Fledglings are Flying into February

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Welcome to the February Fledglings thread. Before we get started we have some important notices?:

1. The Fledglings are a long running thread, some of us have known each other for several years but newcomers are always welcome.

1. We follow the Flylady way (somewhat flexibly) and we adapt it to suit our lives and needs. That also means we chat a lot too, it is a general thread about life, as well as Flylady.

So the fly lady system there are rules and we have adaptations.?

1. NO perfectionism - life’s too short.?
2. Something is better than nothing and sometimes good enough really is good enough.?
3. This is not about the housework, it is about having more time to do fun stuff. Don't ever feel guilty about doing stuff with the kids over doing the housework. The kids are more important.??And the practical adaptations.
4. For newbies to the Flylady site and system everything you need will be posted here in the form of links. The homes is divided into zones where we spend one week each on a monthly basis. Within the zones we do babysteps and decluttering - the babysteps are little daily habits to get into, decluttering speaks for itself. As we progress we start doing missions (a more in depth task in that weeks zone). We may even get to detailed cleaning once we have decluttered. There are also daily tasks, on a weekly basis.

WARNING: Unless you want a very cluttered inbox full of gushing quotes and testimonials DO NOT subscribe to the Flylady emails from the site.

So, welcome on board and lets get Flying in February!

Linzer focus on the renew spirits and family fun parts you will have done loads just forgotten to consider it as flying.

ta da
sleep

Linzer/SC Gove [spit] and his minions (yes, I know he's not ed sec any more, but may as well be) seem to want to squeeze all creativity out of British schools too and turn us into Shanghai. I can't imagine the uproar if a British teacher suddenly went skiing in term time! OK so that would be a major undertaking, but went off to play football or something...!!

Hmm, flying. Well, I squeezed all the alcohol from our half-term jaunt into the understairs cupboard so as not to look like booze hounds to the plumber. And I swept up lots of dust from under the shoe rack when it had to be moved to fit the old bath through. New bath is in, but with much swearing as it was twice the weight he was expecting and only just fits, despite all DH's obsessive measuring. End result is, we also need new taps, so he'll be back tomorrow to fit those and fix other bits. Sigh. Nothing ever seems to be straightforward.

Hey ho. Onwards and upwards.

DD2 deposited at yoga class, DS still at friend's (who'll be taking him to scouts so one less drop-off to do today), and DD1 is doing sudoku - she did say she wanted to do some Spanish with me (in preparation for the grammar school she's hoping to get into the year after next; long story!) but keeps finding things she wants to do for "just five more minutes".

Blue Well, I assume the PE teacher has taken a class skiing - "skiing weeks" or "winter sports weeks" are the norm here - but this being Austria, who knows? As much as I complain about the school system here, teachers do seem to have a lot more freedom to teach what they want and appear to be under far less pressure than in the UK (no standardized testing, no league tables, not much paperwork from what I can tell, etc.). They've only just introduced a "centralized Matura" (A level equivalent), which is causing great chaos and uncertainty - previously, teachers would set and mark all their students' A level papers, which isn't the most objective of systems, but no one seems to be particularly enthusiastic about the new system.

Bitchy My spirit could certainly do with some renewing - and family fun time has fallen by the wayside. I think I probably need to go back to the babysteps next month...

DD1 still wanting to finish her sudoku, so will get on with some more work while I have the chance.

Argh, WhoKnows, I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday yesterday! Here are belated and and . I hope you had a nice one, in spite of recent stresses.

SC I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm so desperate for my ds1 to take exercise (he is very hefty) that I'll gladly pack his PE kit and wash it, forever. Alas, The PE kit has now vanished completely (suspiciously whilst I was in Austria and DH in charge). I bought him some new trainers today from a market stall and they cost all of £7 . Luckily he has lots of PE shirts and shorts. But his lovely Superdry sports bag [grrr] - the only trendy item he possesses.

Whoknows surely that is the whole point of OU - that is possibly to be flexible - well done for deferring it.

done
went back to Beavers to help again this evening - dh took the cue to have a row with me over an unwashed saucepan as I was leaving okay he had found it in the garden However combined this with refuelling car for tomorrow so that is done.
Also found some trainers for ds1 whilst leaving dd in hairdressers (she suddenly demanded a haircut when she came back from school)

went to Home Ed meetup with ds2 - we've really missed all these social activities over half term loads of people there (Spring apparently brings them out of hibernation according to one long standing attendee) Fire pit ball games climbing etc

Bought some mince. My life is very uneventful and watched Mr Selfridge episode (which just happened to be very unsuitable with hairy chested men stripping off) with ds2 on catchup.

