Entertain Minis
Tidy up toys (sodding Groundhog Day)
Overdosed on coffee and chocolate

To Do
Put away completed ironing from yday (yes it's still in the kitchen)
Finish off ironing (yes it's still crumpled in a bag in the kitchen)
Change MiniPP bedding as have started doing it on a Saturday but forgot today possibly because I forgot it was Saturday
Clean bathroom
Dust our bedroom
Plus a trillion gazillion other outstanding jobs

I've been out all day doing arty-farty stuff so I've done virtually nothing. Did a quick swish in the bathroom and made the bed this morning, and I've cleared up after lazy takeaway tea

DH managed to get DCs to clear up some of the lego in their bedroom and I think he may have put on one load of washing but it's probably still in the machine.

Completely knackered now so nothing more will get done today

Tomorrow's list
Get all school kit ready for Monday
Get my stuff ready for work on Monday
Sort out presentation for Tuesday
Laundry
General Hoover/dust/bleurgh

night all

Quiet day here with minimal flying

Ta Da

• Stripped our bed and remade
• Washed bed linen - and got it out on the line
• Dry clothes away
• DH made lasagne for him and DD then I made lasagne for me. I then washed up my pots and HIS that he had just left soaking in the sink!
• Put remaining lasagnes in plastic tubs after DH just put the half empty dishes straight in the fridge!
• Washed lasagne dishes

[yawns]

Morning all!!

Hope everyone ok. Just woken up (events of yesterday and day before have given me pause for thought) and can't sleep, so thought I'd post links instead!

*

Baby-step no. 23 for Sun 23d Feb is a useful one about adding an afternoon routine to your day/cj.

Today is our first day in Zone 5: The Living Room (Feb 23 – 28) here and for once we almost have a full week in it!

Declutter for 15 mins a day in this zone!

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

No missions because it is the weekend!

The daily focus for Sunday is: renewing your spirit.

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.

Enjoy your Sundays everyone

**

Going to go downstairs and start to tackle the chaos from yesterday's entertaining which was abandoned last night (well at least put on the first dishwasher load) and then go back to bed. BBL to catch up with personals!

Sticking head in to wave to all say Congratulations to PA :-) Bitchy really hope you can get to Dr's and try and look after yourself, Swan hope you're recovering, and Toffee sympathies, and apologies for scan reading thread.

I've lost the plot here and am trying to regain it. Had to leave our disaster zone a few days to come help DD in hers, as flooding, partner in hospital, and then the baby getting ill possibly from flood water contamination took her over the edge of feeling she could cope anymore. Feel horribly guilty that i can't just grab her and the kids and bring them to us, but there's nothing we can do except bring clean up supplies and experience, but can’t pull them out of it.

As a family we're pretty much bottomed out and there’s not a lot I can do about it except try not to feel guilty (as it helps no one) and promote resilience and hope one of us wins the lottery! (we actually did it last night and of course didn't win it)

Threw money at the local travel lodge and we run out today, so just writing huge lists of how to wisely use what time and energy we have left to help here today, and this evening we’ll have to leave them to it and back to our own mess, (with ds's coursework etc not done, ) but hopefully leaving them feeling less overwhelmed and more able to cope, and us feeling less awful. Today’s focus is definitely about renewing spirits.

ta da
bribe ds with new book so I could have lie in
deal with a whole rash of fights and arguments
deal with a pint glass of water that got dropped on landing
dry off the books that got soaked and get ds to sort through them with a view to cull
play hunt the alarm clock when it finally went off
find coffee and try not to grump too much

Today the main priority is do not kill anyone. A bit hard as i seem to have woken up still riled by last night's annoyances. Although this morning won't have helped.

Just - you are doing admirably. So sorry for your DD - a dreadful position to be in with a small baby. Hope baby gets well soon - always such a worry when they're ill.

Bitchy - well done on the bribery for early-morning lie in .

SC - hope your entertaining went well and that you managed to get back to sleep.

This morning, I managed not to turn on the computer until I had to (DS2 needed images for his homework) because I knew I would get sucked into the MN vortex if I did. Yes, I'm here now - but I'm going to drink my tea and then turn it off. Yes - I am. Really.

