Fledglings polish their pumpkins and do their best, it's time for a Fling Boogie Octoberfest!

[Stewedcoot]

Heartfelt thanks to Engels (and Bitchy!) for leading the thread throughout September (Sept always being a busy one) despite feeling a bit poorly and despite being pregnant. Hope beneficial effects of injections kick in soon!

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.

Flylady link here.

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):

1. start or repeat baby steps

1. repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

1. 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!

Three key 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.

If you are new; then trying to spend 15mins decluttering daily and doing the babysteps is a good way to start. Some of us (mentioning no names!) can have scary looking lists but don't let that worry you! Do what you can, anything is better then nothing, and don't judge yourself against others.

If all else fails, a brew + the power of three technique + a bit of support on here can work wonders!

Oh and don’t let it put you off if we appear a bit cliquey – some of us have been on here for years – but all lurkers, intermittent returnees, oldies and newcomers very, very welcome!

The pumpkin got admired and return with ex

Toffee ds has known how to light matches for 3 ish years now, he can also light a lighter. But he is scared of setting fire to the house so will only do it with an adult. We had to be honest with the consequences of playing with matches. Slightly harsh but it means he has the necessary respect for fire that is needed.

Castle I wish my to do list agreed with you on that.

Ta da
3 loads of various bits of laundry
some folding
sort some grown out of clothes to go to xsil
banking
Ikea
collect ds
Print out new diary design sheets and spot a problem with them (I know they need tweaking through experience but I need to find a diary system that works for me as premade ones don't and once it is perfected I will make one up for the year and get it spiral bound.

quite a lot of people round here actively disapprove of Halloween (for religious reasons) - there's nothing like that to remind me that a smiling or scowling pumpkin is a beautiful thing, originally the candle was meant to signify the soul inside our body (the turnip obviously before we had pumpkins from New World)

We have three cutprice pumpkins and one extremely expensive veg box pumpkin that I shall be very careful of. The Guardian had a whole two pages of pumpkin recipes this week. Vicariously they looked good. I suspect another year will pass without me making anything except soup When I made pumpkin pie I was the only person who ate it [sob] very fattening.

Toffee so exasperating when they do that (harass I mean)

Today I solved the problem of harassment by having dd's two friends round to help paint her room. (finally) They were brilliant and did it all themselves (rather badly but as the ceiling needs redoing at some point I didn't mind the botched bits) Feature wall in purple no less! The paintwork now looks an alarming yellowy colour from being so old and dirty in comparison. Luckily dd doesn't care, as long as it is not PINK! It is grey blue now instead, very pale like a cloud. It created an enormous amount of extra work and bother but what joy not to be harassed by a bored child.

Also had to drop both her friends home, give them lunch, and go to B & Q with them. And wash up various paint brushes. And save carpets from painty socks..Like some sort of playdate NIGHTMARE from days gone past. But feel very happy she was enjoying herself gainfully.

Ds2 for once behaved all right in the company of the girls (ie: avoided them and didn't try and barge into their room) I think dd was very grateful to him, and was less mean to him today than yesterday.

Ds1 stomped off to Westfield with a tenner and came back refreshed, as you do, but has homework hanging over him and is generally teenage and unwashed.

Dh off to Munich tomorrow for two days.

done
loads of washing up
washing
wiping
newspaper laid
driving
cooking meals at all times of day and night it seems...ds1 started making himself a cooked breakfast at 11am which meant ds2 then screamed he wanted one...and so it continued all day..I felt like a cafeteria.

WhoKnows I think you have hit the nail on the head. It is the type of furniture which can blight storage sometimes. Or just make a room look even smaller. I really regret not buying the right furniture a long time ago. For example my bed takes up far too much space and has no dedicated storage underneath or next to it. The playroom is still a disaster for this reason because I have yet to convince dh that a cocktail cabinet is not a good place to store things, even if it is a much loved wedding present. Eventually they will go, and we will be left with the cocktail cabinet I suppose but at the cost of 15 years with the wrong bit of furniture clogging up the room (bah)

at swan and Alice.

My parents actively loathe Halloween so I'm still rather ambivalent about it. Don't really like it, but not at their level of paranoia either. I wish this country wasn't so gory with it! I'm relieved to have missed various Halloween dress-up things at Zumba and choir but not sure what'll happen if any trick or treaters come here on Friday... DPs took the boys out to a museum this afternoon and didn't even want to let them do the ghost trail designed to keep them occupied...

