Autumn leaves flutter as October Fledglings Fly!

[standclear]

Welcome to the October 2015 Fledgling Flying thread!

Park your broomsticks and cauldrons here!! Or is that just me ?

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.

As usual we will be following a three-pronged approach - and don't worry - we are all at different stages. (Some of us are still stuck at the decluttering stage after quite a few 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!

The idea is that we focus on short, ring-fenced, daily steps and routines that will help our homes run (more or less!) on "automatic pilot" allowing us to do far more interesting things instead!

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!

Helpful pointers: No perfectionism allowed! If it took a while to create the current C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome) in your home, then it will probably take a while to reverse the situation (you can't clean clutter!). Small steps are the key! And you are never behind: just jump in where you are at!

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Good luck!

We did this this with ds' aspie assement Fuzz don't worry, you wont be the first (just print 2 copies so you can keep on to refer to in the interview if you need and give one to the assessor)

Evening all, have been in London all day, leaving DH to deal with poorly DS2. Has involved some logistical challenges, but everyone survived.

Thanks Cant - great idea to have an extra copy! I'm bound to forget a lot otherwise. I think with this kind of assessment it'll be the little things that add up to make the whole picture.

[Just escaping Dr Who]

Thankfully visitors rooms all done and dusted Scatty but thanks for the encouragement. I stopped decluttering at 5pm and went and got my hair cut instead and bought some plastic storage boxes from DIY shop, so feeling a bit cheerier now. Visitors not arriving until tomorrow eve so have a bit of time in the morning to do some more boudoir work, but not planning on getting up early!!

Good luck with the questionnaire Fuzzpig

Sorry to hear your ds2 unwell Blue - that is all you need at the moment poor lad - hope he recovers quickly!

Waves to Can'tsee and everyone else!

Managed to turn the house around a bit today (with help of cleaners yesterday) so not feeling quite so despairing tonight about state of house. Will just have to try and keep up standards and make proper decluttering inroads elsewhere from now on and not just maintain!! That way, it won't be such an enormous effort when guests come [she says doubtfully staring at mounds of dirty bed-linen waiting for wash; and they're just from changing our beds!!)

And dh heroically took on all three dog-walks today so that helped hugely!!

G'night all!

Scatty hope you enjoy your dinner à deux tonight! And v. good going with sorting + paperwork!

That's odd Fuzz and 4..I have to write something for ds2 EHCP and I just cannot think of anything to say..it is like I am now drained of all opinions on ds2's abilities or perceptions - I feel like I've said it all a thousand times and just...?????? I want to put things like He enjoys documentaries on Patagonia and Red Dwarfish humour but dislikes lumps on mashed potato and sticks his fingers in ketchup, but I suspect that would not be clinical terminology.

Dh cooked an amzing supper of venison and red cabbage (from a Polish jar with added cloves and butter) and mash. Ds2 has been swimming and to drama, older two to drama singing and acting. I have done

NO HOUSEWORK today, but slightly cheered by chatting to two frazzled friends who spent a lot of today cleaning their houses and it didn't seem to have improved their mood!!! or their chldrens' behaviour

not you of course SC! bravo for getting through an exhausting day and smiling at the end of it.

Scatty very admiring of you for getting through return to work and good about mortgage documents

Blue it is always best to get away!

Knitting here are the questions on the open questionnaire (I also got the usual tick box things) and vaguely some of the things I've included:

Please write about your experiences of friendships and relationships
I wrote about how I always struggled to make friends, was bullied/unpopular, how in my teens I was too demanding of friends etc. I also said how I need a lot of time alone in order to function.

Please write about your experiences of using and understanding non-verbal communication
I wrote about how I keep interrupting people in conversations (I HATE this about myself, I just can't seem to help it, I misjudge when I am expected to speak), how I never know if people are joking or serious or if they're laughing at me etc.
I also wrote about how I struggle with auditory processing (though I didn't use the jargon), how I have to have things repeated etc, which gets very frustrating for others.

