September 2015 fledglings shine their sink and their lace up shoes and prepare for the new academic year ahead

[standclear]

Welcome to the September 2015 Fledgling Flying thread! Hang up your microfibre cloths and park your buckets here!!

[Sorry - I've namechanged again - but remain SC]

This is where from the 1st of the month, we attempt to declutter and follow the 30-step wisdom of Flylady (minus cutesy language and a surfeit of e-mails) with lots of chat and support and mutual motivation (and of course) along the way. (More info available here and here ) and here.

Humungous thanks to our previous thread leaders (nns relating to a planet and to a colour) for guiding us through the summer and keeping us sane throughout the holidays!

As usual we will be following a three-pronged approach - and don't worry - we are all at different stages. Some of us (SC stares at feet) -are stuck at the decluttering stage after an embarrassingly long number of years :

• repeat or start baby steps (again!)

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

or

• reinforce babysteps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering.

And those of you who have decluttered and are really enthusiastic can throw some detailed cleaning in to the mix as well!

This is a very long-running thread so we may appear cliquey but we really aren't! All newcomers, long-termers, lurkers and intermittent returnees not only welcome to join in but positively encouraged to do so!

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Good luck!

Oh grey so sorry I made the mistake of skim reading. I'm really sorry about your friend, what a horrible shock

Morning all

FLYing is progressing slowly.
DD is LOVING her new school. She bounces out of bed excited to go and big grins when I meet her off the minibus!

Ds's school has started a breakfast club, which means I'm home by 8:30 and no breakfast battles.
Still really struggling with his behaviour, might try and find self defence classes or try and ask the police how to restrain someone who is trying to hit and kick you without damaging them or you!

To do
DD bath
Clear kitchen ready for tesco at 10-11
Wrap present for b.day party at 2pm
Make lunchbox flapjacks, not burn this time!
Generally survive the day with DH at work.

Hope everyone has a good day. Sorry haven't read the whole thread, grey sorry for your bad news.
Back later when head is feeling more conected to my body - hate having dyspraxia and epilepsy!
Back later

Good morning!

Many apologies if you were up early this morning hunting for links [Were you Shannara ?]

I did try and post them late last night but either my computer, Wi-fi, server, or the Mumsnet site, or something (!), weren't having any of it.

Also, see none of you spotted my previous deliberate mistake where I inadvertently posted baby-step 13 on day 12!! [Posting both here now for clarity's sake.]

**

The baby-step for yesterday, Sat 12 Sept, is here continue the baby-steps and morning and evening routines and deleting e-mails from Flylady (which you won't have to do if you haven't subscribed to them!)

And the baby-step for today, Sun 13 Sept, is here picking out a mission and doing it for the first time.

Today is our first day in Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room (September 13 to 19) here.

If you have finished decluttering in Zone 3 and want do to some detailed cleaning, here is the detailed cleaning list.

No mission because it is the weekend! (Although that rather contradicts today's baby-step!)

The daily focus for Sun is renewing your spirit do something that makes you feel rejuvenated.

The habit for September is developing a before-bed routine here: www.flylady.net/d/habits-of-the-month/september/ .

A summary of the above (which should update itself daily) can be found here: www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=-120.

Have a relaxing Sunday everyone! Well, as relaxing as humanly possible anyway!

***

Shannara good to 'see' you! Sorry to hear your dyspraxia and epilepsy are making things tough for you this morning . Here's a . Such great news about your dd and her new school!! You must be so happy about it!! And a self defence class sounds like a great idea for your ds1 - hope it helps him - and you!

Greymalkin I'm sorry your day yesterday was so stressful, and I'm also very sorry to hear of the circumstances of your friend's death, how terrible for all concerned. I hope archery can offer a little temporary distraction from all the stress today.

Good that you have finally heard about placement Knitting although sorry that it still leaves you waiting. V. good that your ds1 has some other male companions at drama too!

Blue good to hear someone is finally working on your behalf to hasten the house sale and I hope the party goes well today! I'm sure the cake will be delicious and be the cause of much delight!

Thanks Fuzzpig! Doesn't seem a minute since dd's first day at primary [sniff] [dabs corner of eye with handkerchief] Despite all of my whinging, this really is the 'golden treasure' time .

The beauty of the Flylady system Behemond is I think it does make one use time more efficiently.