As for furniture, we don't have anything properly planned, just odd bits and bobs that we've picked up here and there over the years. Saw some lovely things in a catalogue the other day and thinking if money were no object would just chuck everything out and start again!

No other takers so will try and start a Nov thread tomorrow.

Blue you are a star

I guess I should post linkies for tomo whilst I am here.

Thursday is errand day You know those chores that take you out the house can't sound much more american with that one sentence really

Babystep 30

missions

launch pad

Right this will be pitiful by SC's standards but mini round up.

Swan has been arming teenagers with paintbrushes and recreating nightmare play dates of ages past.

Blue is very kindly taking over the thread

*Alice has been continuing with her massive DIY mission, giving rather amusing excuses for not implementing her extensive knowledge of pumpkin preservation.

Toffee has been kept busy by a rather attentive Ds2

Castle has been plugging away at her list

SC is hopefully having a relaxing break

*Goth has been decluttering her in progress projects

Bitchy is off to bed because she has been burning her way through huge lists and as is to be expected now crashed

Finally got DD into bed after her school Halloween disco. The P6 & 7 party didn't finish until 9, so it's a late night for her by the time we'd got her home, changed, and settled down with a hot chocolate. She had a great time and loved the Astrid costume we made her.

Done
Morning routine
Laundry
Laundry hung outside
Morning at croft - lots of weeding
Shopping
Dinner washing up & SS

I have to agree on the furniture thing. I need to downsize from a kingsize bed to a double, as there is really no proper place in the room to put it. It can only go one direction (as opposed the facing sideways the other way IYSWIM) because the room is long and just narrow enough where it's a bit crowded walking past the bed. And two alcoves on one side around the chimney makes it even more difficult. It's maddening.

We have actually increased our bed from a double to a king-size this year, as it is a divan and the old one was a wooden frame it is only a few inches wider and longer and the lost floor space doesn't make much difference but the increased amount of storage does. Also it is deep, the storage compartments are about 15 inches deep and you can get a LOT of stuff in there. Our bedroom is, however the only room in the house with properly fitting and coordinating furniture, everywhere else is a mixture of hand me downs from parents, cheap Ikea stuff etc. One of these days we will get it sorted.

Hallowe'en looms here too, we all enjoy it and I will be taking the DCs out trick or treating. I carve pumpkins with a stanley knife and invested in a load of those cheap battery operated tealights a couple of years ago so they are all scattered along the living room windowsill on the 31st, alongside two terracotta pumpkins someone gave us a few years ago. I must check that at least some of them still have functioning batteries. I have also crocheted some pumpkin bunting this year.

Pumpkin bunting

I used to be ambivalent about Halloween too. Not for religious reasons, but just because it was all new to me. Over the years, I have been gradually converted by my children's enthusiasm and the local Halloween festivities. We are not going trick or treating this year (DS2 doesn't want to go this time and I'm more than happy to stay in), but I used to love seeing all the effort people had gone to to entertain everyone. One house, in particular, always looked like a film set for a horror film, complete with dry ice.

I also read an article which explained the psychology behind Halloween - that it is about confronting our darkest fears and making light of them in order to cope. I like what you said about the candle representing the soul, Swan - I hadn't thought of it that way in a Halloween context.

My boys are complete opposites in how they envisage Halloween fun, though. DS1 loves gore and anything terrifying (seems so odd for such an anxious child, but it doesn't bother him at all because, as he tells me often, it's "not real!"). DS2 doesn't want anything scary - just a few bats and pumpkins and lots of sweets (hmm, maybe not after today's visit to the dentist).

Anyway, I have managed to keep the kitchen fairly tidy in spite of cooking chilli con carne in there earlier. One of our kittens was off his food and had been sick, but had a little wet food this evening. I'm so scared that he will get ill like our other kitten, so I'm keeping a close eye. He did look a bit unkempt and sorry for himself today, but was more playful this evening.

Sorry, have wittered on about myself without acknowledging anyone else. Bitchy - thank you for the links and the round up. And Blue - thank you for offering to lead the November thread.

Swan - your description of your day made me laugh, especially your reference to it being some kind of "playdate NIGHTMARE from days gone past". You are so right. I still shudder at the memories.