Please write about your experiences of understanding other people and social situations
I wrote about how I always feel I don't fit in, even when people are being welcoming. I blush when people look at me. I can't do small talk and find it exhausting. I often analyse situations afterwards if I think I've said or done the wrong thing, and it stays on my mind for days.

Please write about how you cope with change
I wrote about how I find it difficult to have uncertainty, and I don't like seasonal/weather changes because things can't stay the same all year round. I get panicky about things like holidays as I don't know what will happen.

Please write about your interests, collections and hobbies
I wrote about reading and mentioned how I find it hard to follow the story or describe it, my love of maths and puzzles and learning lists because I like the certainty of the answers, but how I get upset if I'm distracted from it. I also wrote about music as I was very precocious and also said how it's the one thing I can use to express myself.

Please write about how you think
I wrote about how I get very hung up on details and am a perfectionist which makes me procrastinate. I also said that I have a good memory for facts.

Please write about your experiences of anxiety
I wrote about my long battle with anxiety and about what makes me anxious like social situations and crowds, and germs.

Please write about your sensory experiences
I wrote about how I find noise (especially when lots of sounds are happening at once) makes me really upset or angry, and how I don't like bright lights.
I described how I'm very clumsy and always do things like catch my clothing on door handles. I also don't notice people when I'm out, and I always get the sarcastic 'you're WELCOME' when for example I walk through a door and didn't notice somebody was waiting for me and holding the door (that really upsets me and I dwell on it for days - it was actually one of those incidents that made me finally try and find out why I'm so fecking inadequate :()
I then wrote about how I can 'feel' crowds, I mentioned the analogies I use (going into a crowded place is like opening the oven door) and how I feel hot and scared.

Everyday functioning
I wrote about the troubles I had settling into my job and the mistakes I often make, and the things I find difficult like customers or colleagues standing too close.
I wrote about how I can't manage housework (but you all know that about me anyway of course :o) and how I find cooking incredibly hard because I can't coordinate the timings, and again due to being clumsy.
I also said how I can't manage imaginary play with my DCs.

Fuzzpig I can relate to so many of your comments yet when you put them all together like that it does sound very much like asd.

My particulars are interrupting people as I find it very hard to focus on what someone else is saying and follow it. It's almost like I can only follow a conversation when I'm speaking more than listening. That's all tied up with my worrying about social situations and analysing for days afterwards whether I've said or done the right or wrong things or talked too much etc. It's horrible and exhausting so you have my deepest sympathies. I'm also so damn clumsy after having kids especially

I hope you get the support you need xx

Fuzz yes, all that is hard isn't it. I have it too, to some degree. The lovely thing abou the internet is that you never interrrupt people!!! [does x posting count? or not paying attention to other people's posts )

Anyway it is good to put it down in black and white but painful too, I'm sure. I think I've just had enough of writing and talking about ds2 as someone "with autism", it all feels a bit intrusive. He is himself, and you are probably (most probably!) yourself too, and quite unknowable in tick box form.

Today I had a magical moment, walking down the path and seeing dd playing the piano for dh, (a composiiton she has been working on in school) your children must have memories of you playing in the background completely interwoven in their lives, in best possible way

Onwards and upwards! was watching a very interesting programme about Patagonia (did I mention Patagonia before) and thought how very odd it is that we are all designed perfectly for our chosen path in live, in this case the rock hoppers were perfectly suited to Patagonia (a most unhabitable but beautiful place)

Thank you Scatty :) I'm hoping that I'll remember everything I need to, as there are a number of things that individually are within the normal range (mostly) but add up to make for a life that is really rather difficult. My appointment isn't for a few more weeks so I'll have time to write more if I think of it. I feel like I'm useless at everything normal people can do! I'm sorry you struggle with those things too.

