Let April Spring Cleaning with the Fledglings commence (hopefully Dogsbum wont turn it into too much of a shower....)

[Dogsbumhair]

The fledglings is a long running thread based on the Flylady cleaning/tidying principles. Personally I’m a newbie with only a couple of months flying under my belt but some members of the group have been on the thread for a number of years, so the thread is a mixed group of more and less experienced fledglings. I have found myself to be very warmly received as a newbie so please don’t be scared to join the gang.

Flylady link link here.

The system initially seems quite confusing so my advice as a fellow newbie would be to just go with it and accept that you will probably feel a bit confused for the first couple of weeks and then it will start to come together and make more sense.

The basic principles are (very) loosely as follows:

1. No perfectionism allowed (it is your enemy and it is stopping you getting anything done)
2. Little and often is the way to go (your house didn’t get in a mess in a day, it wont get sorted in one)
3. You are never behind, just jump in where you are (We are in a different zone of the house each week and all the house zones come round once a month, so all the tasks will come round again soon)
4. The point of this system is that by doing little and often your life isn’t dominated by housework and you have more time to do the fun things that you’d much prefer to be doing

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 on Flying lessons. Here's the launch pad for more experienced fledglings.

Later on today I will be posting up the links and information for tomorrow’s tasks

The advice from the wise and experienced members of the group is not to subscribe to the emails, but I have to confess that as a foolish newbie I do receive them I have learnt to ruthlessly bin anything beyond the actual flying tasks though.

Hopefully I haven’t missed anything too important off this introduction, but I’m sure someone more experienced will pop up to supplement this information if I have.

Good luck and happy flying through April!……………..

More broadband misery here I'm afraid. Broadband engineer is coming tomorrow am but no connection this evening so can someone cover the links for me again please?

I can do it for you Dogs. No problem.

Am very reassured that everyone liked the dress. My sternest critic is DH, but even he liked it .

Shamelessly cutting and pasting from Dog 's posts (but have updated the links, obv):

Baby-step no. 16 for Thurs 16th April is here : choose a bedtime and stick to it (am afraid to confess that I still don't do that, even though I can see how sensible it is).

We are in Zone 3 The Bathroom and an extra room this week: here.

If you want to, you can declutter for 15 mins a day in Zone 3!

The detailed cleaning list (if you are at that stage) for Zone 3 is here.

Thursday’s mission is here.

The daily focus for Friday is here : declutter your purse (bag) and car.

The monthly habit for April is making your bed.

For a summary of the above, see the flight plan: here.

Linzer hope dd has coped today in hospital and you are feeling a bit less shaky. Wonderful that dh can take lots of time off to help.

today I achieved a fair amount although very piecemeal

I emailed the garden landscaper to give him a shove
I emailed the garden building company with a new date
I had a chat with neighbour to rearrange date of landscaping work to fit with noise and exams
I took ds2 out for long walk/tube journey - he went home by himself
I walked a lot
I dropped in on another neighbour
I continued with Dickens which seems to be a success with ds2
I bought a book about walking by the Thames
I wiped some worktops
I binned some rubbish
I swept a floor
I swished a loo
I cooked a large amount of pasta with leeks peas cheese sauce salmon and boiled egg (gratin)

and I got up very very early to send two children off to school writing no less than three cheques for ds1 alone

very tired now and still have to do the washing up at some point. New dw on Monday...I hope.

Toffee glad you ahve managed to find a dress

Dogsbum hope you get the internet issues sorted soon

Linzer here is one of those ta da lists you can snigger over

ta da
Wake up with horrific pain in shoulder
chuck cup of coffee over myself and bed in attempt to escape ds who tried to have a cuddle by leaning on the bit that hurt
Mutter darkly whilst stripping bed and putting 1st duvet on to wash
mutter more darkly about the person who took the clean wet washing out of the machine and put it on the dirty bench top
mutter about bloody kids and their computers whilst clearing the dining table
deal with child muttering darkly whilst trying to craft things out of air drying clay
sort through 6 boxes of material with dmum and reduce to 3
1 load of old towels through washer
2 loads of clothes through washer
2nd duvet in the wash
get ds to make 2 cakes to use eggs damaged in transit
make bread for ds
Finish working on a zombie army
Empty bath of filing
clean bath
fill bath and soak with epsom salts to help reduce pain etc
Ponder what to do about the sickly aloe plant in the bathroom
Accidentally knock said plant into the epsom salt water and thus instantaneously find the solution :(

Today has been one of those days that hasn't really been that bad but has felt awful due to the bed start. Need to get off my bum and actually book in to see the physio.

Linzer - hope your DD (and you) are doing ok now you've got some help in place.

Love the dress Toffee

CBA to post more, catch up with you all tomorrow

If feels too early. It is not, on a school day we need to be up and moving and ready to head out of the door in 15mins. But right now when ds was up til 1am last night it feels too early.