Blueeyeshadow never met such a lot of prima donnas as plumbers. Really - it is always oh this is the wrong sort of pipe and they've sent the wrong connector and I've never seen a silicone joint done like that before. Our plumber who is lovely drives me mad saying everything is designed to break - surely by now he can recommend a high quality brand that he has experience of and doesn't break? I remember ordering the kitchen taps from Howdens and saying to the kitchen designer - tell me which taps you have had the least complaints about - I don't even care what they look like.

Swan the home ed community around your way sounds fabulous.

I have managed to pour boiling water over my arm. It was an accident but it bloody hurts. So so so much pain. I was hoping for an early night but it is going to be a bit of a case of sods law.

To do list for thursday. Stay in bed where it is safe!

Ouch, Bitchy, take care of yourself!! Hope you've done all the running it under cold water for 10 mins stuff etc.

Swan To be fair to the guy, it did weigh an absolute ton.

Linzer taking a class skiing makes more sense than just heading off themselves, but yeah, you'd think the school would know about it. DS1 seems to have tests every week, but I'm not sure how formal they are or what purpose they serve Just endless box-ticking I think. He certainly doesn't do any revision for them. I sometimes dream of emigrating to Finland where the education system seems to be sane and rational, but then I remember that none of us can speak the language and it's dark and cold for 6 months of the year!

Ouch Bitchy - hope it feels better soon. Hope you feel better too Fizrim

I've just spent another 90 mins on my OU essay (not deferring quite yet!) and got it submitted, I can't defer till it's marked otherwise I will lose the credit for it, so I'm going to have a few days off and mull it over. Had a chat with my tutor today which has made me realise that although the end date is not till the end of May I could probably finish it by the end of March if I put my mind to it.

In other news, I have done one load of washing, nagged the DCs to tidy their bedroom floors, scooped up mountains of stray paper from all over the ground floor into a box to be dealt with post-essay (ie tomorrow) and bought some cat food. Oh and been to work. And taken the DCs to activities. And sent numerous emails and texts, I am in a chatty mood this week.

Linzer - the book is Miss Carter's War by Sheila Hancock, managed the first chapter last night, think I'm going to enjoy it. Do you remember that somewhat disastrous book swap thing we joined a few years ago? I still think someone out there owes us both a book or two. I don't see those threads any more, maybe kindles have put paid to them.

Thursday 26th Feb

Babystep- you are not behind, jump in where you are.

Mission - clean those nightstands.

Daily focus - Errand Day.

Bitchy - burns are incredibly painful - poor you. Those special burns plasters from the chemist are good if it's still painful tomorrow.

ta da

Stopped procrastinating over phone call to tax office and forced myself to make it. Am just so overwhelmingly bored by things like this!
Early b/fast for DS1
Ds1 went to his dr's appt with DH without any problem
Washing up
Home ed: DS2 made a model of the human body
Lunch
Fed cats
Home ed: English; Maths (painful ); more Science (human body again)
Watched National Geographic DVD, 'The Amazing Human Machine'
DS2 apprently learnt to fly a plane on Google Flight Simulator (though his first few passengers may not have survived his early attempts at landing)
More washing up
Nap
Dinner
Tidied kitchen and loaded d/w
Fed cats again
Went out to meet a friend for the evening
Spent time with DS1
MN time

Hi all - my belated February appearance!

Bitchy - find someone with an aloe plant and beg a leaf. Wipe juice from inside leaf over burns / scalds. Soothing, healing, non-aggressive. Big fan of aloe plants here (many years ago had burn, used aloe leaf but missed a bit of burnt skin. Controlled experiment! Convinced me of its efficacy) and when mine have babies I give them to all and sundry.

Home edders I read your maths posts with despair. I went looking for local groups to offer my services but seems to be a home edding desert round here.

Have gone over my 15 mins mn time. Still lurking and enjoying the chat, so please forgive my lack of posting.

Aargh, just lost a long post when my computer suddenly decided to restart (OK, it did warn me 15 minutes beforehand but I foolishly ignored it).

Toffee Google flight simulator sounds like fun; I'll have to tell DS (who atm wants to be a pilot) about it.

