Flapping calmly through lockdown: Fledglings April 2020. Welcome to the Keep Calm Corner!

[LaneBoy]

Hello all!

Thank you for joining us, please note if we seem cliquey it’s only because it’s a long running thread - everyone really is welcome!

Welcome to (probably) the most bizarre Flylady thread yet... in which we are attempting to impose/maintain some kind of order in our homes, while also many of us are adjusting to working from home and homeschooling the kids for the first time too! Not to mention the anxiety around health and accessing food!

Of course, normally the opening post would talk about banishing CHAOS - Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome - but now we aren’t allowed anyone over anyway :o so, let’s just try and make our homes nicer FOR US. We are spending more time than ever in them, so let’s make them really wonderful places to be, our own safe little nests for our families.

Flylady routines might just help us get through this crazy time, by giving us a little structure to work from when all else is unpredictable - but as usual there is no right or wrong here. All of us follow it only to the extent it helps us - we can take ideas and make them work for us. And the key principle is, YOU ARE NEVER BEHIND. I feel like that is even more evident now, with so many of these outside pressures and commitments suddenly gone, and frankly the days rolling into one!

This is potentially a great time to declutter. Of course, Flylady suggests 15 minutes a day - but perhaps in these unprecedented times we will all do more! But we are all busy getting into our own routines now that school is out, and work too for many, and we’ve lost a lot of the outside structure to our lives. There’s no right or wrong here, we just have to try and adapt.

Links wise, I’ll just post the launch pad, and will add reminders about zones too. If anyone has Flying questions, please ask!

The Keep Calm Corner
The lovely SC came up with the brilliant idea of the Keep Calm Corner last month - this is a daily post with things to make us happy! I figured each monthly host can make this their own, and I’m a little worried my taste in art and music would not be calming to most :o so for this month, the KCC will consist of:
Some memes - either funny (we all need a laugh! Warning though - some will likely be unsavoury :o) or thought provoking/relaxation based. Do PM me (here or FB) if you have any you want to add!
A daily “ice breaker” type question - obviously answering these is entirely optional, and don’t say anything that will out you, but if you want to join in and create some extra conversations on the thread then treatment, we can all get to know each other better! Again, if you think of any questions please PM!

Thank you for settling in, and of course thank you to SC for making March such a lovely thread. And lastly, a huge thank you also to our key worker Fledglings, who are doing an incredible job of keeping things running!

Morning all! Thanks, Lane for links. Zoo, that is crap about DD's birthday presents, poor girl, but we've found Amazon are faster than they say, particularly if they can bundle non-essentials with essentials. Last week DH ordered a scented candle for the downstairs cloakroom (which I would call an essential with 4 men in the house!) and we were told delivery for first week in May. Then we ordered some dog food, and they popped the candle in the box too.

Hazel, what a beautiful view. Sorry you're having to clean your workspace too, hope it feels better now it's done. Cin how lovely that DS2 was determined to help! Bower, pleased you have a diagnosis for the cat and can help her.

We spent a lot of yesterday doing family things, unusually. I spent some time in garden tidying up and taming the feral lavender bush, then DH, DD, DS1 and I all had a cup of tea on the back steps and ended up talking to the neighbours over the fence. DS1 and I cooked curry and trimmings including homemade naan (using ED's flatbread recipe, but with SR flour on purpose), which was an absolute triumph though I say it myself. We had the gooseberry and elderflower ice cream for pudding - it's a bit closer to sorbet than ice cream, but was lovely. Then we all played Uno for an hour or so. It was really nice.

To dos for today
☑️ Boring base level flying - DW, S&S, LOL etc
☑️ Walk the hound
☑️ Mow the lawn
☑️ Sit in the garden and sew
☑️ Roast beef and yorkies for tea

Hoping for a quiet but pleasant day.

🍒🙋 to that, SC, We3, KT, foxes, giveme, fluffiest, MrsHoHo, Lisette and all others - my brain won't hold names today.