Got home from London latish last night and need to get down to work. Have been catching up with accounts and emails, rescuing the house, and so on. Was good to get away and did enjoy the Book Fair, despite feeling totally overwhelmed by it quite a lot of the time! Really hard to get back into the swing of things again now though.

Linzer sorry to hear about the diagnosis for DD, but glad it is now getting treated.

Toffee glad you found a dress. I love the colour!

ta da
Wake up in pain, take pain killers and successfully drink coffee without chucking over the bed
ds to doctor's appointment
collect meds
teach ds how to apply new med
consider the value of getting up and doing stuff or just going back to bed and sleeping

Ds is borrowing the computer again today when I have finished some adminy jobs so will not be back until tonight. Hope all the fledglings have a good day.

Telephone engineer has just left and we finally appear to have the line sorted, hooray! Apparently the insulation was stripped off a wire and hence two wires were touching in a local junction box which is why we had no dial tone but apparently broadband can operate on just one wire, or something like that, and that is why we had intermittent broadband.

So hopefully that is the end of our week of landline/broadband misery, but I have to say I'm struggling to trust that it is over yet after the way we have been fobbed off for a week.

Will now read thread for the last couple of days to catch up. I'm waiting in for an Amazon delivery so this is probably a good thing to do as I'll be on the ground floor and able to hear the door as the delivery person appears to have the delicate knock of a pixie as they apparently tried to deliver yesterday afternoon when I was in and I didn't hear a thing. I'd think they were making it up if they hadn't posted a card through the door.

My confidence about whether the problem is sorted or not is definitely not helped by the fact that the internet connection crashed whilst I was trying to type this update. Here's hoping that was just a blip....

Linzer I hope you and family are doing ok with all you've got going on with DD. Two weeks in hospital with one of you there all the time sounds like a lot to manage, especially when you have other children, glad to hear that you have people willing you help you out with it. How is DD coping with it all? Sounds pretty intense and dramatic for a kid to cope with, I don't know how old she is either. Although when I had to spend time in hospital several times as a kid I remember the nurses made a huge loving fuss over us as we were kids so I hope it is the same for your DD.

Toffee that is a lovely dress, great colour and the style looks very flattering. So glad that you have that sorted and can just look forward to the wedding. Debenhams was where I got my dress situation sorted too, it was the only place that seemed to have a broad range of styles and different levels of formality. Most high street stores seem to be more geared up to selling dresses for teenagers to go to night clubs rather than for adults to go to weddings, that was how I felt anyway. Thanks for doing the links for me as well, I'm very grateful

Seaside I love the idea of hoovering with pearls on as a build up to wearing dresses outside the house I have neither pearls nor any dresses I could get anywhere near at the moment so I'll just be carrying on with jeans and tops myself I'm afraid.

Dark sounds like you are in a lot of pain at the moment, I hope you start to feel better soon. I saw your cake offered on the naughty corner bar and went off to get myself a French Fancie out of the cupboard (which I felt compelled to buy the other day I blame Meerkitten as I don't normally have a sweet tooth at all)

Still no sign of my Amazon delivery, I daren't even go and get dressed as they are bound to show up. I have washed up and made a bread batch but that is it this morning......

Argh, I fell off the thread! Will now go and try and catch up on the past week or so!

Today I employed 2 13/14 year olds to wash the outside window sills and sweep the front garden. An 12 year old to hang out my washing and wash the yard window sill and sweep the back path.

My own children of course did none of this ds2 was having a minor meltdown as he got ready for football (his friend did the washing for me) and dd was so embarrassed by the 13/14 year old neighbour boys that she hid in her bedroom (she likes them)

The cleaning lady tidied the downstairs kitchen and hoovered the stairs and landing
I cleaned the loo and bath and basin yet again

took ds2 to home ed football with his friend
I went to Sainsbury's and bought loads of instant food like pizza and fishcakes and ready washed salads for the weekend
and then we went on to the swimming pool with a whole group of people his age

Now I am back,knackered as usual and trying to persuade ds2 to read a whole chapter of a book (The Subtle Knife) and make his bed before he is allowed any technology again

So - a good day really. TGIF. Ds1 lounging in his room and says he has been made Sports Captain. Frankly this must be a windup - he said the real Sports Captain sold him the position for 40p because he had too much homework The most imaginative lie I have had for a while from ds1..

Ok have caught up a little.

Toffee That dress is stunning and I hope you enjoy wearing it.
Linzer. What a shock about DD. I'm amazed she has to stay in for 2 weeks. Hope it all settles down quickly.
DogsBum Your DIY and decorating are very impressive!
Captain Hope the chest infection goes quickly.
DEM poor DS's hay fever /asthma sounds rotten, and I am impressed how you manage to keep going with your health issues too. Get some rest if you can!
Welcome to the new people. Hope you get better at fluttering/flying than I am!
SC Hope your DD is feeling better now, and glad you are having good walks with the dog.