Ouch Bitchy, hope you're in slightly less pain this morning.

Blue Hope taps etc. all get sorted out today. Yes, the language would put me off moving to Finland too; I struggle to help the DC with their homework post-primary level here despite fluent German!

WhoKnows Miss Carter's War sounds good; I remember looking at it in WHSmith at Christmas but have banned myself from buying any books that cost more than about 99p as my to-read shelves seem to have mutated into a whole bookcase. I'd almost forgotten about that book swap (must have repressed the memories!) - I don't think my book ever made it further than the next person, who must have ended up with three or four books before I realised she wasn't going to send any of them on. The book I chose was one I wasn't too upset to lose as I knew it was a possibility, but still very annoying.

Delayed start to work today as I've just been into school to teach English. It was open day at the school this morning so we had quite a few parents popping their head round the door, but I didn't find it as distracting as I was expecting.

Welcome back Honu, nice to hear from you again. Was it you that installed an espresso machine in the naughty corner once? I think I could do with reinstating that.

Bitchy - hope that arm is feeling a bit better today.

Linzer - I read an interview with Sheila Hancock around Christmas time when the book was published and really liked the sound of it. I too have an overflowing shelf of books that need reading, I don't find time much apart from on holiday.

Blue - I once did an inter-rail tour of Scandinavia, went to Sweden first and found the language quite hard work, then I went to Finland where Swedish is the second language and found it was suddenly incredibly easy compared to Finnish which was utterly impenetrable.

Toffee - thank you for the birthday wishes, it was a nice day.

Woohoo! Taps etc all sorted, plumber gone and I've cleaned up behind him (less woohoo about that bit, but hey). Minor panic when I found he'd put the hot and cold the wrong way round, but it turned out I could switch the tops over quite easily.

WhoKnows - [languagenerd] Finnish is completely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, being Finno-Ugrian and thus related only to Hungarian. So yes, completely impenetrable! [/languagenerd]

Hi all,

I'm finally beginning to feel back in the land of the living after this horrible cold, so trying to get back into some sort of routine again. Cleaned both sinks this morning and put on make-up which was a start!

I would like to report (because I am very proud of myself) that I persuaded the DDs to go through the toys and games shelves with me last week, and yesterday took the resulting 3 bin bags of stuff to the charity shop. It feels so good to get rid of a load of unused dusty junk! (I did get rid of the dust before I delivered them to the shop) . I have also got and mostly read the Kondo book on my Kindle and am raring to go, but having missed nearly 2 weeks of dissertation work I really have to get on with that instead of decluttering!

Ouch to Bitchy for the arm - that sounds horribly painful and I hope it is much improved today.

Waving to everyone else!

What ho fledglings!

Just having a lovely quiet few hours to myself before all the madness starts again tomorrow. Doing admin chores that should have been done ages ago (boring so having to force myself to do them and in between, rewarding myself with chapters of the three bks I have on the go at the moment). DD at hwk club tonight so have bit of extended time to myself, although need to make tom sauce for supper yet. Doing laundry and ironing/getting ready for travel too.

Whoknows So sorry I missed that it was your birthday yesterday!! Many happy (belated) returns!!! Glad you could take a little time away from all of the stress to celebrate for a bit

Ouch Bitchy how is your arm today? I think it is always the shock that goes with injuries such as cuts and burns that are debilitating, in addition to the pain I mean. Hope it heals soon.

(Had near miss over NY when I was cooking huge gammon ham using inappropriately small casserole dish. (Should have used jam pan in hindsight.) Was at first stage when you have to bring ham up to boil briefly in water to get rid of salt. Tried to turn (very heavy) ham over in pan with forks at both end, lost control of beast, whole thing slapped down sending hot water on to my face and chest. Sported a few red patches the next day but was really, really lucky that the water hadn't quite reached boiling point and that ham was on back burner of stove, so most of water missed me by half an inch. Was still a bit shaky thereafter though, necessitating lots of to calm down )

Whey hey Honu great to see you!!

And whey hey Blue re: finished bathroom. Hope you can finally enjoy a lovely bubble bath after all the clearing up. (Plumbers are just like hairdressers, they always denounce the person who did the job previously!)

Linzer/Blue have Danish colleague who has tried to teach me a few words. All pretty impenetrable to me too!

Linzer congratulations! Not sure I would be brave enough to give English classes under the surveillance of fellow parents.