Ta da

Cuddles and conversation with DS2
Successfully distracted DS2 from wailing about school tomorrow by getting him to talk about Minecraft
Dressed to shoes
Quick trip to local shop
Found clothes for DS2
Breakfasts for everyone
Put first load of washing on
Emptied d/w and reloaded
Wiped down kitchen counters
Emptied kitchen bin
Cajoled/encouraged/badgered DS2 to do his school homework
Found various items required for said homework - pencils, paper, compass, etc.
Almost lost temper over stubborn DS2's refusal to listen to any of my advice and channelled frustration into putting plates away instead
Found odd socks for DS2 to wear for going out
Waved off DS2 (going to his Grandma's for lunch)

I have the house to myself for a couple of hours now (DS1 is here, but busy playing Roblox). So, I need to use this time wisely not waste it on MN.

To do

Quick house bleugh
Prep for school tomorrow
OU work
Laundry
Find DC's socks and pants

BBL.

Just this flooding has caused so much misery for so many people. Never underestimate the value of always being on the end of the phone. It can mean so much. Hope your GD recovers quickly.

Ta Da's
Strip beds
Remade Mini beds
Linen in machine didn't like to turn on whilst out the house as dog walking and with the minis in tow it's always a gamble as to how long the walk will take
Put away some of the ironing that has made its way upstairs

To Do
Wash and TD linen
Remake our bed
Finish ironing
Put done ironing away

Feeling fed up today. I shouldn't of course, as my life is not v difficult.

I visited a friend yesterday with a smaller house, and three children, and had a lovely chatty lunch with her and some other friends, but today I feel the fallout...irritation, jealousy,sadness, that I have not managed to have children that help cook 3 course meals, my house is perpetually messy and none of my family care much whether they drop sweet wrappers on the floor, and that we never seem to go on long healthy hikes in the country air as other families purport to do!!!

Dd is still being quite testing. She is back to being cheery and nice again now, and has bought her ingredients for chilli con carne from the supermarket, all by herself (homework project..they are making it at school tomorrow) but the perpetual strop factor is wearing me down... I was doing well dealing with her yesterday (she refused to come out to lunch with me yesterday and we came up with a a Plan B) as boys went to football with their Dad. And today it just seems like I cannot draw a breath without another crisis erupting. Today it was ds2 trying to open the latch on the bathroom door with one of dh's CD's

Just Grannies cannot be bomb proof - you have all your own responsibilities to deal with, and I'm sure the help you did give was invaluable. My mum has sometimes been incredibly helpful and sometimes she didn't deliver...but as you say it breeds a long term resilience. I remember one happy scene when ds2 ate a firelighter in her house at 7am and she was very helpful and numerous scenes when she drove ds1 to hospital for me in Ireland, and then other times when she wasn't able to bail me out. But knowing she was interested and concerned has made the difference, even when practical help didn't work out, due to her infirmities and location.

Ate a firelighter? I love the casual way you drop that in to your paragraph, Swan. What was the outcome? (And is he now a champion at lighting bonfires? ).

Sorry you feel fed up, Swan. I have also not managed to have children that help cook 3 course meals, my house is also perpetually messy and none of my family care much whether they drop sweet wrappers on the floor or want to go on long healthy hikes in the country air, so you are not alone . I also fret about the contrast between my family life and others', but it is pointless and we are all just doing the best we can with the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Peanut - looks like you are getting a lot done in the house today.

Ta da
Quick house bleugh - hoovered, mopped, swished and swiped, several room rescues
Prep for school tomorrow - laid out clothes for DS2
OU work - started and about to continue it now
Laundry - first load in tumbledryer; second load in washing machine
Find DC's socks and pants - found some at the very bottom of the washing basket where I never look .
Lunch for me and DS1

DH has been to work this morning, but is now back for lunch. Am going to do my OU work, draft a letter to the school, then go shopping before collecting DS2 from his Grandma's.

Toffee no I don't think it made much difference to his fire breathing skills...it has just stayed as a snapshot in my mind, this adorable rumbustious baby crawling into the grate early one morning,[ when I had taken him out of earshot of everyone else in the house who was still asleep (husband, other two children)]...me bleary eyed, sipping coffee..suddenly noticing he was nibbling a firelighter...tiptoing into my mum's room and wondering what we should do next..beautiful early morning in middle of rural Ireland..her ringing A & E to consult (we were 15 miles from a hospital. It is just a happy memory dunno why. They told us to bring him in (as they always do) sigh sigh, we decided to wait to speak to doctor, then we rang the doctor at 8am and he said..he'll be fine....Then various elderly neighbours volunteered that their children had eaten firelighters and been fine...