Yes, the Mnsnet site doesn't seem to like accents over letters at the moment does it and of course that should have read 'whose husband' not 'who's dh' earlier! I am always conscious of my now-horrible grammar and spelling when writing a post intended for the professional writers and translaters on here! Believe it or not, I used to work as a copy-editor ages ago, but because I am now writing in FRench a lot of the time, and always posting v speedily on here my word order and spelling has totally gone to pot - tend to put in too many 'ls' and 's's' and 'm's' in words- so apologies in advance!

We have a school meeting tomorrow night that I am preparing for. As previously mentioned, am generally v. happy and impressed with organisation and professionalism of the school so far.

What I am not so happy about (now the full timetable is in motion) is that dd has not one creative class ie she has languages, maths, biology and natural sciences, sport, technology and a sort of combo of hist and geog and one class a week on 'methodology' and that is it. No art, no creative writing, no drama, no choir, no music, no poetry . In typical 'dry' style here, there is not one opportunity to add your own original thought to the learning process, rather than just be 'fed' pages and pages of facts.

Rather disappointed on her behalf as she has a stonking imagination (too stonking for her own good sometimes ) but not sure how good an idea it is to turn up for first time at school and express disappointment. Any tips?

Have a relaxing Sunday as poss everyone, and remember to do something for yourselves Fledglings!!

Morning.

We had a very relaxing day yesterday after Friday night's late night.
Today there needs to be a whole heap of laundry, washing up, hoovering, checking the freezer and if necessary massive batch cooking of said freezer contents

Thanks for Can'tsee I'm in exactly the same situation as you today. Good luck with everything you have to do!

So far have

ta da:
taken dog for walk
put keys on new key-rings and hang up
fed animals
emptied dw and filled it again (large pans this time, thank you dh)
shined sink
cleaned bin lid
shined stove
cleaned kitchen surfaces
gave basement lav a bit of an s&s
cleaned plate of iron which needed doing urgently
towel dried a winter jumper and laid out flat

to do:
extract dirty laundry from floor of boudoir first floor and carry down to laundry room
write food shopping list
quick food shop
sort laundry
carry on with laundry
iron uniform for tomorrow
hang up school & ballet timetable on fridge
find list of ongoing cards/letters/parcels that I need to tackle
write weekly schedule for cj
write food planning menu and pin on fridge
name tapes
more ballet ribbons to be sewn on

Big wing flaps to all!

oh yes, must do on-line supermarket order to, we are v low on essentials

and get to grips with furry one's sleeping arrangements for winter

and re-starting diet again today too, I am decidly porky

decidedly

SC technology is surely creative, and languages may include poetry and creative writing as well? I'm sure her ballet classes will provide the music element. Perhaps these are all considered extras parents can lay on in some form? I do remember the joy of going to our large school art room though and I wasn't even any good at art..Double art on Friday -heaven. But presumably they'll be studying Moliere and Shakespeare before long..and reciting poetry

We are listening to the La Forza del Destino with Maria Callas. Dh has resurrected the entire vinyl collection of classical music his uncle bequeathed to him. (Uncle transferred his collection onto cassette when he moved abroad, and gave dh the vinyl) Inspired by Last Night at the Proms on telly which led to a row because ds2 wouldn't go to bed at 10 and kept dancing round annoying ds1 (who liked listening and cannot bear interruptions) Ds1 is still asleep and I'm not quite sure what ds2 is doing..I've already removed the computer from him and handed him some clothes to put away (but he probably hasn't)

Just booked dd into a Spanish tutor - another layer of complication to make sure she actually goes and doesn't change her mind about tutoring. It is near her school, and the tutor is someone I know with children the same age which helps..

Ta Da
1 load of washing
updated diary for this next week
counted number of pennants needed in bunting
removed some dead elastic from a pair of pj bottoms
folding

Must admit distinctly lacking in motivation. Especially as the next job is a food shop with ds in tow

DP has taken Meerkitten out for a walk in pram so I've managed to read the updates for the last week, can't believe it has been that long since I've been able to get on and read and post, where does the time go. I actually managed to do a lot of the reading yesterday afternoon when much to my amazement Meerkitten actually had a nap, I nearly fainted, it was heaven and lasted almost two hours, sadly this then meant she slept even less overnight but I did still enjoy it. I would love it so much if became a regular thing but I'm not getting my hopes up [just looking for sigh emoticon but it appears there isn't one]

Apologies for how slow I am to responding to things, I know everything has moved on a million miles since I last posted but I can't resist responding to a few items. Fizrim you made me laugh with your Father Christmas sleep suit comment, the thing is that I would be fine with that because a sleep suit is practical, I have no problem with embarrassing my child just the impracticality of a lot of the outfits I've been given. In fact I must confess that I may well now look for some sort of novelty Christmas sleepsuit for Meerkitten inspired by your confession

Toffee love the Bishop Brennon episode, still makes me howl with laughter

Grey sorry to hear about your friend and I hope you are ok. I also keep meaning to look up this Geocache thing that gets mentioned on this thread, then I forget, must make note to self to try and look it up before Meerkitten gets back.