Congrats on your v. productive day Toffee

Swan oh that's a shame about the sports bag. I can't tell you the number of tracksuit tops and bottoms that we have lost over the years. On the positive front however, I think dd realised she had over-stepped the mark yesterday and unexpectedly cleaned the bathroom sink .

Linzer think it's great that your dd2 does yoga; very good for stress relief I imagine.

Hope you feel better soon Fizrim

Had better go and start on that tomato sauce.

Big wing flaps to everyone I've missed!

Oops, missed you out by mistake Bless Glad you are feeling better and congrats wrt humungous decluttering!!

Honu Yep yep to the Aloe. I have a plant and some gel. Unfortunately I have slightly broken the skin so am protecting it with some melolin as although those plasters sound good toffee I am allergic to plasters. Tbh I think I am lucky and that whilst it is still rather sore it could have been a lot worse. It looked like it was threatening to blister last night.

I fell asleep mid writing that and have slept most of the day. Feel all headachy now but that is probably lack of coffee and dehydration.
Flying = nil

Ouch Bitchy, hope the arms heals soon.

My cold is still bad, crawled back into bed again today. Must have looked bad this morning as even DD expressed concern that she needed me to take her to school! Always tomorrow, but it's amazing how bad the house gets after only a few days of inactivity.

Made an effort to tidy playroom and decluttered three books.

Feel v tired today! Too much out and about I think. And also trying to plan a new garden building and I don't really want to cut down the tree which is in the way but for several years we have hummed and hawed about this project and atm the garden is soo muddy and unusuable for so much of the year that it makes sense. So a few phone calls re that.

Took ds2 to judo, he did some literacy. We read some more Moby Dick.
Ds2 is obsessed by an airport layout for his birthday with terminals etc. We don't have a proper board to lay it out on so much discussion of that with dh (what nook and cranny can we deploy) and me getting extremely irritated over the mishmash of useless furniture in this house. However tidying playroom concentrates the mind doesn't it!!!

Drove lots today. Dd in a very obsessive mood over her washing.She has one jumper she insists on wearing over and over again despite having two others which are "not fluffy enough"in her drawer. It is easier to have a child who never does his laundry and I have two of those.

Need to go to bed now as I am driving dd to school yet again tomorrow. I don't mind but it is eerie how the nicer I am to her the ruder she gets... and then one doesn't want to withdraw acts of kindness on a point scoring exercise...

EVening all,

Ta-da!

Four loads of washing washed, dried and put away.
Various bits of random crap tidied up / thrown away.
Work
School
DCs ferried here and there
Sorted a big pile of paperwork
Drooled over Lakeland catalogue
Shopping
Boring day really.

No progress on World Book Day costumes. DD decided she wanted to be Mrs Fox from Fantastic Mr Fox. WARNING - Do not go to ebay and search for Mrs Fox dressing up while your young DC is looking over your shoulder . So, we're back to Harry Potter again.

Fiz - sorry you're still under the weather. Bitchy - hope the arm is improving.

Bless - that really is a result with the toys. My DD won't get rid of anything apart from giving it to people we know. We don't know anyone with significantly younger children (apart from younger siblings of DCs friends, who presumably have their own hand me downs). So that's tricky, I have to declutter by stealth or force.

Going to have an early night with the book tonight, see you all tomorrow.

Friday 27th Feb

Babystep - menu planning

Mission - declutter your dresser

Daily Focus - declutter your car and handbag (and don't throw away the receipt for that top you wanted to take back like I did last week )

Whoops! I seem to have procrastinated a couple of days away...

Well, wed I went to my parents for lunch. I try and go every week just to give myself a break from everything. I did get some washing done and dh has been ironing like a trooper.

Yesterday was rainbow guides
day with a sudden change of plan when I realised we'd done the planned activity before half term. Emergency dash to shops sorted that one.

Have been looking at the house and making lists of things which need tackling. I think if I do this, I've got something to go along with the flight plan to keep me on track.

What I'm still desperately trying to get done is putting all our ironed clothes away . They're just piling up in our room which is counter productive as then they end up all creased as they're turned over trying to find something. It is a good opportunity to get rid of the too small stuff though. 2 bin bags and counting!

I am getting sick of the morning battles to get ds to school There is nothing wrong with him other than the fact he would rather spend all day in pjs playing on technology.

Feeling more able to function today. Thankfully. But off to work so that will kill off most of today and probably will to do stuff