I've started tidying my bedroom. But given up half way through...it is so depressing in there...
done
made bed
put clothes away
piled up books

Swan - it's funny that that is a happy memory . Your mum must have made you feel safe. I remember my own mum taking charge when DS1 cut his lip open once when he was a toddler. It was the first time he'd had an accident and I froze in panic at the sight of all that blood. She just took him from me, checked the damage and reassured me.

I remember my DS1 chewing on a nail once too. I had baby-proofed the hallway of our flat (I thought) - actually crawled round on my hands and knees on the carpet making sure that it was safe. I had a safety gate fitted on the kitchen door, so I could keep an eye on him crawling around in the hall, playing with his toys, whilst I cooked. All the other doors were shut and there were no stairs, so he was perfectly safe. Then I noticed that he was chewing something, with a thoughtful expression on his face: it was a tack used for securing the telephone wire to the wall. I remember my sense of despair - that no matter how carefully I tried to protect him, I couldn't protect him from everything.

Am stopping my OU work for now and going out. Still very behind in my reading for the course, but am hoping to catch up this week.

Yes, I think because it was because we solved the problem together! And of course, ds2 wasn't upset at all. Now the time ds1 banged his tooth on a tricycle whilst playing with his cousins is not such a happy memory!!

Ta Da:
Visited my poorly horse .
Hiked up the mountain with DH to herd the cows!
Cooked breakfast.
Tramped around building site, viewing future garden unkempt field with trepidation and despair...

Not much flying done this weekend sadly. I have had two laptops repaired and have decluttered and organised all the photographs on the laptop into nicely labelled folders. Determined to do this from now on. Great progress but sadly it was really disguised procrastination - I was supposed to be compiling and ordering z photobook for my sister's Hen party....eek.

Off to hospital to visit DMiL (there since Dec 30th ) and then home to face the Photobook....gulp.

Sending hugs to Swan - do not feel down. Every family is different, Swan. Your family do lots of lovely things together.

Congrats to PA!

Just I'm sorry things are tough. I feel a big like that too. You think that things can't get any worse and then they do!

And apologies and wingflaps to everyone else, thanks for the links Swan

Evening all! Hope everyone has had as good a weekend as poss. Just working my way back through the thread:

Cybermam has been enjoying much deserved child-free time at a day-long art workshop (sounds fab!)

Blue has been making the Tower Bridge out of cardboard... as you do ..

Toffee and Swan exchanged stories about toddlers eating firelighters and nails ... as they do

Engels made cinnamon rolls (yum!) and enjoyed some creative scribbling

Peanut has reached the conclusion that stopping to eat meals and drink coffee interrupts her Flying mo-jo (I'm exactly the same btw). She also worked her way through a mahoosive ground-hog list of tasks thus disproving rather emphatically her own theory that she is lazy. And no shame in feeling justifiably tired neither .

Bitchy managed not to kill anyone this weekend anyway and coughed up half a lung [hope you are feeling much better now]

Whoknows had family fun and adopted the cunning Flying strategy of sending the laundry out to the GPs with the dc! She also went to her first hen party in twenty years ...hope you are not currently tied to a lamp post wearing unsuitable underwear and pink feather boas--

Castle has been hospital visiting (hope your dmil is able to leave hospital soon) tended to a poorly horse and hiked up a mountain to herd cows (and then herded some digital photos in to organised files). (Hope horse is OK?? [worried emoticon]).

Thinking101 tackled a post-holiday crisis clean

Dizzy did a lot of holiday chauffering and enjoyed some snuggle time in front of the telly with her dd

Goth got back on board and learnt how to prune a tree. She then took it upon herself to post pictures of my house on line . (Sorry, I know I shouldn't joke.)

Humanordancer got to grips with plaster dust and played the Krypton Factor with bits of furniture

Alice decided to take control of her house before life took control of her [more power to your Flying elbows]

Toffee indulged in forty winks at the cinema and was understandably thrown in to mental turmoil at the thought of all the statementing hoops she will have to jump through in the next 6 wks but nonetheless managed to work through a v. respectable Flying list today

Just put her own flooding challenges aside to go to the rescue of her dd and poorly gc and undoubtedly gave them a tremendous boost and much more support than she will ever acknowledge to herself Hope your gc and son-in-law recover very soon x

Swan dealt eminently patiently with strops and had a 'grass is greener' moment when visiting friends (but imho grass always grows more willingingly, and in a brighter shade of green when it is being visited ifyswim ie quite poss those dc indulged in an orgy of sweet-wrapper-dropping and long-walk-refusal the minute you left Swan !! (And your dc are always doing amazingingly interesting and creative things far more challenging than cooking!!)

