Fledglings Flying Festively - the December Flylady thread

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

[santa][santa][santa][santa][santa][santa][santa]
A warm welcome to the December (dare I say Christmas?!) Flylady thread. This is a lovely friendly thread where we loosely follow the Flylady system (see the Flylady website ) in the hope of having organised homes and lives.

We are a long running thread but always welcome new members; the more the merrier .

The new slimline structure seems to work well so I will stick with that. I will leave some links in this OP and then some quick links in the daily posts. Please do familiarise yourself with the Flylady website, especially if you are new. The Flylady is (understandably) keen that people do look at the website.

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.

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.

Be kind to yourselves, jump in where you are and be careful not to crash and burn! Especially at this time of year.

*
A daily summary (which should update automatically every day) is available on the Flylady website at flight plan here.

The link to the current zone and missions is here.

Re. zones, do what works for you. I don’t always stick to the zones myself and do what works best at the time, with varying degrees of success!

daily focus

missions for the week

Flykids mission

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone that it is getting close to Christmas so there are holiday missions here.

December’s habit is usually pampering yourself but has not uploaded yet; I’ll link it tomorrow.

beginner babysteps.

The best place to look for an overall summary is the launch pad.

Happy flying everyone.
**

Also a huge thank you to SC for a lovely November thread.

Lil zoo is a ritual early riser I've in recent months we have downgraded from 5-530 am to around 7
Dd2 was left to own devices and fell out of bed 11 yesterday then kept everyone up last night pissing around
DS anxiety makes him a poor sleeper fullstop,but tends towards can't settle at night then can't get up in morning!

Tada
DS room semi tamed
Washing found in machine
Made banana muffins-6 with dairy free choc chips and 6 with walnuts
Washed up breakfast things and cleared up baking mess
Taught D's to play clock patience

I now have 40 mins to fuck about on my phone before head off shopping
as CBA do anything else for now

AF showed up yet ive?

Had an epic lie in. Lots to do. DD1 dropped her phone in the pond in the woods the other day and despite the rice treatment it doesn’t look like it’ll recover. I’m not cross about it but I’m not going to rush out to town to let her shop for a replacement (she has to use her Christmas money for a cheap one, if she wants another decent one it’ll be a birthday present in June). I’ve told her going on about it constantly is much more annoying than the fact she broke it in the first bloody place!

Speaking of puberty etc, I think DD1 may still be a little while off periods, she isn’t particularly developed. But I’m ordering a starter set of cloth pads soon, as I want to use them myself too and I think with her sensory issues that relate to textures of clothing, she will likely struggle with disposables. So I’m getting a range of sizes that she can try as well.

I really need to clean out our new lizard tank. It’s second hand from a friend and is grubby! The cool thing is though, when we get our little addition we won’t even need to clean out its waste, as you can add particular bugs to the tank and they eat it. Our own little ecosystem :o

no

Hi everyone, my parents have left and at least the visit wasn’t horrific. Just got NYE tomorrow now with a little kids party which has ended up much bigger than I planned with my in-laws possibly arriving in the middle of it . Pass the . Have a cold which I am ignoring at the moment.

Big albeit weary wing flaps to Cag, SC, Ive (very realistic to do list there), zoo, Bower, Meet and everyone else.

I’ll be on later to do some kind of links. Had thought about a yearly round up but I’m afraid that lasted precisely one second .

Anyone got any New Years resolutions? Mine is (obviously ) to be more organised. Also I would like to be a remotely more confident parent. Not sure where to start with that one though. Any tips anyone?

I have NY resolutions galore.

Keep up with organising photos and making photobooks.
Weekly blitz on paperwork instead of huge piles.
Organise filing better so it is easier to find things.
Lose weight.
Exercise more.
Work on anxiety strategies.
Less time on phone.
More books read instead
House better organised

I don't make new year's resolutions.

ta da
strip bed
washed duvet 1
1 load of normal washing
bread dough ingredients gone into machine for it to work its magic...
duvet 2 in washer.

I am about to steam treat the mattress and pillows...

I always have NY resolutions. Husband managed to keep all of his from last year but not me.