Lane delighted it is the kitchen mine got a good wipe down last night as I was😤🤯🤬with DH. The only thing he did yesterday was bringing in the logs and driving to the vets though I could have done that I think he wanted to enjoy the drive. I made lunch bacon and egg sandwich and bake blueberry and lemon muffins and then later on made tea. We had pasta with veg- onion, red pepper,courgette, mushrooms, carrot ( it was starting to go off so chopped the end off) and a few fresh, soft tomatoes and basil with 1/2 a jar of sauce. He said he really enjoyed it . I came through later to find he hadn’t bothered to do the dishes. I didn’t say anything when he said, “I was going to do those.” I did them thinking he would at least dry up. He is still doing the dam puzzle. That is three days. It is keeping him out of my space but I do think he needs to do a few more chores.
I wish we had stopped for a chicken now or something for a Sunday Dinner. I hardly ever have one due to going to church then choir there isn’t enough time. We’ve got mince in the freezer. Or sausages.

Good to hear you’re feeling better Lane.

Now I have forgotten what I needed to answer.

SC yes we may well have been at the same concert. I went with DD to Liverpool and we went to the Beatle museum and the Tate where we saw a bronze ballerina by Degas it was so enchanting. BobDylan had some prints for sale.i was tempted but we were on the train so awkward. I can’t remember the other venues.

DCat has taken her medicine. I went for the liquid so I could squirt it down. Then I feed her, like a reward. I brought tea and a bowl of coconut yoghurt and sliced banana and a little honey back to bed.

Hope everyone has a good day.

Ooh, x-post Lane - I love the Writer of Wrongs pun 😂. And the idea about structure in the day.

I am not a sporty person - I was an overweight child with hEDS and poor eyesight, so sport did not come naturally to me! I was tolerable at tennis, but they used to make me take my glasses off to play at school, for "safety reasons" so I immediately lost all my depth perception 🤦🏻‍♀️. I don't watch sport either.

If I need to move at all, I prefer to dance - I masked the undiagnosed hEDS doing ballet, ballroom and latin american multiple times a week until I was 16. It's dropped off rather now (! Understatement of the century!), but I'd still rather jive round the kitchen than anything else. I really want to take up tap dancing, but have never got round to it.

However, DH and the children are much more consumers and players of sport - DH and DS1 both played squash, DH played badminton for the county in his younger days, DS1 footballs, DS2 boxes and lifts weights, DD and DS3 do Kung Fu (Wing Chun), DH and the big two cycle. We are a Liverpool house in football terms, despite my DBro's best efforts to turn at least one of the children to Spurs (it's not worked). When DS1 is at Uni, he and DH watch the football "together" by WhatsApping madly while the match is on.

DH also watches formula 1, cricket, rugby, boxing, tennis, and the children dip in and out. I use him being safely out of the way in one spot to do other things... 🤣🤣

Morning! Will catch up in a bit but just wanted to echo to zoo a bit of hope about amazon. I ordered a birthday gift for DD amongst other bits. Delivery mid May (birthday end of April) and just had an email to say it’s arriving on Monday! Fingers crossed for you.

Thank you Lane.

Sports. No I don’t follow any now. DH and DS3 sometimes go to a Liverpool match. DS1&2nd go to the local team and occasionally to England matches. Every now and then I remind them they were born in Scotland😁
I used to play a lot of sport when I was at school. At school netball and squash and occasionally grabbed for the hockey team. After school we trained and played volleyball and basketball. We had almost the same people. I rode every day from fourteen and competed locally and once nationally for pony club. I also rode other people’s horses. I worked for a couple of years at a trekking stables and a big stud where we showed them all over England and Scotland and it is due to working there that I met DH. I came to this county for the job. Interview was over the phone. So I then rode several times a day as well as all the other jobs including breaking in.It was hard work usually about 60 hrs a week in summer ( 7am-7pm) and about 50 in winter. Sometimes we did more about 4-5 hrs at night plaiting and getting up at 4/5 am to load the horsebox. We sometimes went for a few days. I absolutely loved that job. I was paid £7 a week 😳

Leaves 🥞🍌🍒🍓🥭🍎🍊🍍🥐🥝🥞🥓🥯☕️☕️ ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️For fledglings breakfast.

