Fledglings are raucous in August - the Flylady thread

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

Thanks to paxillin for our August thread title .

Hello all and welcome to the August Flylady thread. We are a friendly bunch who try to roughly follow the Flylady system. How strictly you follow it is of course up to you! Every day the thread leader posts information about which zone of the house we are in and the missions for the week.

Newbies are always welcome. 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 but 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 is enough information on this thread to start getting on with things but you can also trawl through the (confusing at times) 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.

I'm on holiday this week with intermittent internet connection so will not be on much but will keep an eye on the thread and hopefully everyone else will feel free to jump in!

With it being summer holidays it may be pretty quiet on here but missions etc will be here for those who want them.

Welcome irritable and nice to see you grey

Welcome back gardengirl. Hope you can get a little bit of rest ofazoo.

Thanks Cag and Afresh, yes, very annoying . Can't waste the child free time so am using my timer and alternating between angrily doing the home bleugh (not fair to expect DH to do it later in the week given that I unexpectedly have time) and trying to do a bit of decluttering in zone 4 - tackling the top of our wardrobe and DD1's room. She really doesn't have the best storage in there so trying to look for some cheap ideas on YouTube. Plus... have almost finished making a homework station . Also doing one of the study packs 15 mins at a time.

Oooo can i see your homework station pretty please stressy

Ooh I am loving the talkand photos hint hint about command stations and suchlike.

It's been a relatively good day. I hate that even a good day is ridiculously unproductive by normal standards but I have to take a win don't I?

ta da
Yesterday's washing tumble dried
One wash done and second load on now
Caglets awake at decent time
Caglets did their morning routine at decent time
Hot lunch (just reheated the sauce and cooked pasta but again this is an achievement)
Caglets did maths including a new question type which they tackled really well
And...
THEY DID SCIENCE!!! About 40mins, lots of faffing about TBH but I made an effort not to get frustrated and let them draw pictures etc. Plenty of useful discussion and they actually willingly wrote in exercise books! WIN!!!

Unfortunately we couldn't do Prodigy as the computer is barely charging at all. I think I'm going to have to get a cheap netbook TBH as even a new cable hasn't helped.

Take it as a win Cag .

Sorry, I draw the line at photos on here but if you look at this page and scroll down to the picture which has a no 21 on the desk and is the rolling trebuchet (what a name!) table then it is a little like that, except I have a box on the top for papers as DD2 would just fling all those pretty things around .

It's not finished and not perfect but so far have not spent any money on it so that is good.

Love that site stressy I may try and set something up for dc1+2. Dc1 keeps asking for a desk anyway.

Ooh I want a homework station even though my eldest is only 3!!! maybe I could set myself homework!

Today has been one of those days, we've had a trip to town where the museum turned out to be shut, ds pooed twice and I had to buy emergency nappies, I got stuck in a doorway with the buggy, the tills broke in one shop and I was waiting for 20 minutes (although we did get free chocolate for this so can't complain!!) , DD needed a wee the minute we sat down in a cafe and turned out they had no toilets! But on the plus side dd was good as gold and we took it all with good humour. Ds is poorly though so he has been grumpy today poor sausage. Unfortunately this means I haven't got much done since I've come home as dh is working late and I can't put ds down for a second!

Ta das
Some daily routine but not finished
Bought new bed sheets for DD (but may have to return so not really an achievement!)
Got some bits from the shop
Made biscuit dough (but can't finish the biscuits due to DS crying!)
Bought friends ds a birthday present
Posted a birthday card

To do
Cook dinner and whatever else I can do with the constant crying going on...

Afternoon all

Welcome newbies x

Had an interview today which went well. They kept me there for over forty minutes so I'm taking that as a good sign

Lovely weather here today

Oh foxes your day sounds much worse than mine! Good luck getting dinner sorted.

Ta da:-
Home bleugh
Some decluttering of top of wardrobe
Have accepted will have to get a few new storage boxes - looked in local shops and none suitable so at least I know to get on and order from Amazon after payday.
Fair bit of work on one of the packs I need to do for the new job
Bags to charity shop
Need to go and pick up the girls now and hopefully manage to get the stuff put away from the master bedroom that is still on the floor after my 'sort out' .

Glad interview went well mermaids .

toostressy your day sounds frustrating, my day was ok because dd was at least in a good mood even though ds is not!

We've decided to just put ds to bed now as he's clearly exhausted and won't stop crying. He is falling asleep on me as we speak. Dh has taken over the dinner cooking. Sweet potato and chickpea curry tonight but it looks a little dry...I haven't been giving it my full concentration so not sure how it will turn out!

Welcome irritable and thank you toostressy
Well I've not done half as much as I wanted to do today, as I've spent most of it asleep. My dh told me to go to bed and get some rest just after lunch and I only woke up an hour ago.
My head is still pounding and I feel terrible
Ta da
Ironed all the labels onto uniforms.
Slept

To do
Go back to bed, I'm lucky that my dh is self employed so he has stayed at home for the day and so he has taken charge.

Night all

Hope you feel better soon mumofazoo
Loving the homework stations toostressy My DS is 10 and we need to get him a desk and set him up an area, but it will mean moving everything around in the room - to try to make room and I'm so rubbish at reorganising rooms
Fingers crossed for your interview mermaids
Foxes your post perfectly summed up how complicated trips out with the kids can be!
I've got two extra kids for a sleepover tonight so that has reduced my productivity a bit (my excuse anyway)
Have done the clean sink and the bathroom swish and swipe. Two laundry loads. Tesco's shop cooked spag bol for all the kids and froze some, made banana bread.
Thrown away a few things from the bedroom....