Sounds very rock and roll at yours hills saus she sat on sofa watching Edward scissorhands with the zoolets scoffing heroes
I've and or whichever is needed most(you know can pm me if need a rant.x)
Cag Oooh how cool.ds wants a terrarium(sp?)as fancies idea little plant ecosystem in his room.im just worried my less that perfect green fingers will not create an eco system but a bio hazard of moulds!!
Too stressy you are a much more confident parent than you give yourself credit for.remember if you would say it to a close friend it's ok otherwise you are being overly hard on yourselfwell done with surviving parents and in-laws over Xmas.after tom night business will slowly return to usual
Meet dd2 has best resolution I will heard yet."to do things that make me happy"(distance toxic "friendship" group at school choosing hang less often but with other nicer people,self care tactics after long sessions of homework/revision.generally looking after her own needs better,but not at the expense of basic kindness to others.i really should take a leaf out of the book)

X posts forestier that's impressive!

I always forget what my new year resolutions are.

This time .... i will do more everything....

Tada

Fall out with "d"p(suspect he's overtired working silly hours and I'm having a hormonal wobble at mo)

More wash in dryer

Dinner tonight- meatballs/beanburger sweet potato wedges,green beans and broccoli
Banana muffins(I made earlier)

Hello all! Hope everyone surviving the demands of the holidays!

Had no time to read thread properly today (more visitors) and still don't but just coming on to say to Zoo that I read your message this morning and nearly cried (in a good way!) - thank you so much for it - don't know how you knew I would be in need of power to my elbow but definitely did and it really helped! XX

Hi everyone
Having a super organised day here having cleared out 2/3 Of my bedroom and reorganised my wardrobe and drawers. It is now so much nicer, except for the debris and bags of stuff to get rid of that I now have no energy left to remove. ;)

We organise ourselves by having phone calendars and then a paper one in the kitchen which we try and sync up each week. It doesn't always work but mostly as long as people tell me what they are doing we are good. If not then everything falls apart :/

NYRes. I made one years ago ...not to make any.

Toostressy I also think you sound a good parent. However if you haven't done so consider a First Aid course. St. John's Ambulance used to do free one/donation ones. This is useful in life but I think doing a course like this can give you confidence. I did one after I had saved my sons life when he stopped breathing twice at home. I knew what to do but panicked a bit.I felt much more confident that I would do things slightly differently if it ever happened again. I am a First Aider at school too and it has come in useful there. I don't panic there and apparently I am cool as a cucumber even facing a blood spurting head injury.

Today didn't work out quite as planned.
I slept in until 9:30am when the phone that hasn't worked for month's rang shrilly in my ear. It was DD wanting a lift home after church. She missed off the bit about Sainsbury's. Think I might be having a vegan NYD dinner instead of the Roast Beef I was planning.
I didn't get the clothes put away as we went to BF on the way home to drop off two bags of exceedingly cheap tatties. 54p instead of £2.50 a bag. I know the hoards descend on a Sunday night so thought she could use them. She was pleased as she had a phone call to say step GC were coming too. So about12 for tea.Not counting two babies.
DD has promised to help me sort out my clothes and drawers tomorrow.Not the knickers! The Drawers.
She wants a friend from Unit to stay for 3-4 days and there is nowhere for her to sleep.Last time they shared my bed. My room is a mess as DH dumped loads of stuff including kitchen stuff in there.
Downstairs has been tidy for four days

Eustacia Meant to same that sounds amazing amount you have done today.

Aww thanks zoo and Bower . Bower, I am as confident as I can be with the first aid stuff as I know it professionally (although totally agree with you that everyone should do a course). That’s amazing you saved your son at home!

It’s more the disclipline, behaviour, day-to-day, diet, hoping they become good people, knowing I am doing a good job. In fact I notice from other parents that the big things they stress about and reading age and all of that stuff are not what I stress about at all! I stress about the little things and I suppose definitely the discipline mainly.

Not sure if that makes sense or is just a ramble!!! In short, it’s not the big stuff as I either know what to do or it would be terrifying and out of my control anyway. It’s not them growing up, I love that. It’s not academic stuff or anything like that. It’s the day-to-day control that I feel I should have but don’t feel I do. Not sure if anyone can relate ?

Ok, enough rambling about that!

Love the idea of making no resolutions Bower and Hills. Also love your long list Meet . Ive, my resolutions usually boil down to doing more everything too . What’s your DH’s secret to keeping his Forestier?