On my news front, my dad has had a stroke, but a fairly minor one on the stroke spectrum. However, it is the third and most serious stroke that he has had and the only one that he has actually been hospitalised for. He was only in hospital for a few days though and he has an MRI scan this week, I don't know how confident they feel about what this will reveal, or if it will help prevent another stroke. I'm not sure if my dad understands or not. I don't feel worried about it to be honest, maybe because it is his third and he has made a full recovery from all of them, or maybe I'm just in denial, who knows! Or maybe it is just because I've been permanently 'on duty' with Meerkitten since I found out and hence I haven't had a chance to process what has happened.

On a more positive note I've been offered a place on a free council baby massage course for five weeks starting this week, so I'm really pleased about that, but I'm not really sure why I think it's probably because you hear that baby massage is great for babies, but if I'm honest I have no real idea why it is supposed to be so great. Has anyone been on a baby massage course and can therefore enlighten me?

Dogs I did baby massage when DS1 was tiny. It was nice and got us out of the house. It's supposed to be soothing and relaxing for them, and there were some specific massages that were meant to aid sleep, sooth tummy cramps/colic etc. TBH most things from that time are something of a blur, so no idea if it was really beneficial! Certainly went by the board with DS2, as many things did.

Sorry to hear about your dad.

Trumpet fanfare - dh has washed down the front door without being asked!! - I really think I am going to faint ...

Waves to Blue - and hope you survived the party - for later!

Yay Dogsbum good to 'see' you! So sorry to hear about your dad though. I hope he is OK and that MRI reveals no serious damage. Wishing him a steady recovery x

As for baby massage, I went to one session and found it a little stressful tbh (when it was supposed to be the opposite). Don't want to put you off but it in quite a small room with mothers and babies packed in (and no one ever seems to open a window in this country, especially when there are dc around) and I just felt claustrophobic and worried that dd was going to start crying and set all the other babies off!! I didn't go back but tbh, I am not generally one for group activities, mother and baby groups, coffee mornigns etc - I find them all rather tortuous [miserable git emoticon]

Hope you survived the food shop Can'tsee and well done re: list

Knitting is technology creative? I am ashamed to say I have absolutely no idea what it involves (even after reading a six page summary) . Need to look at it again properly. Also not quite as bad as I thought, because they will be doing music later on in the year. DD did study French and Flemish poetry at primary school but not guaranteed in secondary. Very, very dry fact-based curriculum here involving endless repetitive learning. And no-one seems to do any creative writing or writing of letters or poetry at all .

Yes, I suppose extra-curricular stuff is traditionally done on Wednesday afternoons here (no school) outside of lessons but I think it helps friendships and just general enjoyment of school if there is at least a play or a concert or something creative being worked on across form classes and years. I'm worried dd is going to find it so boring. (There was always something "interesting" going on at primaire.)

We caught a bit of Last Night of the Proms too - I normally cannot abide it (esp all the nationalistic hoo-haa) - but dd enjoyed it! And thought Marin Alsop managed to imbue proceedings with a wee bit of gravitas this year (well as much as she could given programme and Sound of Music etc) and thought Britten's arrangement of the national anthem was a great improvement on the original which is normally such a dirge, made it sound like a piece for a welsh male voice chior.

I spent my entire 4th and 4th year in the art room at secondary school.

Had better get on ...

