Mad March Fledglings Fly in to action 2020

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A warm welcome to the monthly thread where we (loosely) follow the Flylady housekeeping system here to combat CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) with lots of virtual wine, chat and mutual support along the way. The thread leader of the month will post a link to Flying activities daily. Quite a few of us have been on here for a while, so we may seem cliquey, but we really aren't, and all newcomers, lurkers, returnees, regulars, and intermittent regulars are very welcome!

Very simply, Flylady is a zone-based cleaning system which we follow to varying degrees, depending on our individual homes, circumstances and energy levels. There are five zones and at the beginning and the end of the month we usually straddle Zone 1 and Zone 5. When you first start decluttering, cleaning, and organizing your zones, Flylady encourages you to spend 15 minutes per day decluttering in the current zone.

Each week, we work in a different zone. Each month, we repeat all the zones. After a few months of following this system consistently, you should start to see an improvement in the main areas of your house.

Pop on to the Flylady website to have a closer look about how to get started here but signing up for emails will probably lead to very many landing in your inbox. Also there has been some concern about securely downloading pdfs from the site so proceed with caution.

The Babysteps system is a light 31-day introduction to the system which familiarises you with Flylady routines (such as dressing to shoes, shining your sink etc) and with her philosophy, which emphasises self-care, her abhorrence of perfectionism and the adage that you’re never behind - just jump in where you are at - even if you only do 5 mins work, that is so much better than doing nothing at all!

There is a morning routine and an evening routine to keep things ticking over and a weekly home cleaning hour (which most of us find tight!) to change bed sheets, mop, hoover, take out rubbish etc. We've found over the years that the system isn’t brilliant for major decluttering so you might want to supplement with Kondo or another decluttering system. Flylady doesn’t want us cleaning all day so she is very keen on using a timer. Clean and declutter with focus, then stop and do something more interesting instead!

In addition each day has a purpose, see the daily focus here:
Monday: weekly home cleaning hour (can be split into ten minute sections and spread over week)
Tuesday: plan and play (menu planning, family event planning, doc appts etc)
Wednesday: anti-procrastination day
Thursday: errand day
Friday: clear out purses, bags, cars, date night
Saturday: family fun
Sunday: lift your spirits.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have any qs. And remember, there is NO wrong or right way of doing this, it is about adapting the system to suit your life circumstances, which will be different from someone else's, so feel free to ignore any step or routine that doesn't suit you or your home! And don't be put off by the barftastically twee language of the Flylady site, as the underlying system is sound.

And if/when it all gets too much: come and take a seat by the fire in our candelit, specially adapted, virtual "naughty" corner where you can retreat and enjoy all manner of lovely things such as fluffy pillows warm blankets, fine teas, strong coffee, and platters of sumptuous foodstuffs offered with lashings of support from fellow fledglings.

There may be mention of Ned (and his cousins Ted and Fred) who started their lives as autocorrections, but who have morphed in to virtual helpers, and are borrowed by thread members from time-to-time when the going gets tough on Mount Washmore.

Most days we pop on to post our "to do" and "ta da" lists of what we’ve managed to do and have a bit of a natter. Please don't compare your list with someone else's as this is all about individual progress.

More info follows (but again, please note we advise only looking at the pdfs and not downloading them):

** launch pad (general guidance and info) here

** daily babysteps pdf (ignore the ones that don't suit you or your home) here

** week day missions (some fledglings find it easier to do them at weekends) here

** info about zones (explanation of how zones work) [[http://www.flylady.net/d/br/2017/09/02/please-explain-the-zones/

here]]

** weekly zones (a rough weekly guide to which area of the house we are tackling currently, again adapt to suit yourself) [[http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/flying-lessons/zones/

here]] and here

** daily focus (helpful guide to allocate a certain day for a certain task) here

** deep cleaning lists pdf (only attempt when you have decluttered as you can't clean clutter!) here

Habit of the month: here

An explanation about the March habit of the month: Getting Dressed to Shoes here

Good luck and happy Flying one and all!