Evening all, out for most of the day today so no flying done. Attempts at seeing the four per cent of the eclipse here not as successful as we hoped as the sun was too low for us to see it for houses and trees!

Dishwasher is running, that will count for today. Early night here tonight. Sleep well, fledglings.

sorry everyone, I fell asleep! *
Here is the daily summary for Tuesday (also available on the Flylady website at flight plan which should update automatically each day).

Baby-step no 22 - keep building your control journal

We are in Zone 4 this week: the master bedroom and en-suite if applicable

Spend 15 mins, or whatever you can manage, decluttering in Zone 4.

When you have finished decluttering, the detailed cleaning list (if you are at that stage) for Zone 4 is here

daily focus

missions for the week

Flykids mission

August's habit is laundry

Happy flying everyone.
**

I love the idea of a homework station! Sadly, I don't think we have room in our flat for that. The dcs seem to have their favourite spots for working on things - if it's not at the table, then they're either on the windowseat, on their bunkbeds or stretched out on the sofa. But I will happily browse that link as I like to look at that kind of stuff.

Still pondering a "command centre" area for the flat though - I really need to keep everything in one area.

So far this morning, I've:

cleaned the kitchen
cleaned the toilet (I'll enjoy that for the 20 minutes that will last)
started the bread baking

Now I'm slowly going through what home ed we'll be doing for today. Maths workbooks, flash cards for dc2, setting up sign language programme on laptop ready to go, list for each dc of what apps they need to do today, handwriting sheet, and some kind of writing task. Then history (ww2), reading, and time telling/money practice for the younger dc. The dcs want us to make oatmeal raisin cookies today, so we'll do that this afternoon, I think. Hoping to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks today (we're talking about ww2 evacuation, so thought that would be a fun tie in).

We incorporated an allowance for each dc recently. I started it small, with the condition that if they were more proactive about helping out around the house that I would increase the amount. So now I'm mulling over how much to increase it to. The only annoyance I have about allowance is the need to have the exact amount of cash for each child on the day.

Oh, and I'll be starting a load of laundry at 8am, and plan on clearing one more box of stuff in my bedroom today. Slowly getting rid of the "stuff."

What's the sign language thing please ginger? I'm registering for some online BSL course today - under my name but planning to get the Caglets learning along with me.

Just glugged that bottle of glucose solution for my gestational diabetes test. Yuck. Need to head to the hospital now.

Also need to sort out food as I didn't get round to ordering Tesco last night, DD was really struggling and took all my energy and attention.

I like the idea of a command centre, I know it'll be too much too soon for us at the moment but I'm hoping to gradually build up more routines now, and then when we move we will see what the layout of the house is like and fix something up there.

It's primary sign. I signed up through a group on facebook for a much reduced rate for a year. The FB group is PopArt Home Education. They have LOADS of offers that go through all the time for much lower prices. I've gone through them for lots of stuff. Most recently was this and a sub to Doodlemaths for the dcs for £5 each for a full year (it's usually £4.99 per month or £44.99 for the full year, so huge discount).

Morning all, sorry about the links yesterday! Had got into bed intending to do links and personals before going to sleep. Thought I'd just lie down for a few minutes first and we all know how that goes zzzzzzzzz

Another not very good start as childcare just (legitimately) fallen through for tomorrow so need to phone around at 8am.

Ginger, I am also thinking I'll need a more portable set up for homework as sometimes I'm hoping DD1 can do some at activities while DD2 has her classes. I have a little portable folder thing that was a present which we have colouring pens and paper etc in so planning to repurpose that once we see how much homework she actually gets (school fairly chilled so the routine stuff may be mainly reading and worksheets that don't need much kit).

Need to get on now before starting phone calls at 8.

Morning all,

Yesterday ran away from me, i managed to get my daily chores done in the morning aswell as going to the park with ds then before i knew it lunchtime then we caught a train to go to the swimming pool. Then weekly grocery shop, teatime, bath and bed routine and i was shot.

This afternoon ds has a speech therapy appointment so need to get the chores i want done in the morning.

re homework station; space is limited here, i envisage ds doing his homework on the dining room table. My ds will be starting school september. Anyone know how much homework he will get? I'm guessing it will initially be lots of reading, writing and number exercises?

celeste, mine are planning to do theirs at the kitchen table too and just take things off the homework station bit. Would be great for DD1 to have a desk in her room but hat would need the whole room reorganised and we can't spend the money on that now.

I think it is very dependent on the school. We only had reading in reception which I thought was perfect (then a bit of Spanish colouring which is an extra class). However, I know other schools did have maths, writing, model making pretty much from day 1.

I think ds would lose attention on his homework if he did his homework in his room surrounded by his toys so i'm more happy he can do it on the dining room table where i can keep an eye on him.

Ok thanks. He's definitely ready for school. He likes reading and writing. his numbers isn't great but i think he is ready for a proper structured learning on numbers and am sure will learn off the children in the class as they go along better than we can teach him.

Mine are home ed, so it's not homework, but every day work. Ds1 is currently working on our meal plan for the week at the table, but then will likely move to the window seat to work on his maths.

Morning all,
Thank you gardengirl I'm feeling a bit better this morning, still a bit sniffly though.
Good luck with your test cag
Hope you manage to sort out your childcare toostressy

Ta da
Dishwasher emptied
Dishwasher loaded with breakfast dishes

To do
Dust
Polish
Vacuum whole house
Decide on a new floor for the kitchen
Bake some cookies

Going to try not overdoing it today as I don't want that headache back.

Hope you all have a productive day