Hi to everyone else - hope I haven't forgotten anything vital. I have missed you all but just been feeling fairly desperate about my dissertation which is not going well, and feeling like I can't take the time to do anything except that.

Having said that, I have today taken DD1 to her first 'affiliated' (think official/regulated and results centrally recorded) dressage comp and she got very respectable scores for her first time. Her trainer was very pleased with her. But she did come 4th in the class of 4 and 5th in the class of 5 ??, so she was disappointed. However, as I pointed out, everyone else was adult, probably semi-professional being there on a Friday, and they prob all had specially purchased dressage horses, whereas she has taken a bog-standard pony and worked really hard with her and started to make something a bit more special out of her. And she only needs one more score at the level she got to qualify for the Area Championships so I think she should be proud of herself.

Sorry for brief message but in bed with chest infection. Feeling a bit rotten tbh. (But not rotten enough for dh to sort the kitchen in my absence evidently . Why oh why does he not understand the concept that you don't need to stack dirty dishes when you have a dw (unless you are feeding 12 at every setting)??? It's simple enough to understand! Grrrrrr)

Linzer I hope your dd is doing OK and that you are all adapting to her being in hospital, and that she isn't finding it too hard. Good to know you have good supportive friends who are helping out. Thinking of you all x

Toffee fantabulous dress! So glad you have finally found 'the' one!!

Bless I was wondering how you were getting on with your dissertation! Sorry to hear the task is so onerous but bet you are doing a lot better than you think you are!! And congratulations to your dd for her first very respectable affiliated test!! Well done!! Sounds as if she did really, really well being up against adults and specially prepped nags!! As you say, she should be really, really proud of herself!!

Swan at your ds1's 40p captaincy!

Dogsbum if you want a parcel to arrive the best thing to do is to immerse yourself in a bubble bath! Sod's law! Works every time!

Blue glad you survived the book fair!

Sorry you are in so much pain at the moment DEM

About to descend stairs in to bowels of basement and load wm and then climb back again and retreat in to bed. Musn't complain but holiday ending with a definite whimper ... .

Tomorrow’s links…..

Baby-step no. 18 for Sat 18th April is here

We are in Zone 3 The Bathroom and an extra room this week: here

If you want to, you can declutter for 15 mins a day in Zone 3!

The detailed cleaning list (if you are at that stage) for Zone 3 is here

There are no missions at the weekend

The daily focus for Saturday is: Family Fun Day

The monthly habit for April is making your bed

For a summary of the above, see the flight plan: here

Happy flying…..

Swan sounds like an odd day with random children helping out, very amusing about your DD hiding in her room and DS1 buying a sports captaincy, bizarre!

Bless welcome back. Sorry to hear that you are struggling with your dissertation, how long have you got now? Or is that a question you are avoiding?!

Dressage competition sounds very impressive, it looks like something that requires a lot of patience and hard work so she should be very proud of herself.

Steady sounds like you are having a grim time with your chest infection, sorry to hear that DH isn't making it any easier. Your bubble bath method to summon parcel deliveries made me laugh

ta da
Wake up in pain, take pain killers and successfully drink coffee without chucking over the bed
ds to doctor's appointment
collect meds
teach ds how to apply new med
consider the value of getting up and doing stuff or just going back to bed and sleeping
laundry
cut teeny tiny pieces of felt out until I thought i was going crazy
deal with smashed glass
finish adding 2 strips to the sampler blanket
some folding
sort out ds' kit for tomo
sort out ds' uniform for tomo
cut out a pattern
a load of on line admin type stuff

Haven't really got anything done today due to waiting for telephone engineer and parcel. When I got up about 7.30am I had an email from Amazon saying that my parcel was out for delivery so due to fear of missing it went downstairs and didn't even risk showering or dressing until it arrived. Sadly it didn't arrive until about quarter past one, so was still in dressing gown to get my parcel at that time. So that caused a very slow start to the day.

I had planned to get two coats of paint on the other side of my study today, I got one on yesterday and all the furniture is pulled out so I need to get the painting sorted to be able to put the study back in a reasonable condition. Currently my study is unusable (can barely even get in the door) and I've got a fair bit of stuff in DPs study too.

Somehow though I seemed to be knackered after waiting for my parcel and picking another one up from a local store. (At least local store parcel was a v-shaped pillow that I hope is going to help me be more comfortable in bed and hence get more sleep.) I ended up doing no painting and going for a nap at 6pm until DP got in after 7.30pm.

