January Fledglings - Resolve to Fly!

[WhoKn0wsWhereTheMistletoes]

So, here we are at the start of 2016, poised with our control journals and ready to Fly for another year. New and old, all are welcome here, we loosely follow the principles of Flylady to manage our homes and lives, we also chat and lend an ear to whatever life throws at us.

We post links to the Flylady site each day throughout the month, with daily babysteps and missions inside that weeks zone. We also declutter. No links in this post, I'm on my phone and will do some separately, but it's time to get ready for 2016. A big thank you to everyone who has run the thread in 2015 and everyone who has contributed .

Good morning fledglings,

Thanks for the links Who - you must be so pleased your OU work is done! Do you have something nice planned for yourself as a reward? You should do given how much time and effort you have put in to it.

SC - I'm inclined to agree that your DD will probably never really learn to take responsibility for herself unless she learns the hard way. what do I know though, my DS is a long way off the challenges you are facing!!

Fuzz - how disappointing re the exhibition. Will it come round again or can you see it elsewhere?

We had a lovely family weekend away where DS was an angel. It was lovely not to have any tantrums or angry outbursts.

Then, when we got back DS fiddled with the washing machine and broke it He has fiddled and twiddled with it so many times it has finally given up the ghost.
This is especially frustrating as DH and I are going away for four days later in the week and need clean clothes!! So after a desperate phone call to my lovely in-laws, I spent yesterday at their house using the quick wash programme on their machine to get through three loads of laundry.

Good morning all!

Well done for finishing your OU work Whoknows!

Grey great about your lovely weekend away; but not so great about wm! Yay for lovely in-laws!

Glad you had a good time at your ma's Fuzz

Waves to everyone else!

Ta da;
animals
[played hide the anti-emetic tablet squashed between two pieces of kibble game with furry one]
dw unloaded and breakfast things in
dd packed lunch
overnight washing in to tumble dryer
fed washing machines
quick tidy up downstairs

Day one here of sitting on hands, biting my lip and watching dd make her own mistakes this morning:

• she has just left for school 10 mins or so late because she didn't prep her school bag or pack her gym kit last night (I'd left all elements out on dining room table ironed for her and told her I wouldn't be helping further than that, although I did make her pack lunch this morning). I doubt she will make it before the main door closes.

Not making any Flying plans today as I suspect I will be needed for admin work again.

Have a good one everybody!

Well done on finishing your assignment Who!

Grey sadly the exhibition was a one off. However we are doing the penny challenge saving thing (well we would be if I wasn't locked out of online banking, argh! Hopefully sorting that today when I pick up my bank card which I left in the Coop :( I hate brain fog!) which saves around £670 in a year. And we've agreed to use that to do what we've been wanting to do for years - go to Amsterdam and The Hague. The latter has an Escher museum :)

I am in quite a ridiculous amount of pain this morning :( but while it took me a very long time to get out of bed, I did grab a few boxes that were on the floor and started sorting their contents, so it wasn't totally wasted time. Yesterday took it out of me more than I thought - there was quite a lot of walking to where the home ed meet was - and today I need to collect aforementioned bank card, and get DD to her new creative writing class. Must get on with some home ed in a minute, the DCs are happy to do it these days and it's only my energy levels that are stopping us being more productive!

hi everyone,

Happy Birthday to Toffee
well done to Who for the OU
SC dd quite often forgets things for school or asks us for things at the e last moment - she is certainly not that conscientious or helpful or quiet. Teenagers don't tend to be perfect or consistent. It isn't because you have brought them up badly. Everything you teach, gets stored up like acorns, for a harsh winter, and then you realise that deep down they did learn most of it, just couldn't be bothered at that point to dig up those particular acorns! It can be depressing though for a few years. They do seem very self centred ignorant and demanding. However, I'm sure we were the same in subtly different ways...

so cold here. I did some dry slope ski-ing this morning, an absolute killer, my bones are still trembling...

Depressing parent's eve this eve for ds1. We will no doubt be told he is heading for a run of cs and that he could do better if he revised but it is all a bit late now to change the leopards spots..

Ds2 having a good time and dd enjoying school too; my greenhouse is giving me great satisfaction in this cold weather.