Re: furniture. I sometimes wish we could have moved into a ready-made house, complete with all the furniture and storage we would ever need for our growing family - maybe designed by someone who knew better than we did exactly what our family would require in the coming years (like lots of storage). I remember a former older colleague from work divorcing her husband and enthusing about moving into a ready-made, show home all on her own. It had everything, even down to the cutlery in the drawer. The rest of us - all twenty-somethings, still renting and dreaming of houses of our own - were appalled. How could she possibly want it all chosen for her? Why didn't she want to decorate it herself?

I get it now. She had had years of raising her children, dealing with domestic stuff. She didn't want anything else to do with it.

Will hop over to mark my place on the new thread now.

Who - that pumpkin bunting is gorgeous!

Oops, November thread tomorrow. Missed that bit .

Morning. Woke up after a horrific nightmare where ds got hit by a huge 4x4 that drove off. Thankfully my mind is nice and he wasn't badly hurt but the sound of the head vs car is still ringing in my ears and I feel slightly sick about it all.

Huge list of what should be done today. just need to get on and up and get on with stuff.

Bitchy's special brew anyone?

Horrible dream, Bitchy. Not surprised you feel sick about it.

Preparations for Halloween, plus more decluttering and tidying today. Must tackle DS2's bedroom, as he has unpacked the Halloween boxes in there and the stuff is all over the floor. He says his friends don't mind. Maybe not, but they do at least need some floor space to walk on.

Bitchy oh god, what an awful dream. I can see where that would be hard to shake.

I've decided that I'm going to use the same wallpaper (like wood planking) for my bedroom upstairs, with a pale grey paint, that I've used in the living room. I can complement it with a different colour scheme and it will look completely different. This is based on numerous different trials yesterday. Downstairs has blue accents with a few splashes of orange for some interest. Upstairs can alternate between floral accents (during summer) and more rustic accents (red, dk green, checks) during the winter. I'm quite pleased with the idea. Plus I already have the extra wallpaper from it so I can start putting it up today.

Dh has gone to Munich, and everyone is sleeping peacefully, for now. Dd is in our room for the moment. In the light of day her room does look alarmingly purple - and that is just one wall reflecting off the others..

I have just wrested the computer off ds2 who is determined to watch a screen of one sort or another from the moment he wakes to the moment he drops.. interspersed by mud. I have given him a graphic novel of Artemis Fowl to divert him, only to be told that it is too scary. Toffee ds2 hates scary things. He is only just beginning to like Harry Potter, aged 12.

A friend is coming to lunch today, impromptu with some of her children. I'm off the hook because her house is a building site but already feeling worried about the more obvious squalor I need to remove. Still, yesterday was bereft of adult company so always better to see people even if it means tidying up!

Whoknows an heirloom, that bunting.

As usual feel a bit defeated by hormones, workshy truculent kids and attempts to appear like a functioning family to outsiders

todo
send children or one child on errand to buy dwasher powder and juice or mineral water
buy gammon joint or make a Moroccan lamb stew?
hoover kitchen floor (child's job?)
remove washing from the landing
put dw on
rubbish out
cat dishes wash
cat litter box outside
dd to put her room back together, rehang pictures
ds2 handwriting/reading aloud/spelling test
pumpkin carving for anyone who is too bored to help!

I saw that wallpaper Alice I've always wanted something like that in my bedroom. I suggested changing the walls to Dh last week and he said, why would we change them they are lovely [grr] Okay, they are a nice pale apricot but do I have to have an apricot bedroom for ever and ever? I suspect this house will be a timewarp from when we moved in (minus the kitchen which I did manage to move) for the next 50 years. Curtains and all. I suppose the children like the familiarity of it all though. I remember being very upset when my mother changed the red formica worktops in our childhood kitchen in my late 30's.

Swan my 8yo is like that - on a screen as much as possible. I have to say though that he isn't fond of scary either. I'm a bit irritated as I specifically mentioned to the teacher that he didn't like fantasy type books and that I'd tried to get him to read Harry Potter and he absolutely refused. So what did she give him for a reading book? Harry Bloody Potter. So now it's like pulling teeth to get him to do the homework, as he doesn't want to read it. How helpful is that?!?! I'll be having a word with her and telling her that next time I expect her to pick something he's interested in. I realise they have to try other genres but seriously, picking the one I specifically mentioned he didn't want to read? Almost like she was trying to prove a point.

That wallpaper is the closest to a lovely log cabin or cabin-look that I'll ever get. I think that's why I like it so much. I'm going to be using a similar one from B&Q in my dining room with red accents.