Ah, sport. We are missing sport in this house. DS and I should have been heading to Wembley today with a dozen or so of our closest friends and relatives. DS plays football and hockey, DD is a competitive swimmer. I'm not particularly sporty, neither is DH. I like going to live sports and watching it on telly but only closely follow football the rest I dip in and out of. DS is obsessed with football so we talk about it a lot.

I am not at all sporty. DP and older two dc watch football and go to occasional matches.

Ta da

💙 ordered few bits for dc from h&m as realised dc5 doesnt have long left in his sleepsuits
🧡 all dc up dressed and fed

Post

Zoo love the self care tip idea! DH loves rainbow drops, I think they taste like stale cardboard 🤣 I sometimes get them for him if he needs cheering up 😁💕

I can smugly say I have kept the same Lenten promise as I made before lockdown. That is... none. :o

I didn’t get on the exercise bike last night 🤦‍♀️ so I’ve been on this morning while catching up with the thread! I might make that a Thing so I read while exercising.

Amazing photos hazel I would love to spend hours just sitting on that bench with a book! Glad your face feels ok.

Willow I hear you on the glasses issue. I was all set to be Nancy in our school production of Oliver until I said I wouldn’t be able to see well enough without my glasses 🙄 it was a bunch of 11 year olds, would glasses on Nancy really have mattered? 🤔 Oh well. Not bitter or anything. 😂 I was the Spelling Bee in a local theatre production of The Phantom Tollbooth in the same school year, and they didn’t mind the glasses, because I could spell antidisestablishmentarianism in about 4 seconds as required by the script. 🤓🤓🤓

DD1 loves ballroom/Latin too! She’s got all her bronze exams now and has done a couple of silvers. I never really “got” dancing (it doesn’t move me like music does) but I’m glad she does, it was ballroom that started it. DS does tap too. I think I saw Adam Garcia offering live classes the other day so if that becomes regular I may try it! Not that I have the shoes obviously.

OMG DS won’t stop talking at me about Lego. 😑😑😑 DD needs to get up so we can go for a walk, I need breakfast first though. DH is up earlier than yesterday and he also sorted the clean laundry (that was once again threatening to grow limbs and become sentient) last night as he couldn’t sleep. I think the Caglets will have some to put away so that’s one thing they can do today. Part of the reason I want them doing more chores (on top of laundry as they do their own anyway usually - I actually get annoyed when DH does it for them 😳) is so they have less time to be bored!

Ignore the word post at the beginning 😂 I have a phone memo on which I write long posts as I’m sick of Safari refreshing itself and deleting what I write at random intervals.

Thanks for offers of hope guys.means we have something to cling to!!

I've had seriously productive morning despite another crap night with dd2

Tada
Fed cats
Bleach lav
net curtains in wash with whitener
Grate carrots,parsnip and lob in pot red lentils.cooked to a thick puree and divided into 3 bags and froze.now have base for Dahl,lentil pasta sauce,soup etc.i can add onion/garlic powder or herbs/spices DEP on what want to do with it!
Nets on line
Girls curtains in
My and D's breakfast
Quick tidy living room and kitchen
Clean living room windows,taking down curtain
Bring in and put nets back up
Put girls curtains out on line
Living room curtains in
Half hour walk with zoolets
Pour boil water out back step as ants are coming in..lots cracks in brickwork so assuming holed up in there and daft cats mean no ant powder usage!
Wipe living room and bedroom curtain poles
Clean girls windows
Sponge suspect mark off lil zoo bedding(think probably cat poo from between pads)
Soak vile "grey" socks/cami vests that were once white of lil zoo

About being in and rehang girls curtains and put living room ones out,then lil zoo bedding going into wash

Today's lunch
Roasted parsnip,carrot,potato and cauli with morrocan spices and couscous.(frozen) broad beans will be cooked too
Little ones having tuna and tomato sandwiches,some Xmas tree tortilla crisps I found at back of cupboards (out regular crisps and they're going mad wanting more but I not going shop for that,despite see loads people head corner shop today for coke etc,sweets and crisps

To do
Make lunch
Use last parsnip up making muffins(go switch out carrot for parsnip and use allspice instead cinnamon)
May do some gardening(may take a nap!)