Sc im so glad i had it wrote really took the pressure off now everythings planned no more worrying. Feeling far to tired to do anything today. Managed to get a was on and some clothes folded thankfully yesterday i got a good bit down so i can still have people over. Everythings seems to get so much messier with a toddler 😞

Evening all!

Weloveourfamily yes, I find one of the best things about the Flylady system is knowing roughly what you are doing on each specific day, and knowing that it will all come around again next month if for some reason it doesn't get done. It really takes away that "rabbit in headlights" feeling when everything seems to need doing all at once. And of course once you have written down what you have done for the day, it is always more than you thought, and you feel a more 'concrete' sense of achievement. Hope you aren't overdoing it though 13.5 wks will fly by - take it steady!

Yay Knitting! Happy New Year and lovely to "see" you
Fab about the greenhouse! Winter planting is such a "hopeful" thing to do. And thank you for the lovely benevolent image about the acorns, I shall print it out and keep it in a book for when the going gets tough. I think it will definitely help!

Dh is still ill and I've been busy all day answering his phone (which never stops ringing) making calls, visiting the post office and typing documents. This all went well until furry one decided to start joining in barking during a conversation with our web designer.

Very happy to report that dd must have judged the mood of things when she got home and voluntarily offered to cook a pasta supper for us all tonight - which she did very well apart from the clearing up - so hopefully, hopefully, the messages are starting to get through! Yay!

So sorry you are in so much pain Fuzz

Ta da cont'd/...
dog walks x 3
dog brushing
office work
long telephone conversation with a nun!
school run x 1
3 loads of washing
dw filled and emptied
on-line shopping parcel packed up to return
veg soup made
rice and mince cooked (for furry one)
pet shop run to get extra hay for rabbits because it's so cold
30 mins tidying up putrid boudoir
re-stocked wms for overnight laundering

Bought a much needed and really warm padded coat half price in the sale (for dog walking) although it is a wee bit tight across the chest so really, really need to start dieting very soon. It's just so cold in this house ... warming soups and flapjacks are the only way to survive ... !

Waves to all fledglings!

And now the bastard cat has pissed on the floor. I swear he does it to spite me.

If I let the furry-feline-fucker outside like he wants, he wouldn't come back in for hours and its way to cold to just leave him out for the whole night.

Wishing I had chucked him out now. Bastard.

[Hands Grey the Dettol bottle] with a grim smile of solidarity over cleaning up animal by-products - been doing a lot of that myself this week!

Will he not use a cat flap?

By the way - speaking of animals and all things disgusting - I had to laugh at the vets yesterday.

Vet emptied furry one's anal glands while he was there while I silently heaved in to a handkerchief and she said cheerily,

"By the way, there's a lady who will come out to your home and do this for you every two months. I can give you her phone number."

Dog anal glad squeezer has to be just about the most god-awful job in the world doesn't it?

oh fhs

anal GLAND squeezer

I said to the vet "gosh, that must be a difficult job to describe on your cv" and the vet (totally missing the humour) said "no, it comes under dog treatment services"

Links for Wednesday (let's see if I can get them right this time).

Oh crap, I have really messed this up. Tomorrow is laundry, today is read a testimonial and I totally missed yesterday, which is the 11 Commandments of Flylady, here:

Babystep 18 11 Commandments

In case it helps, here is the link to all the babysteps on one page all of them

Anyway, moving swiftly on, Wednesday's mission straighten up the floor of your closet

Daily focus Anti-prcrastination day

If I was that vet I would have said "yes it's a right pain in the arse". Or rather I would have thought of that response about 15 minutes after you had left my surgery SC.

Welcome back Knitting glad to her the greenhouse being spoken so highly of. Do you have any heating in it? Mine is freezing (literally, there's ice in the bucket on the floor where one of the vents has been leaking ) and I am only using it for storage at the moment. Hope the parents evening went OK.

Saw this thought of you.

Sorry that was a collective you, as in fledglings.

Einstein!!

Morning all! Day 3 of "sitting on hands" strategy with regard to dd and school prep. As a result she has gone to school dressed in gym kit that is very creased and slightly smelly. (She has gym two days running consecutively and on my watch outer bits of of gym kit were hung up and aired overnight, and inner t-shirt and leggings were exchanged for fresh ones.) This is hard but at least she was on time this morning.