Eustacia, for your organised day!

Waves to Sass, foxes, SC and everyone else. I’ll do links next but again, feel free to ignore if you are celebrating tomorrow . Thanks for such a lovely December thread everyone .

**
Links for New Year’s Eve December 31st:-
Beginner baby steps here
Launch pad here
Holiday clean up missions
here

More info available in original post at top of thread.
**

I think this would be a good place for me. Despite years of sporadic decluttering, everything is still messy, never really clean, and routines are an endless struggle.

I want to improve my environment and decrease my anxiety which should help me concentrate.

Would that be okay?

Tidy, welcome . I should warn you though that despite a couple of years on this thread, my house is still messy and routines are still an endless struggle. At least I’ve met some lovely MN people along the way on here . Nice to have you and hope your username becomes true for all of us, albeit in 2019!

Just to warn you Tidy, we will decamp to a new thread for the 1st January 2019 (and each month thereafter).

Oh good point, thanks Hills .

He says he thinks hard before eating things and now prioritises exercise. He has lost weight but I'm eating what he doesn't eat 😋 I've put on weight instead.

A warm welcome to Tidy! The Flylady routines have definitely helped me feel less anxious about housework 1. because the baby-steps done daily help to maintain minimum standards and 2. allocating different days for different tasks or zones stops that "rabbit in headlights" feeling when everything feels urgent all at once ifyswim! Hope the system works for you too - remember that you don't have to do it perfectly for it to help considerably - and to adapt it to suit you and your home! Good luck!

Toostressy I can definitely relate. I also stressed a lot about discipline and whether I was being too strict or too soft. But I think I was worrying about the wrong thing; certain boundaries are important of course but the main thing is the relationship. Teenagers might have very different ideas about how they want to do things and be quite defensive, and the only "control" or channel of communication you have in the end is the relationship you have between you. The rest I reckon is basically, they'll do what you do and not what you say! (She says with vast experience of one child only!). I reckon like the others you are doing great so relax and enjoy! We have them at home for so little time! (Says she who is constantly complaining about teen behaviour.)

Big waves to everyone else!

Too late/tired to go in to much detail about the day but suffice to say had everything ready by skin of skin of my teeth (yes that close!) . Took a humongous effort though and feet hurt so much tonight (was on them from 7am until midnight) and had some very stressful moments but ok in the end! Guests didn't seem that appreciative (if someone laid on a spread for me - however simple - I would be so thankful) but think they enjoyed it, hope so anyway!

Sorry I always seem to be whinging on here about lack of appreciation - I appreciate it sounds rather needy (plays tiny violin) - call-me old-fashioned though but I was dragged up to say "thank you"!!

SC don't be sorry I'd be breathing fire eiple made an effort for me and no one said thank you.manners cost nothing but mean everything to others

Welcome tidy

Bastarding insomnia.been awake since 2,lay stare ceiling til 4.caught up on BBC news,social media and here.miggt as well get up ...

Tada
Wash in
Fed cats
Living room
Picked snowflakes off living room window and cleaned(mental note PVA is harder get off than "gloygum")
Wiped sills and radiator
Cleaned behind sofa
Cleaned under computer table
Declutter ed computer table(stuff put away)
Clean TV unit/tidy dvds there
Cleaned mantle piece/took down cards
Wipe fire surround
Clean under dining table(some gifts still stacked under back chairs due to no available homes at present)
Tidy dvd bookcase
Tidy bookcase(add on some of new books accrued)
Clean behind other sofa
Sweep floor

Put out 3wheelie bins worth off bloody recycling(plus bin)nearly stacked along outside mine and neighbour's house 3carrier bags high

Bathroom
Windows cleaned
Mirror cleaned
Sills,radiator and bath panel wiped
Bath and sink wiped
Floor washed
Littertray and bins
Bleach lav
Towels in dryer more wash on

Kitchen
Windows cleaned
Hob wiped
Floor swept
Surfaces wiped

Time for a breather I think!!

I was bought/dragged up you don't do laundry new year's Day(wash away good luck) so need fix the laundry piles as much as possible today
Dd2 having brace tightened and bottom set added today(1pm) so need check calpol6+ levels and buy shares and check plenty smooth food options available