Right I’m caught up.

Hazel what a gorgeous walk. Pleased your face is feeling ok.

I am also not at all sporty. I had bad asthma as a child so grew up thinking I couldn’t run etc. Took me until my 20s to realise that actually, if I take an inhaler first, I can run! So I now have a bit more confidence but I’m certainly not natural sporty. I did always want to go to gymnastics or dancing as a child but money was tight and local classes were limited. I’d like to find a dance class for DD to start soon. I occasionally go to the football with my DF, and DH sometimes travels to see his team. I’ll sometimes watch a football match on TV, or Wimbledon or the darts. DH will watch any type of sport going

We’ve had a good Sunday so far. DH went early to the shop for essentials, and got some lamb for a roast and sausages for breakfast. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and I’ve played with DD with her dolls house.

Ta Das:

✅ beds made
✅ DD clothed. This has been quite a task. She feels that lock down = running round naked
✅ dishwasher emptied
✅ kitchen, dining room and utility dusted, and floors hoovered and mopped.
✅ dining table wiped and a thorough clean of the dining room as it got skipped last week in that zone.

That’s my whack for the day. DH sorting the roast and I’m sitting with a cuppa in the doorway while DD lets of steam in the garden.

Cross post Zoo. What a list!

Morning everyone. I wouldn't say I was particularly sporty (certainly not at school netball etc stuff I wasn't!!) but I do have a few exceptions, skiing is my thing or at least it used to be, haven't gone for a long time (because skiing with very small children not so appealing! We were meant to be going for the first time with the kids this year but...maybe not now!) I also play badminton as a lot of you know, only recently got back into it and now obviously the club has shut 🤦‍♀️

As for watching sport unless it's the Olympics I don't really, I do watch Wimbledon sometimes but I'm not hugely into it. Dh is a big rugby fan so that's what is usually on in our house.

Love reading all the chat on here 😍

My ta das today
Quick tidy of toys upstairs and downstairs
Dishwasher on
Washing on
Made jacket potatoes for lunch
Decluttered two drawers got rid of a few horrible old tops
Found the kids sandals from last summer , they fit still my kids feet never really seem to grow...!?!? Obviously this saves me a fortune

I need to hang the washing out now and make some rice Krispie cakes 😋

Hello all, I'm late to the thread today but I've enjoyed reading how your Sundays are going.

Today we have
❤ Skyped MIL for a family catch up
🧡 Lol
💚 Watched a livestream church service
💛 Made lunch for everyone
💙 Spent an hours gardening

Now I'm trying to coax DD to putting down the playstation controller and come outside for a walk.

I'm not really into any sport, or follow any teams. I pay a little bit of attention during the Olympics or World cup.

Oh forgot the question...I not sporty as such,love walking(good job as can't drive)
Played tennis as a teenager.dudnt mind volleyball,but never did except for p.e.sport on TV sends me to sleep.
Zoolets also love to walk/ride bikes.lil zoo does ballet,dd2 like using school gym and tictok dancing.ds cross bred with a sloth...

Tada
Made lunch (dd2 ate it all.whoo hoo)
Made muffins and pop in oven whilst we ate
Lil zoo and D's tried them hot from oven and declared them delicious.doible win from lil zoo as she despises parsnips with a passion normally!(clearly allspice kills some of flavour for her and cake makes them more acceptable)
Her beds on line
Living room curtains back up-tbh should've ironed but creases will fall out hopefully
Washed up and wiped down kitchen
Just having 5minutes peace the go deep condition my hair and wash it and do face pack with dd2
I've been told we having sweeties/chocolate and a film in a bit too(by D's)

So my afternoons fully booked
I may get fancy and take that scythe/machete toy legs and dewolf them too perhaps getting carried away on delirium of sunshine
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

*to my legs..