Sorry everyone for going off on a tangent but hoped it would help in some way knitting - I can see how it must be very wearing having to explain your DC's difficulties again and again.

As for imaginary play, it is a gift, but not essential when playing with children - I think you can fire their imaginations without necessarily entering a long and complicated fantasy world with them. That fantasy world could be in the form of books you read, or songs you sing, or jokes you tell instead. I think even a board game is a exercise in joining in an imaginary world with your child. So don't be too hard on yourself.

Thanks knitting :)

I'm finding the tick box things really hard! One of them is 'always/sometimes/rarely/never true' type stuff which is fairly simple but the other is 'as a child/as an adult/both/neither' well what if something is say in the 'both' category but only sometimes? Aargh! I'm going to fill in most of it but I might have to leave a few blank because I don't understand the questions.

Tell you what's really funny though, and ridiculously embarrassing. You know how people with autism are stereotypically people who talk and talk about their interests, I'd always thought I didn't do that. But turns out I do. Actually quite a lot. I genuinely hadn't realised but I remember now so many times where I've come away thinking somebody was boring for not being interested in world animation or board games or whatever I was talking about. Oops it's kind of comical that I've always smugly felt I didn't have an issue with it, but I have been ignoring the bored/glazed over expressions. :o

I sympathise too Fizz and Knitting, having gone through the statementing process with DS. I found it was best to just keep jotting down ANYTHING at all that might be relevant, I found myself scrutinising his red book, diaries I used to keep when he was a baby etc. It is hard reducing yourself or your child to a list of all the most difficult aspects of their existence. Things like being obsessed with Patagonia are definitely relevant. And Fuzz - I don't think I am on the spectrum or anywhere near it, but I am absolutely crap at imaginary play, nothing make my heart sink faster than any suggestion or role play. I went to a murder mystery evening once, I just couldn't get into it at all, it felt absolutely ridiculous to me and ended up in a punch-up so I guess I wasn't the only one.

Not much Flying to report, just keeping on at the day to day things really. Been trying to spend any free time I can at the allotment as the days are getting shorter the available time is vanishing and the weeds are taking over.

Yes...I am going to tick that box too. I get all too fixated on various things... However, what has always helped me is listening to other people going on too long about things THEY are interested in... very chastening and a strong incentive to try and edit oneself.

The truth is, the more you talk to other people (one of the problems with social anxiety is that you just get less practice - chicken and egg) the more you find yourself adjusting. It takes a lot out of you though, hence needing down time.

And on which note, DOWNTIME>::: zzzzz. sleep well, all, peacefully and without worries, as our children should, and would want us to.

That form must be really stressful to complete, fuzz. It's hard enough filling them in for your child, but having to analyse yourself must be really difficult. I empathise with some of the things you mention myself, eg. auditory processing: I have to write things down or see them written/printed to remember them. I'm hopeless at remembering someone's name if they tell me, but can remember it if it's printed on a label, for instance. This is one of the things I'm worried about in my new job, as I'll have to be trained and will need to listen to lots of instructions (with the added problem of anxiety, which will reduce my concentration even more - argh!). Will be taking a notebook with me to write everything down.

Haven't done much Flying today, thanks to horrible cold. Ended up having to go back to bed with a hot-water bottle this afternoon. DS1 slept in till the afternoon and has also woken up with a streaming cold. DS2 is the only one of us not ill and I expect it'll be his turn next.

MIL not well either today, as she'd hurt her back, so DH spent half the day with her. She refused to take painkillers or to use the osteopath's cooling/warming gel bag I sent over with him, but eventually had some lunch and went back to bed. We can't work out why she refuses to do things to help herself. I think she's decided that if something hasn't been prescribed by the doctor, it's not 'allowed'. Very frustrating for DH.

I understand what you mean about getting tired of describing your child as 'with autism', knitting. DS1 is on such good form at the moment that it seems irrelevant and he is just himself, after all.