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Many thanks to Tinselette from whom I have stolen and adapted quite a bit of this introduction!

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And last, but definitely not least, a huge thank you to Expletive for running a really fast-moving February thread so splendidly

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Hello all. Sitting in car near vets waiting for them to open. Is our cat’s operation today so she needs to be there first thing. Is a relatively minor op so she should be fine. The prospect of her having to stay inside for 10 days is deeply concerning though . She loves the outdoors.

Ta da:-
DDs at my amazing childminder who is having them early and late for me today so I can sort cat out.
Made it to vets through traffic on time and managed to park
Dishwasher loaded before we left

Today will be mostly spent in my car paying £££ for parking and chasing up and down after the cat. Ready meal planned for tea as DDs will eat at childminder and not sure what time I will be home. She can come home today but depends of course how she is after the anaesthetic.

zoo I know you have not had the best luck with support workers etc but I really wonder if it is worth mentioning to someone at least how much you are all struggling .

SC, I have to say at least in the UK that I think the public health message has improved slightly in that now it is very much as you say: good wash with soap and water unless it really is not available. Whether people listen to that is another issue of course.

Catch you all later.

Time to take cat in. Big wing flaps to everyone else.

Popping in lunch time ... .

Toostressy oh no, poor kitty! (Sorry, I don't mean to make light of her operation but because of your profession, I had a sudden vision there of you sitting in your car trying to wrestle your cat in to compression stockings!)

Seriously though, I do hope she is OK and that the op goes well. It's the pits when pets are unwell. So have a virtual for yourself too.

May I ask everyone please, have any of you had any communications from your respective schools about Covid-19? I'm class rep this year and have a feeling I should be doing something to communicate prevention steps being made, cooperation required, possible future steps (such as cancelling trips) to potentially worried parents? But I've heard absolutely nothing from Head/Administrators. Think I maybe need to be a bit more proactive as things hotting up a bit here on the other side of the channel! What is the situation with you?

I'm a year rep for both my DCs secondary schools and consider this to be totally outside my remit TBH. They have both sent out letters but really just saying follow advice from Public Health England. A local school has had a case but the student had not been at school while showing symptoms and therefore they are allowed to stay open.

Oh and as for cancelling trips, DD is on one this week (your side of the Channel) and the school were clear that they weren't cancelling it unless FCO advised no essential travel.

Thanks Expletive I think it is outside my remit too, but we have received absolutely zero communication from the school on the subject save for one tiny memo during Carnaval holiday directing us to public health announcements before pupils returned. I just wish they were doing more wrt the state of the lavs and hand basins (so pupils actually want to wash their hands in them - at the moment they don't even want to enter the washrooms!!!) and being a bit more pro-active but maybe I am being too much of a worry wart. (I am in charge of "hygiene/prevention measures" at office so it's on my mind I guess!)

Hope your dd has a good trip!

Our secondary school has sent a letter, and cancelled a trip (china)

Not a single mention from primary school

Even the secondary letter was a few weeks ago and was mainly about if you have recently been to Italy

Can certainly understand them cancelling the China trip! Although I gather the peak is declining there thankfully! Thanks That!

I guess it's all a judgement call about weighing up economic/practical factors (if you go too soon with lock-downs people become non-compliant etc) and not really knowing much about this particular virus.

It's all rather surreal isn't it?

Very surreal. We’ve had nothing but an email about a trip, I think it said it’s not being cancelled at present. No idea what trip, must be one arranged before she started. Not even sure if it’s her year even as they seem to send letters out to everyone.