Meh no worries about TMI here give :) I also get anxiety at the start of mine. A friend gets a second surge towards the end too. Hormones 🤬

I’m feeling a lot more human today (period doesn’t last as long now I use a cup). Walk in the park was lovely, and I sat out in the garden a bit after too. DH has been cracking on with more housework.

❤️Hair washed
❤️Face scrub
❤️Peel off mask done

Zoolets now arguing over what(if any says dd2) dvd to watch....

Ta da continued

💜 wash on x 4
💚 dry on x 3
💛 washing on line
❤ steriliser cleaned
💙 bottles washed and sterilised
🧡 tesco order tweaked
💜 kitchen swept
💚 table and high chair wiped
💛 pots washed

Sorry to hear that your DD won't necessarily get what you bought by her birthday zoo. Hopefully some things will be earlier than promised. The parsnip and allspice muffins sound amazing.

Glad to hear your cat is taking her medicine nicely Bowerbird.

I'm not at all sporty and don't follow any sports either. During the Olympics, I might watch some of the sports where the point is to perform in a way that looks really good, like the diving, gymnastics etc. I'm happy to exercise but not in a competitive way, so something like yoga or walking would be what I prefer.

Today's Ta das are:

beds made, LOL washed and dried outside, dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, S&S, meals made and cleared away

Ordered DSes sandals online. Bit nervous as I usually like to get them measured but they both wanted the same ones they had last summer, which made me happier about just buying their next size up. They both insisted on red ones too, so now I look like I match their clothing, which Mumsnet has taught me is an unpardonable offence, so if I disappear now, I was probably kicked out for that!

Ordered a few summer clothes for them from H&M. Good recommendation, That! They just need sunhats now and they should be ok until Autumn.

Cut DH's hair for the first time. Went ok luckily!

We'll never watched a film,too much arguing.i got annoyed at crumpled curtains,so sent girls bring theirs down.its got tape on pole already n they snap it so they had bodge back together themselves whilst I iron their curtains.livkng ones still look bit crumpled but not like they been slept in anymore😁🤣
Bought in lil zoo bed,ironed it as iron was out
Her soaked whites are looking less grey,now in wash

Soaking some couscous now with garlic and parsley for them to have with cucumber and raw sugarsnap peas and last corned beef

Dd2 agreed to try and eat some more roasted carrots (go do thyme I think on them) and some red kidney beans will be added last 20 mins to warm and crick on outsides slightly,and toast soldiers
I having squash and carrots with veggie sausage and toast soldiers.oddly comforting,and nursery food!

Hope everyone's enjoyed some sunshine today.my rabble now in back garden.cloudy here now and winds picking up.ds watching ants that keep coming into kitchen and can't find nest,lil zoo practising ballet and dd2 tictok dancing...

I'm not impressed with news that idiots were out in force yesterday and police made loads arrest/moved people on for sunbathing/gathering in big groups at parks etc.i hear Matt Hancock now saying we may lose privelage of be allowed to go out walking/exercise.if this happens dd2 and D's with go orbital...

cineraria what did you use for the hair cut? We have been looking into this!

I have a Wahl clippers kit, That, plus I have proper hairdressing and thinning scissors. It seems good. I chose a cordless one and one that had ear taper grades which I found made things easier initially and also when they are very overgrown.

I cut the boys' hair myself anyway because they don't sit still enough to let a barber/hairdresser do a decent job, so they may as well have a home cut!

Typically, I just do a grade 4 up the back until it reaches the sticky out bit oftheir head and vertically up the sides until the head curves instead of following the curve over the top of the head. Then a grade three over the lowest inch and a half from the hairline, grade 2 on the lowest inch and grade 1 on the lowest half inch, so it gets shorter gradually. That gives the traditional short back and sides look. Then I cut the top with the scissors, short all over for DH and just blending the top in with the sides so the top is long for the boys. Then I thin any bits that look chunky, mainly on DS1. Last, to give a neat edge, I comb all the hair straight out from the hairline, e.g. combing the hair in front if the ears forward hold it there and trim it very short close to the hairline.

Not sure if that helps. I did train in ladies hairdressing almost 30 years ago but never did it professionally and had never done barbering with clippers before or male shaped styles either.