Thanks for all your kind words and advice Fledglings

Good plan on taking a notebook - I'm always scribbling furiously during training! That's even more necessary since I got CFS/POTS as I get 'brain fog'. I can memorise facts easily (although again not as much since being ill) but instructions? Not a hope in hell :o

Yes it's exhausting constantly checking yourself and trying to say the right thing! One example I put on the form was how I sometimes cry when I get off the bus at work, when someone I vaguely know sat next to me on the journey and we had to make small talk. Even if it ended up being a good conversation, it is just so tiring, and it meant I missed out on that 20 minutes where I could just let my mind rest.

Bizarrely when I did see a psychiatrist before, and he said he thought I had OCD, he actually said that it would have been a huge contributor to me getting CFS, because it is such an exhausting illness that it affected my body as well as my mind.

Enough about that! Sorry

Anyway I don't imagine I'll get anything done at all today. DH is out at a run and when he gets back I'm planning to disappear for a rest! :o

[Dives in to carrot cake with abandon] Wavesto Can't see

Hope you can take a bt of a break from questionnaire today Fuzzpig And it makes total sense that a debilitating mh condition would exhaust you physically too

And sympathies to all of you who have filled out similar forms for your kinder. I think Whoknows sums it up very movingly in her post
"It is hard reducing yourself or your child to a list of all the most difficult aspects of their existence. "

And can imagine how horribly intrusive it feels Knitting

As someone who knows virtually nothing about this, I have to say it is fascinating reading all of your posts on the subject (and I am saying this genuinely, not taking the Michael) that I could tick quite a few of those boxes too. Am a bit actually.

Def ticks for anxiety, particularly when driving/travelling (have had panic attacks in the past), am better with social anxiety now but find social occasions exhausting and need time alone to recover, my sisters tell me I interrupt on the telephone, I also have the 'need to write something down' before I can remember it Toffee, cannot focus on any task (and I mean any small task) if there is a radio or television or music on in the background, however quietly, the music or tv noise over-rides everything else, tick to not being able to tolerate crowds, not being able to tolerate certain lighting in shops (flashing), perfectionism partic being hung up on one detail to detriment of overall task, not good at prioritising tasks logically ... although having said all of that ... imaginative play is alive and well (possibly too alive and too well!!) in this household. So maybe not!!

But interesting how many of us with similar traits have ended up on the same thread!!

That's not to diminish the effects of the condition on those who have had it properly diagnosed by professionals though. It must be very very tough to deal with on a daily basis.

On a totally different tack, Whoknows crikey, your murder mystery parties certainly sound exciting !!

And Knitting I've always wanted to go to Patagonia! Brilliant programme that. And how lovely about your magical musical moment!!

Toffee I hope you feel better soon, and I am certain that the writing things down/auditory processing thing can be positively helpful in some aspects of certain jobs. I'm useless now because I'm out of practice, but when I was proof-reading for example, I could spot patterns in words that looked "off" if that makes any sense. Hope your mil recovers soon too x

Waves to Scatty and everyone else!

Have a million things to do before visitors arrive but have had very lazy morning indeed! Currently helping dd put rabbit transfers on her nails!!

Really must go and do something more productive ... .

Hope eveyrone has a relaxing day as poss!

Apologies - upon re-reading, last post sounds dreadfully "me" "me".

A bit of thread business: visitors arriving today so may only be able to pop in and post links this week and may not be able to spend much time on personals .

["hurrah!" I hear you all shouting !!]

So please would some kind soul look after any newcomers, answer queries, or respond to any major events if I miss them? Ta very muchly x

Thanks for the welcome back and the kind words and encouragement.It definitely made a difference to the way I feel.

I'm glad you're taking care of yourself Fuzzpig. Just to say too that I'm happy to hear you getting things off your chest. I don't call it whingeing. I prefer to call it recharging my batteries. Plus I think you're doing really well if you carry on doing stuff for your house even though you're not feeling too brilliant.