ACEs was good today but the facilitators are so so brilliant. One realised early on that I really wasn’t myself (too much stuff going on) and chatted to me in the break :)

Dd primary school have sent out the standard thing about prevention, won't shut school unless told they have to etc etc. Dd did come home yesterday saying they'd been told to wash their hands every time they sneeze or cough and to cough into tissue or crook of arm. I was quite impressed actually because she even did those things at home which doesn't usually happen

Ds nursery has just sent out a message saying don't send your child in if they are even slightly unwell... consequently there was hardly any children in today!

Thanks everyone!

Foxes yes, asking slightly ill nursery infants not to come in, is almost tantamount to closing it, surely?

Glad ACEs was helpful Lane

As is evident, I don't really know what I am doing tbh, but I was told my role was to facilitate communication between parents and Direction , and vice versa (so that head isn't inundated with loads of separate enquiries from individual parents) and to be fair no one seems that concerned ATM except me! But that may change as one pupil in dd's class is self isolating having developed symptoms (not sure if tested by doc or not).

Ta da cont'd/...
3.5 hrs work
Sorted post
served lunch and cleared up (home made soup)
Bakery
Car to garage (dh drove me back)
Carried lots of ironed clothes upstairs from basement (2 lots on hangers and three paniers)
Now watching racing on telly while doing on-line grocery order

To do:
About to do some veg prep in front of telly too
And then prep dh shirt collars & cuffs

Had better go. Hangry teen just back. Sheesh, if only there were cash prizes for glowering ... .

I think the thing with nurseries (if not state run) is if they have to close do people have to pay? If not nurseries will go bump but if people dont have childcare they cant work so have no money to pay with

Not too clear about UK situation That but wasn't there some talk about state pay kicking in at a certain point for employees who can't work for some reason owing to Covid-19, or was that only for people who have it?

Anyone else rapidly alternating between really panicking about the whole virus thing, and then reassuring yourself it’s all going to be fine? Argh. Problem with modern media is there’s no way of knowing what is really true.

ta da
✅shower
✅ACEs
✅bought a few necessary things from various shops
✅picked up a sunflower lanyard (hidden disabilities thing)
✅renewed library books
✅returned one book I’m clearly not going to get round to, paid a bit of the fine, and got a few days extra on one that couldn’t be renewed properly 😳😳😳
✅caught up properly with DH about how our respective sessions went
✅art (while waiting for ACEs to start)
✅tuff tray set up (so so glad I bought it already, she’s much less bored)
✅doctors appt
✅collected my/DD1’s meds

Pretty much sat in a daze since I got home the second time though.

The media has been crazy and definitely causing the panic buying lane I'm just taking it a day at a time really!

I have to go to the shop tomorrow for a few essentials but not sure if I'll be able to get what I want (I don't need toilet roll!)

Feeling a bit frazzled this evening after going out for some dinner with friends and all the children, it was noisy and chaotic as usual and I don't actually feel like I spoke to my friends for more than 30 seconds at a time but the kids loved it!

Must get the dc to bed now but they are still a bit wired!

No communications from ds's school on Corona. I work in a University and there is planning in place should gov suggest closing.

No flying today as hooked up to ambulatory blood pressure monitor - readings look normal.

Wing flaps to all...

Yep Lane that's me - panic panic calm panic etc

foxes, you’ve described a standard get together with kids .

Just checking in quickly. Cat has had her op and is fine . I now have a lovely image of trying to get stockings on her SC .

Re Coronavirus- I am concerned that we are heading to a worldwide recession due to it but since there is nothing I can do about that I am putting it to the back of my mind. The rest... I am following the recommendations of washing hands etc (which to be fair I did anyway!) and otherwise waiting to see how things go.

Many nurseries are on a financial knife edge anyway and if finding / fees are pulled for children not attending the costs to the sector could be disastrous. Equally though as you all say, if parents are not working they may not be able to pay the feel anyway.