Anyway, hopefully if I can get a good nights sleep tonight I can get two coats of paint on second half of study tomorrow and restore order. It’s only an hour per coat as they are simple walls (I’ve done the difficult walls with window, alcoves and fireplace already) and I’ve only got to go up to picture rail so it’s not as much work as it may sound. I’m only short and I can do the painting without even using a ladder, so don’t worry I’m not overdoing it.

DP flies to India a week tomorrow morning and I do keep having moments of feeling a bit nervous about it, even though I know it’s silly as it is so unlikely that anything will happen. I guess it’s probably just the total lack of control we have over the situation and the fact that he can’t exactly just pop back easily if anything happens as the journey involves 3 flights!

I must try and focus on the positives, mostly getting the tv to myself! I might treat myself to buying a box set while DP is away so that I feel like I’ve got a treat, I feel like buying The Bridge, I only caught a few episodes but it looked very enjoyable, anyone seen it all who can recommend?

Dogs I don't have pearls either. Whatever shall I do? Can't even do a proper "pearl clutch" without them!

I'll be doing odd jobs in the house over the weekend, along with the regular daily stuff.

Morning fledglings,

Linzer - how are you all doing? Is your DD coping alright? I imagine she must feel quite shocked.

Bless - fantastic about your DD in her dressage competition - it really doesn't matter that she didn't win, especially if she was competing mid week against adults. As you say, they are most likely semi pros with unbelievable well school mounts. She should be proud of her pony. When I used to ride a big stocky cob (years ago now) I was always so proud of him just for going into an outline!

DEM - how are things this morning? You are sound very 'crafty' at the moment with lots of projects on the go. What is the 'training' that your DS goes to so often?

Dogs - you sound uber productive DIY wise - you will be careful after your DH has left on his travels? I thought of you yesterday when I noticed that the keyhole 'frame'/cover/thingy on our front door was hanging on by one screw. I thought, "must get DH to fix that tomorrow", and then I thought, "For God sake, it's only one screw, I don't need a man to do that for me!" So I fixed it myself!

SC - hope you are feeling better soon

I'm going to cheat and post my ta das from yesterday as I had such a productive day:

Dropped DS to nursery
Went into my old work place to say hello and collect last payslip
Filled up on petrol
Small food shop
Made beds
Washed cat trays and replaced cat litter
Made dinner ready for the evening
Few loads of laundry
Dishwasher x2
Loads of online admin stuff: childcare vouchers, Bill paying etc
Called nursery to discuss DS s three hour long naps he has there which completely screw up his bed time routine
Started on accounts and book keeping stuff for DHs company ready for end of year returns.
Went out to archery, shot lots of arrows, felt great!

DS had an unsettled night sleep wise so we're still knackered this morning. As its a lovely day, I'm thinking of going out to the garden centre for inspiration for what to plant in our garden this year. There is also a reclaimation yard nearby which we've been meaning to explore for ages. Might do that too.

Wing flaps to all :)

Hurts shit loads but booked in with the physio for Monday. Busy day so pain killers and coffee are needed. Lots of crafting going on because having to take it easy and there are so many fecking projects that have been started and abandoned. And craft stuff is the 2nd biggest source of clutter the 1st being paperwork I am decluttering via crafting still. There are a whole heap of unfinished projects that I want finished, some of which will leave the house, by the end of the year. Not helped by being the age when everyone seems to be having babies.

To do
med for ds
breakfast, coffee pain killers
double check ds' kit
lunch
drive
hang about
try to extract child and get him home

Seaside you made me laugh with your no pearls to clutch comment, strangely I now feel like I want to have some pearls, feeling very under dressed without them now....

Grey I applaud your DIY empowerment moment with the door! Blimey 3 hour naps at nursery sounds like a lot, how long is he at nursery to fit in a 3 hour nap! I guess it's easier for staff to look after sleeping children, or am I just being cynical! Archery sounds great by the way.

Dark sorry to hear you are still suffering so much. I hope the craft projects go well. I've now bought a crochet hook but that is as far as I've got with learning to crochet, a distinct lack of craft work going on at our house.

Must now get backside off sofa as washing up and tidying the kitchen is all I've done today. Plan is to put one coat of paint on study, then do a little local shop for newspaper and a few food items and then get a second coat of paint on later and then restore order to my study.... Off I go....

Took my new dress on its first outing yesterday evening. DH didn't feel well, so I had to go on my own. As I only knew the hosts, that was pretty scary, but I managed to get talking to lots of different people, so it was ok. Drank far too much, from nerves, so am feeling a little fragile today. DH begged me not to tell him anything more about the party this morning as, apparently, I told him everything about five times over last night .

Have to do it all over again tonight, so the dress will have its second outing.

DM is arriving early this afternoon. I can see the house through her eyes, which means I have lots of tidying up to do before she gets here.