This one... www.diy.com/departments/colours-paste-the-wall-not-the-paper-shoreline-wallpaper/542457_BQ.prd

It's like antique white planking, distressed looking

I don't think it matters too much about who picked the school reader though. Ds picked his. it is a book he has read a number of times. Can I get him to read it? Hell no. He'd much rather read anything else. It isn't fun any more when you HAVE to do something.

Not going to manage to get him to record his reading this term, but he will go into school with some compulsory book reports written and it will be like pulling teeth to get it done

Walls were painted 2 yrs ago, but there has been soo much building work that they look mucky. Not sure the paint will hold up to being properly washed down. Also as there is still more building work to be done it seems pointless worrying or thinking about it.

Ds made me breakfast in bed. Scrambled egg and 2 cups of coffee. It has been a lovely chilled out morning mostly.

ta da
catch up with a friend via fb
let ds play with the new stickers
deal with a minor meltdown over no mine craft youtube videos
another one over tonight's trip out
give ds a plane from the sensory box
admire said plane's flying ability
let ds paint a wooden flexible lizard he was give years ago and i put away until he was bigger
Ds' stripped his bed and the bedding is now in the washer
Convince ds to eat breakfast at almost 11am

to do
shit loads

Bitchy true. But he has been receptive to some books, just not the fantasy ones, especially those with scary aspects. So yes, I was irritated that she picked the one book that I told her he flat out refused to read. And then he got in trouble last week in school and had a meltdown, hiding under the table, when he didn't want to do it. Pick the book, fine. But when she knows he is utterly resistant to it, to turn around and push him to read it, then tell him off when he gets upset IMO is not right.

Oh i totally agree with you and I would have returned the book the minute I found out with it written in writing that he was NOT reading that book, and that any attempts to make him do so weren't in his best interests and potentially damaging. But I am fierce like that. Ds' teachers generally hate me. I don't let them give their prepared progress reports at parent's evening either. I ask VERY specific questions. I like this teacher, she is good so she is getting less hassle from me. Ds is not so happy she is teaching him how to work 1st bloody teacher to understand he has coasted his way to yr 5 and doesn't know how to. Which is why the others have had grief with the "he is doing fine, top marks in x/y/" but where is the progress and why does he not know how to work if you teacher are doing your job? He is still dreadfully bored at school but at least he is now being stretched.

I did tell her to take back the Tom Sawyer book. She wanted him to be reading Harry Potter for one class and Tom Sawyer for another. At the same time. He is 8yo with SNs. IMO the Tom Sawyer book (from a comprehension standpoint) is too difficult for him. I remember reading it in 8th grade (US) for school so that's about 12yo. Plus reading both books at the same time IMO is bound to be hard. I'm an adult and don't like keeping two books going at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stretching him. But not so much that he cannot cope or understand. If he's just going through the motions of reading, answering question, but not actually enjoying or understanding the book, what's the point of reading it? I want him to ENGAGE, not just go through the motions.

Ah this is why you are far more reasonable than me Alice

I suspect the teacher just forgot, Alice. Or maybe remembered something vague about your son and 'Harry Potter' and assumed that he liked it, rather than disliked it. But yes, it is very annoying for you and I would also have been annoyed about her not 'getting' why he was hiding under the desk. Am surprised at the choice of 'Tom Sawyer' too. I remember us reading that in secondary school.

Bitchy - how lovely of your DS to make you breakfast in bed . Sweet boy.

Swan - hope the lunch with your friend goes well today. Maybe it's better that it's impromptu as you have less time to worry beforehand.

I have given up battling over screens. I lost, basically. DS1 now spends most of his time on the computer because he's not at school and even his schooling takes place online. I just don't have the energy or inclination to fight it anymore. And going back to school will cut down the time online.

DS2 is not attracted to screens like DS1 was and is just as happy to read a book or draw or play with Lego. Although he does love Minecraft and his current favourite, Terraria (another Minecraft-type game).

DS2 has pointed out that it is a lovely day for a walk today . This newfound enthusiasm for walking in the country came about after DH gave him a geography lesson which involved looking at maps, then walking through the local fields to compare the map with the real thing. DS2 was enthralled and now wants to go every day. And it will be good for me because I have just weighed myself, feeling slim and confident that I'd lost weight, and was shocked to see that I'd put on two pounds .