I liked your plan to go in stages with your boudoir Standclean .

Sounds like you've been really productive. I admire you.

Have a good Sunday all.

we are all having a relaxed day. Or should that be a disorganised day? Late breakfast. Planted bulbs. Fishcakes (homemade) and soup prepared on Friday for lunch.

Mess everywhere, cannot be bothered to do much, very tired for some reason. A bit worn down by ds2's habits too..he keeps trying to run off to a friend's house or else watch Rugby in perpetuity. Ds1 causing trouble again with A level choices and perception of his gsces. Latest is he thinks he should do badly in Geography gsce so that we don't make him do Geograpy A level. [head in hands] I am wondering whether he is up to A levels at all he just doesn't seem to have any sense but you will be glad I didn't say that to him, of course.

Anyway housekeeping seems irrelevant really atm when I feel I am surrounded by mad people

Had nice chat with cousin. Who is doing an art course and was saying nowadays everything is expected to be GINORMOUS, difficult if you are brought up to be artistically neat and tidy and colour in without going over the lines etc. All that early training is difficult to discard.

SC I wouldn't worry about the interrupting. It is a function of not being able to see one's nearest and dearest often enough, and body language is less easy on the phone too. And there is always FAR too much to say and too little time to say it in. I remember your imaginative play with dd, I was always a bit jealous of it, and thought you amazing to play long games of horses with her so often. My favourite imaginative games with my children was to pretend to be a large rock they had sat on, which came to life...and that about sums it up...Rock like mama changes to monster AARGH

oh dear, now have headache, need bath and to prepare for a lone guest at teatime (will make pancakes?) thought of Downton is sustaining me. I have to take ds to Mass though which is a struggle of wills.

Toffee dh's mother who is really quite sensible in other ways also refuses to take painkillers for her back (which is causing lots of pain and she knows why it is too, so not a question of diagnosing it) It seems to be some fear of being drugged up or losing control of self; or it somehow being noble to suffer unflinchingly.

Knitting I am being a concrete embodiment of your rock today, except it is only coming to life very, very sporadically

No wonder you are tired with the multitude of varying tasks you conquer on a daily, weekly, monthly basis!!

Your Sunday (bulbs and fishcakes) sounds good for the soul, so I wouldn't worry too much if you don't get to church! Him upstairs will understand. Hope headache soon dissipates.

Big encouraging waves to Saymwa!!

Guests not here yet and I am already fed up. Water by beds, bedside lights fixed and repositioned, coffee machine resurrected. Want to lie down and go to sleep. Who arrives at 8.40pm on a Sunday fhs? [I am being truly horrible I know.] Thank heavens no school tomorrow (teaching day).

Btw, on the subject of being surrounded by mad people, they say adopted dogs take on the character of the household they end up in. I am worried

Not tired with the tasks (v understandable btw if you were tired of some of them) meant physically and mentally exhausted!

[V Poor grammar on my part there]

Hi everyone, nice to see you back Saymwa

I've had a couple of busy days, including a day out to Twickenham yesterday with DH, shame Wales got beaten by the Aussies, but it was expected. is sulking however... DS stayed with my lovely in-laws so we got a good nights sleep and a lie in!

Some Ta-das:
Sorted Mount Washmore into more manageable hillocks
One wash load on
Some of the dry laundry folded
Beds made
Dishwasher emptied, reloaded, on again
Cat litter trays dealt with
Used the new garden leaf vac/blower to hoover up all the leaves off the lawn and from around the residents car park

I started a new batch of wine on Friday - Farmhouse raisen and tea - should make about a gallon (six bottles). It's a new one for me so hopefully it'll turn out ok. It needs to spend 21 days fermenting in its bucket and I have to stir it once or twice a day - I feel like Macbeth's witch huddled over a cauldron!

DCat1 has been fighting again and has another pus filled injury over his eye, I suspect it might mean a trip to the vets...

Anyway, off to catch up on the thread now.