SC enjoyed a lovely weekend of entertaining which ended on a very note when close friends (parents of dd's best friend) revealed lout of the blue that they are returning to their home country. DD managed to hold it together while they were here, but sobbed unconsolably for an hour after they left . I am v. v. sad they are leaving because dh and I both get on so well with the parents, they are the kindest/loveliest family you will ever meet, but am most sad to see dd so distraught. This is a repeat of what happened 3 yrs ago when my bf and her daughter (also a very close friend of dd's) left for pastures new. Being an only child (friendships assume huge importance) + an expat (when the people you grow close to leave after 3 to 5 yrs) + having a school with very small class sizes, is not a happy combination [sigh]. On a more positive note, dd played with another friend's dog all afternoon which seemed to cheer her up considerably .

Be back in a min to post links.

***

Baby-step no. 24 for Mon 24th is a useful one about swishing and swiping the bathroom every day.

We are in Zone 5 tomorrow: The Living Room (Feb 23 – 28) here.

Declutter for 15 mins a day in this zone!

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

Tomorrow's mission (and all the missions for the week ahead) can be found here. Monday's mission is 5 mins spent sofa diving!

The daily focus for Monday is: the home bleugh.

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.

Hope rtn to school/work not too onerous for those of you who have been on holiday! Have a good week everyone!

Oh my what a busy busy thread - well done sans for keeping it all going

Well I have surpassed myself. I did the list I never did yesterday today. This is unheard of, as I normally would have put off until tomorrow, my normal big clean day. So my list for tomorrow:

W&D inc make-up
DC W&D
Breakfast/School run
Dishwasher emptied
Laundry loaded
Iron uniform (always last minute, this is a habit I want to change)

Rubbish to tip
Wash clothes promised to others
Order thank-you cards
Meal plan
Order another shop
Tidy one corner of DS room

[awards order of the feather duster to Thinking101 for services to anti-procrastination]

Big feathery wing flaps to everyone else ...

Spent the weekend cleaning(3 hrs yesterday, 2 today), ironing (5hrs), washing, put away laundry, sorting, decluttering, cooking and running!! Will that teach me not to any of the above during half term! doubt it!

Played a practical joke on eldest who has been away for the week ski-ing, we attached a Sold sign to our house and left a note saying we had moved leaving no forwarding address. He was banging on the door, and we were shout back "Sorry, No, we have moved". He found our cruel sense of humour funny, but then he has years of it, to adapted!!! .

Castle what's wrong with your hoss?

SC your name checking is so impressive. I read everyone's posts then go to name check and BLANK. Motherhood has fudged my already poor memory.

Ta Da's
Washed and dried linen - managed to lose a sock and a pillowcase in between the WM & TD
Watched MrPP make the bed and mock me for missing pillowcase
Finished ironing
Put away ironing
Took down airer as it was empty!
Puzzles with the minis

To do
Who cares it's Sunday night!
Feet up and telly

Just popping in as had a lazy day

Done
Beds
Cleaned up "surprise" cat sick (done overnight at some point)
Litter tray
Took DD to cinema to see Walking with Dinosaurs, Karl Urban was a nice surprise
Met DH, did bit shopping
Reboot laundry
Ironing
Rubbish out
Dinner
Washing up

Oh, how rough for your DD - and for you, SC :(

I'm moderately impressed with our own cardboard engineering skills, but have got to work out how to convey a London landmark to school in the morning now. Also need to quickly sew a name label into new school shorts several sizes bigger (and hope that they will stay up round DS1's skinny waist!). And find the rest of his PE kit. One week off and all our school day routines have gone to pot!

Wow SC fantastic round up . Sorry to hear your DD is upset. Friends moving away is tough at any age

I've managed to get DCs all set for the morning
Got stuff mostly prepared for Tuesday's meeting
Laundry washed and dried, half put away
Done ironing

Final to dos for today
Put dishwasher on
Swipe sink
Put away last of laundry
Put out clothes for tomorrow
Collapse into bed

Hope y'all have a good day tomorrow. Night all