Fledglings flying high in July - the Flylady thread

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

Hello and welcome to July's Flylady thread! This is a lovely friendly thread where we follow (sort of) the Flylady system in the hope of having organised homes. Some of us are more successful at this than others ;).

Newcomers are very welcome, please don't be put off by any abbreviations or general gossip. Please join in the gossip.

Every day the thread leader (me this month) will post information about the next day. This will be the current zone we are in, the decluttering/ tidying mission and the habit for the day / month. Generally this is done the evening before.

All information is available on the Flylady website www.flylady.net. On the website there is information for beginners. You can also sign up to the Flylady emails -
we would advise caution as there are hundreds of them.

We post our achievements (ta das) and our to do lists and any other general chatter about life / flying.

There will be lots of information on this thread and you can also have a look around the (confusing at times) Flylady website:-

Information on getting started: www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/

The launch pad is also a good starting place:www.flylady.net/c/lp.php

Fly stands for Finally Loving Yourself. The general idea is that short bursts of tidying / organisation are more achievable than marathon efforts. Flylady advises 15 minute bursts is effort but you can tweak this to fit your own circumstances.

It is not a miracle and sometimes the missions are very optimistic but I work on the principle that something is better than nothing :)

Thanks for a great June thread SC.

Happy flying everyone .

Morning all

It is moving week

Motivation please.

Pointy stick for freshstart

------->

cag it's hard when you're busy. I've not been crafting or exercising lately because of work. It feels a bit like just existing. I'm going to get my sketch book now! Find five mins for your piano.

I'm going to try and do some over the weekend then thank you! Need to clear the crap off it first though

Right must put a wash on before anything else.

Right wash is on, DH tackling the washing up. Decided that Monday morning I'll wash the seat covers so we can leave them to hang out while we are away. Lots of regular washing to do today so we can do all the packing in one go this evening, will need to wash towels after bath tonight too.

Also need to ring holiday place, DD has dancing and DH is taking her shopping after for a few bits and I'll get them to pick up my parcel too. And I need to make sure all costume stuff is ready for DD's show tomorrow. No idea what time ILs are coming tomorrow which doesn't help. Man July is mega busy! We are lucky to be able to go away in term time, but I am going to try and remember not to go away this time of year again - it's just too much to fit in among all the end of term craziness (we have end of term stuff for all the Caglets' clubs)

Oh and need to finish my product review blog post, and book the damn train tickets!!!

Good luck Afreshstart wish we could be of more practical help but the power of the collective fledglings is behind you

Agree it is so important to make time for creative things or things one enjoys - I've found over the years that it really ups the motivation levels for doing boring chores - Purple has reminded me that I must remember to take sketch book on holiday with me and draw or paint in it every day.

Good luck with the packing Cag

Strong for Zoo!

Recipe I wanted wasn't in Mumsnet cookery book! So frustrating because I can "see" a colour picture of it on the page in my mind's eye but I've scoured ten recipe books and I can't find it! It's driving me nuts!!!! It's a French recipe -sort of a fritata but not quite - a cheese/egg/courgette bake sort of thing. Don't even know what it's called so I can't look it up! Um, why this matters, I am not sure ... .

Best of luck afresh!

I read this tip on another thread - on moving day make sure you schedule in a takeaway :o

Second wash is on.

I have gone through the massive box of Happyland - I want to decide what to keep for Cagletini as really we have far too much. Then I can store the rest in the attic. I have weeded out any broken and really tatty bits and separated some stuff we may pass to DN if we can find the rest of the pieces. All the people/animals are now soaking in hot soapy water - ick. I found soooo much other stuff in the box - playmobil, Lego... and a peach had fallen in from the fruit bowl so I'm REALLY glad I decided to clear it out today!

Oh and DH has taken 3 bags of stuff to charity. Stuff we sorted earlier in the week but it's out of the house at least. I could probably sort all the books in one fell swoop but then we'd only have to store them until we could get them to charity - we have to do it gradually (Saturdays are good as DH can take a bit on the bus to the charity shop next to DD's dance club).

The side of our house looks really scuzzy though as there's loads of stuff that needs to go to the tip. Not enough to warrant a skip hire but also too big for one of those skip bag things (includes a bed frame).

On a totally unrelated note, can I ask for some thoughts? DD is doing a writing course over summer via email. Nothing pressured but more of a keeping up the writing over the holidays kind of thing. It's got me thinking about offering a maths one next summer - I know several home ed people who would sign up in order to stop the summer slide. But I'm not sure what work I would set, because maths is naturally not so open-ended as creative writing. If you did that kind of thing, what would you think would work best? I'm wondering about some kind of investigation or maths in art kind of thing rather than setting sheets of questions as for the latter it may as well be a workbook, although at least they would get more feedback I guess. Any thoughts would be most welcome!

Hello all, much less busy day today thank goodness. DD2 has done her dancing and DD1 is in now. Unexpectedly invited to friend's house for a play and BBQ which is fab as it means we don't have to cook and the kids will be amused .

Wow Purple, that trip sounds ace. Hope you feel better soon.

TBH my philosophy with helping for school is that I do the preschool committee stuff and then guilt-free say no to most school stuff. I never help on school trips etc. The exception is the horrific gardening evenings that DDs love so we do them.

Cag, DD2 says she wants to get rid of her Happyland stuff but I can't bring myself to do it yet . Might see if I can sell it on Facebook. DD1 is more of a hoarder and wants to keep hers but to be fair she did reduce hers down to just the favourite stuff about a year ago.