Ta da (continued):
emptied dw for second time
cleaned and re-organised breakfast jar tray thing
extracted dirty laundry from floor of boudoir first floor and carried down to laundry room
wrote food shopping list
quick food shop
sorted laundry
more laundry
hung up school & ballet timetable on fridge
hung up list of teachers and subjects on fridge
hung up etudes surveillee times on fridge
write weekly schedule for cj and pin copy on fridge
write food planning menu and pin on fridge
find diet book
find and blow dust off diet and lifestyle folder thing
made beef soup/stew thing with plats cote and lots of veg
on-line shopping order

To do:
iron uniform for tomorrow
find list of ongoing cards/letters/parcels that I need to tackle
serve supper and clear up
evening routine inc dw, animals, laying out of clothes etc

This week:
name tapes
more ballet ribbons
email about missing parcel
optician appt
appt with Smeg man

I am sorry sc but all i can think of is red dwarf. Smeg man?

Lots of yummy smelling food going on here in attempt to prevent going off of stuff in fridge and freezer Ds has been a pita with the exception of the shop. But i have managed to get him into the shower and washed with actual soap. Now if he would only do his homework!

Ha! Can'tsee

Same thing in reverse here. DD has finished her hwk (and is currently dog-walking with dh) but haven't managed to herd her in to the bath yet

We shall prevail!!

Also meal planning and cooking like mad to avoid snacking.

If anyone is interested in a new diet regime I am starting today (I know, I know) then thread is here

Well in to bath, bed, packing bags, laying out clothes routine now.

So will say g'night to all and here are links for the morning:

***
The baby-step for tomorrow, Mon 14 Sept, is here and concerns calendar use [after several mistakes this week, I am not sneering at this one any more].

We are in Zone 3 this week (September 13 to 19): The Bathroom plus One Extra Room here.

If you have finished decluttering in Zone 3 and want do to some detailed cleaning, here is the detailed cleaning list.

Monday's mission (and all the missions for the week ahead]] can be found : here.

Monday's bathroom mission is cleaning around the back and base of the lav.

And do a 5 min "stash and dash" in the 'other' room ie spend 5 mins throwing or recycling clutter that is resting in some corner or other where it shouldn't!

The daily focus for Monday is: is what we call the home 'bleugh' and Flylady calls the home blessing. 10 mins spent on each of 7 main chores.

The habit for September is developing a before-bed routine here: www.flylady.net/d/habits-of-the-month/september/ .

A summary of the above (which should update itself daily) can be found here: www.flylady.net/c/fp.php?tzm=-120.

Have a productive start to the week everyone! Small step by small step!

***

Thanks for SC

Did survive the party, largely because we went bowling and the only thing we actually had to do was provide the cake and not lose anybody!! Was nice to see friends from the boys' old school too.

Ds2 has just done a word for word replay of the Smeg Man incident with Crichton in Red Dwarf

D & T (design and technology) SC is when you make board games, hacksaws, and shark sculptures in Dses school and small wire men sitting on top of wooden bridge peering at the printed waves in Dd's school.
As opposed to textiles or art or graphic design.

Dog Hope your father continues to improve. Baby massage is wonderful - for the mums. Have an acquaintance to teaches it. And another who told me it set up to make mums happy. Babies of course get a lot of natural touch from their mums anyway so probably don't need the massage as much as you think..

Good morning!

about Smeg man! My oven engineer bloke will be pleased to know he is the cause of such hilarity!

Knitting well those forms of technology certainly sound wonderfully creative - dd would love that - rather sceptical that it will be anything like that here however.

Glad the party went well Blue!

Ta da:
iron uniform
wm on

To do:
morning routine inc animals, s&s, wm, dw, dining room table hot spot etc
home bleugh downstairs
stew plums, make separate crumble topping
put clean and ironed clothes away
serious attempt at improving chaos in boudoir
serious amounts of washing, especially towels
name tapes
more ballet sewing
dog walking
school run
sort baby-sitter
school meeting
evening routine

Have a good day everyone!

[shuffles in with vat of coffee ?? ]
Morning all! Sorry I went awol but things have been a bit manic!
I was at my aunt's funeral on Thursday in the Forest of Dean, then my WI had a stall at our local festival on Saturday combined with yarnbombing. Yesterday I had a rest!
I'm out tonight (committee meeting) so not much will get done today but there are 3 things which must be done:
Contact Morris dancers
Sign DS's planner
Get stuff ready for Tuesday morning

Freezer is definitely buggered :( :( saved as much as possible and don't actually have to cook for the rest of the week to use up the stuff not possible to move. Which means cauliflower cheese for lunch it is going to be a long week.
No central heating, freezer fooked, just one more to go and then that is the three.

I should be up and doing, or sleeping. Don't really want to do either atm Might go tackle the ironing pile and do some folding but first a vat of coffee is needed.