Whoknows actually, PITA could be a great acronymn for that particular job ... Peripatetic In-house Treatment for Arses

or PITA CARE: Peripatetic In-House Treatment for Arses with Canine Arse Remedial Effects

Must rush off now to volunteering and confront a few nuns. Dh no worse but still not better so is rather unhappy that I am dashing off for the whole day but there is a training day running in the office which no one else but dh can deliver, for which participants have spent a lot on plane tickets to get here, so it couldn't be cancelled at last minute, so he had no choice but to be there (unfortunately), and I have drafted in extra admin support (and dog-walkers, baby-sitters to take care of the home front). Still feel a bit bad about abandoning ship though but at same time can't help but be conscious of boot being on other foot for once.

Have a good anti-procrastination day fledglings!

And [arf] at link confusion Whoknows last time I ran the thread and posted links a day in advance, I got in to a terrible muddle about which link was for which day but I don't think anyone noticed

FFS I miss a few posts and come back to talk of anal glands? REALLY?! :o

Still in epic pain today - DH managed to get out of work early yesterday which was really helpful, no chance of it today though. Had a lovely and productive couple of days home ed wise, but the living room is utterly horrific! DCs are playing outside at the moment but then I'll get them in to help tidy up, as I have a pupil tonight.

Fuzzpig think I have put off everyone posting Sorry that you are still in such a lot of pain.

Made personal calendars with all the children this afternoon using family photos and drawings and marking their birthdays and important holidays and dates etc. Seemed to go down ok. Very interesting to learn the differences between Eid al Ftr and Eid al Adha and the phases of the moon (and rather surreal doing so the accompaniment of a Catholic nun strumming on a guitar and singing a song about the months of the year in French!!).

G'night all.

Evening all, yet another evening spent slumped over the laptop, work this time . Hopefully there will be some respite from all the admin stuff / OU stuff in a couple of weeks time just need to do my tax return.

So, nothing much of interest here today, very little FLying. Just a quick grrrr aimed in DH's direction, he takes things and never puts them back. When we had the "nearly moving house" episode in November we stashed a lot of stuff into storage at DH's work. About the same time my hairdryer went missing. I have asked him over and over to look in the boxes at work for it, he swears he didn't pack it. I have turned my bedroom upside down looking for it and have been making do with a crappy travel one. Suddenly, tonight, I notice my precious hairdryer sitting on the floor downstairs next to a box of cables and laptop accessories. WTF? I have never taken it downstairs, ever. Oh, says DH, I think I might have used it to dry my telescope a few weeks ago, I was looking through that box for something last night. Note absence of the word "sorry" .

Anyway, links for Thursday.

Babystep checkout Ask Flylady

Mission clean those nightstands

Daily Focus [http://www.flylady.net/d/daily-focus/daily-focus-thursday/ Errand Day]]

Anybody there?

I'm here, Who.

I hope you're feeling better today, fuzz.

Absolutely no Flying as it's all been delegated to DH . I did, however, cook tonight and have just had to throw some washing in the machine.

Spent so much time at work today staring at the computer screen that I couldn't focus properly when I went out at lunchtime.

DS2 is ill with a streaming cold. I slept with him last night, spending part of my time hovering with the sick bucket because he thought he was going to be sick. Am just hoping I don't go down with it now.

Off to bed shortly. Can't believe I'm tired so early, but I didn't get a full night's sleep last night.

Sweeps in and snatches all the and sits in the naughty corner.

Just packed a bag for the weekend. I am going away. Whhhhhhoooooooooo!!!!!! With a load of "girls" I was training with 30+ years ago. Trouble is, when we are together we all act as if we are 18 again! I don't think my body can keep up, though. I will need a week to recover.

I have done rubbish on this thread this year, but DD1 and I went through my fridge and freezer today and sorted it all out. Now I can see what i have got in there. That's my token flying for the month!

Well, I hope everyone is OK .

I've had a nice relaxing day. I was meant to be working from home anyway, but DD was off school sick (she's got suspected impetigo but isn't actually ill IYSWIM) so we've had a nice day together. Took her to the GP mid morning and popped out again later to Sainsburys without her but it was lovely not having school and drama club runs to do. I have managed more work than I would have done with those constraints, lots of reading with DD and watched a film. Not much Flying though . One load of laundry, a bit of tidying, dinner, DS to Scouts, and that's about it.

However I will have to go to work tomorrow, if DD needs to stay off DH will work at home.