Good luck Afresh ---> . My moving tip is do not pack the kettle which is what we managed to do. The removal men were not impressed!

Amazing list Grey. zoo, to help with your lack of sleep. Cotswold, oh dear about the sink. Housework definitely dangerous . Big wing flaps to all.

Xpost Cag, not my thing at all but will have a think.

Cag, I really don't know! My kids are too young and I am too old to remember doing maths at that stage.

I wonder about some kind of applied maths investigation type thing? Some cool sciency maths type thing? So it is not your standard worksheet thing but more of a holiday feel? Not very helpful, sorry.

Well done re: the sorting/decluttering Cag! I'm the worst person to ask about maths but *Too stressy's" ideas sound really good. There are so many conventional maths sites on-line that a more "creative" model (that perhaps could be personalised) could be good for the holidays.

Thank you both! Yes I agree some kind of applied thing would be good. Otherwise it would just be like any old workbook. I'll need to make it so that it's not as simple as getting the right or wrong answer I think, as I won't know the pupils that well and it can be very demotivating to get a task you just can't do. Unlike the writing one where you just do the best you personally can IYSWIM?

Not done anything else this afternoon. Waiting for the tumble dryer to finish and then we will pack all our clothes.

Do they like space? Some kind of NASA type investigation?

Oooh that's a thought!

cag what age would it be aimed at?

I've done maths in baking. You can get loads of stuff in-ratios for recipes, fractions in slicing cakes, graphs for either profit or number if cakes consumed, conversion of units (grams to ounces), trigonometry in tray bakes etc etc etc...

Ooh yes fractions in cake because you can eat the fractions.

Quiet day on here! Hopefully that means you are all having family fun day but I'm sure that real life may have got in the way for many of you. Sending good packing vibes Afresh. Hope you are ok foxes? Big wing flaps to all.

**
Here is the daily summary for Sunday (also available on the Flylady website at flight plan which should update automatically each day

The daily focus for Sunday is: renew your spirit

Baby-step no 9 - learn how to declutter by reading the decluttering lesson. Hmmm. May need to revisit this one myself

reminders

We are in Zone 1 this week: the entrance, front porch and dining room

No missions or zone work at the weekend, unless you want to. You may find it easier to find the time to do these things at the weekend. If not, this is a guilt free excuse not to do it - Flylady says so .

July's habit is swish and swipe

Happy flying everyone.
**

Lots of family fun here. I was only home for about two hours and I was asleep for one hour of that!

Knackered but it's been a great day. Not much useful stuff at all but I'm not worried about that at all. Pesky period pain has been grumbling along. Just waiting for latest dose of codeine and ibuprofen to kick in then I'm off to sleep. For the first time in four weeks I don't have to be at church early for band/Sunday school/other random stuff so it's a lie in plus eggs for breakfast tomorrow and I can't wait.

Maths - baking has been recommended by DD's infant school for maths. Maths stuff that appeals to DD has included an ongoing set of times table grids that you time yourself each time you do them, so you can see yourself getting faster and a 'treasure hunt' for (eg) fractions, decimals in recipes etc. If I can organise myself, I'll PM you at least one other idea as it may be outing organise myself, don't hold your breath on that one

No sink plugs were destroyed today - I'm taking the win.

Thanks all those are great ideas! I definitely think projects are the way to go so a different theme would be great each week.

Kids would be any age really, the writing one is divided into age bands of 6-8, 9-11 and 12+

Can't sleep again and I'm hungry so will have to get up soon. I need to sew something on DD's leotard for the dance show, everything else is ready. Nobody warned me that parenting would involve getting slightly high on Sharpie fumes while colouring in elastic

Caglets packed their clothes yesterday, DH and I need to do ours and then all the other stuff like toiletries, games etc. Train tickets booked but couldn't reserve seats so that'll be fun on a 2.5hr solid journey .

Family not coming today now so we have a bit more time to get everything sorted. Bit back and forth though as DD has a stage rehearsal (2:58pm for her dance apparently!) then goes away again until the start of the show. She watches with us then we drop her off at the interval.

Morning everyone ! I have been away on holiday so no flying for a week for me. Got back yesterday so just catching up on the thread, have already unpacked but my washing and ironing pile are through the roof despite doing some on holiday (we stayed in a cottage). So lovely to have a little change of scene even though dh had to work a lot we still had a good time. Anyway enough about me I'm going to catch up a bit on the thread.

Oh and if anyone wants to tell me how to cope with an early rising child my ds is shaping up to be one...half 5 every morning! My dd has always slept until at least 7 so I'm struggling! Doesn't help that he is still up in the night too. Need to night wean him I think but too tired to even try anything at the moment.

Sorry , I carried on rambling there!

cag I also enjoy playing the piano (I'm not very good though!) but sadly my piano is at my parents house as we don't really have the room for it here, well we do have room but can't really think where to put it!

Have a great holiday Cag!

Phew Foxes I had totally forgotten you were going to be away this week; I feared you were ill with mastitis! Good to hear that's not the case and that you had a relaxing change of scene; not so great about the early mornings!

Back to square one this morning. DD has still not put her stuff away from camp (since last Wed). She did do a bit yesterday after much "persuasion" and conceded to give me her laundry; but there are still stacks of clean clothes, sleeping bags and rucksacks etc etc wafting about. When I explained to her that "yes of course I'll do it" becomes a bit meaningless when it is not followed up with action; she became quite stroppy and very rude. I despair, I really do.