SC, I know it is difficult especially with school not giving much info but I would be really careful about giving anything other than official advice. If there is anything official you can link to maybe (similar to the department of health / NHS guidance) then you could send that out? As Expletive says, it is not really in the remit and you risk doing more harm than good. Sorry if that sounds peachy but people really do go batshit over stuff like this and I think in any official capacity then you need to just give the clear official advice. Possibly you could have a plan to talk to school to see if they have any info they would like to share?

It has been a long day and I have an awkward week coming up. Non-Coronavirus related rant coming up... I have done so much organising of various things today and it is all so invisible. I will spend HOURS this week coordinating various things and it is basically just perceived by DH others as fretting or making unnecessary work. Aaaaagghhh. Mums’ work really is often invisible isn’t it ?

Oh gosh I had that BP monitor once. Not fun! So noisy.

In a staggering turn of events, DS is actually wanting to read more books. So a library trip with him is on the cards for this week. We don’t own much children’s fiction anymore because they just didn’t read it! DS has changed so much this term though. He is still playing about with the flute too. All very unexpected!

ta da
✅gathered cereals etc from tuff tray to use again later in the week
✅wrote up ACEs session

There are a million things I should be doing right now. But nope.

I know what you mean stressy. The sheer brain work is enormous.

Toostressy Good Lord no - perhaps my phrasing was unclear - but I wouldn't dream of sending out advice to parents without going through official channels or indeed even finding out if that was an appropriate thing to do. Trust me, everything goes through about six tiers of bureaucracy here anyway!

What I have done though is send an e-mail to head of PA for her to talk to Heads to see if they think it might be an idea to update info to parents. There is a large Italian community here. About a third of the school have recently returned from skiing trips to Italian/Austrian and French Alps. Current (reliable) reporting is that this country's rate of confirmed cases per million inhabitants is higher than those of neighbouring Germany, and even France, which after Italy, is the EU's second most hard hit country. It's potentially quite a serious situation.

I don't want to be alarmist - and hopefully UK will be more protected because of (a) geography (b) lower average age (c) better success at finding spreaders (d) less kissing on greeting (before it was banned) but I am getting quite concerned over this side of the channel (if that answers your question Lane!) .

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst is my current mantra.

So happy to hear your 😺 came through her op well Toostressy!

Totally "get" the frustration re: "wife" work often being, invisible, unacknowledged, not sufficiently valued etc etc etc (except when it hasn't been done for some reason and people find they have no clean shirts, the bins are full, they've run out of toothpaste and the dog craps on the parquet at 3 am because it hasn't been walked). It does get you down. Only solution I have found is to have an
abdominal operation which req six weeks recovery! . OK perhaps a bit of a drastic solution , but , seriously, step back for a while. It doesn't solve everything but it causes a chink of light to fall on what you achieve each day.

Good to hear blood pressure low despite intermittent panic Tinselette! (I must admit I am panicking a bit too but I am a confirmed worry wart. For example, I have always stocked an emergency supply of loo rolls, tins, and other essentials as a matter of course well before talk of pandemics.)

Great to hear about your ds's renewed interest in fiction Lane! I think we could all benefit from the calming properties of a good book currently!

Speaking of which, I hope bed time wasn't too challenging Foxes!

G'night all!

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Baby-step no. 11 for Wednesday 11th March is: here

Launch pad link for zones, detailed cleaning list, missions, flight plan etc is here

Have a good anti-procrastination day everyone!

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Hi, lying awake with pain. Been to GP for acupuncture tonight. Hip worse than last three nights.
Had a good chat to him and a little cry. He is such a good GP spent extra time like he had all the time in the world for me.

SC a Secondary school here has a pupil with it but they are not closing the school and haven’t announced a deep clean. They may have it done overnight. Our school was closed for a deep clean once because of norovirus.

Just skimmed threads as can’t concentrate. About a 6/10 for pain so going to get up and walk about and have some painkillers. Reaction isn’t usually this strong. Right in my right hip to groin and down my leg. Aargh!

Keep strong Bower 🍇 🛁 💊 ☕