Fledglings Flying Frightfully into October

[EerilyDeleted]

A huge thanks to Mogthesleepycat for steering us successfully through September

If you are struggling with C.H.A.O.S. (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) and S.T.U.F.F. (Something That Undermines Family Fun) then this is the thread where we (loosely) follow the step-by-step Flylady housekeeping system (in our own, unique, relaxed style) with lots of support and chatter along the way.

The FlyLady link is here Flylady. Don't be put off by the twee language of the site – we all agree that the underlying system is very effective.

This little-and-often system is designed so that you can follow a series of steps and routines each day (which gradually become second nature) in zones of the house which are designated weekly; defining and minimising housework - which in theory should leave you with loads more time to do something more interesting instead.

At the same time it is intended to reduce that panicky "rabbit in headlights" feeling when you are overwhelmed and everything needs doing all at once. No problem if you miss a day or two; just jump right back in and it will all come around again next month.

It's up to you, but we advise not signing up to receive the Flylady e-mails as you will be swamped with marketing nonsense. All the information you need will be linked here on a daily basis.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's steps and routines using a three-pronged approach (dependent on the stage everyone is at):

• start or repeat baby steps
• repeat baby steps + do 15 minutes a day decluttering in the current zone
• reinforce baby steps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering.
• And if you are really enthusiastic and have finished decluttering - you can go on to detailed deep cleaning in each zone.

There are three key points to keep in mind throughout:

• No perfectionism allowed - this is harder than you would imagine and many of us on this thread struggle with this one.
• You are never behind - just start where you are and anything you do is progress.
• It didn't get into a mess overnight, it won't get tidy over night - accept it will take time to get on top of things and you will be happier.

If you are new; then trying to spend 15mins decluttering daily and doing the baby steps is a good way to start. Some of us (mentioning no names) can have scary looking ‘ta-da’ lists but don't let that worry you. Do what you can, anything is better than nothing, and don't judge yourself against others.

If all else fails, a brew + the power of three technique + a bit of support on here can work wonders.

Here's the launch pad for more experienced fledglings Launchpad.

Don’t let it put you off if we appear a bit cliquey, we really aren’t. Some of us have been on here for years – but all lurkers, intermittent returnees, oldies and newcomers very, very welcome.

SingToTheSky put together a glossary of the many weird and might-seem-a-bit-cliquey terms. We have been going a long time but we always love newbies - hopefully this list will help you settle in.

KCC - the Keep Calm Corner, invented by our lovely Fledgling SC back in March, where the OP posts nice diverting links, memes, questions etc to distract us from the pandemic.

Ta Da - instead of a to do list (which is of course welcome too) we often post our achievements, with accompanying jazz hands, in order to celebrate the positives, however small they seem! Sometimes if we want to share an embarrassed giggle/commiserations we also post a ta didn’t - the stuff we didn’t get done!

BRC - Bag/Box of Random Crap. These are usually formed when we are panic tidying and shove anything in “to sort later” which is also known as a stash and dash .

Power of Three or PO3 - the idea that if you’re feeling really unmotivated/overwhelmed by your to do list, you just choose three things to do, and then post when you’ve done them.

DLMS - didn’t lose my shit - in other words, somehow stayed relatively calm despite a stressful day!

SS/S&S - Swish and Swipe - this is one of the key parts of the morning routine, a quick once over of the bathroom.

Home Bleugh - Flylady's Home Blessing routine

And a few basics:
LOL - load of laundry
WM - washing machine
TD - tumble dryer
DW - dishwasher
HSL - hallway, stairs, landing

And finally "The Naughty Corner" - this is for Fledglings who perhaps didn't get done what they had planned for the day but are in need of a comfy seat, pile of cushions, tasty snacks, stiff drink and friends to chat to.

Thank you wellies that’s very kind of you. You aren’t being Mumsnet at all, that would infuriate me if that happened to my DD!. Is there anyone you can complain too?.

bower Christmas card making sounds lovely, I need to make my own this year too. Well I don’t need to I want to. I’m going to do a few for DC’s nursery friends, I’m not sure if they’ll be able to give them out because of COVID but I’m sure the parents will take them. My favourite carol, probably god rest ye merry gentleman.

sing I love carols too, I think they’re just gorgeous!.

zoo I’m very vocal when I hear people say things like that!. When I was younger I didn’t care but now I have my own daughter I want her to grow up in a world where she knows she is just as capable as men. That’s really annoying about ‘d’p. Sorry about DD2 as well, 💐.

Wellies - poor DD, that does sound hard. My DD is interested in the Latin and Classical Civilisation A level too but they don't offer it anywhere very local which is a pain.

Zoo - sorry about the treading on eggshells, very hard.

bower that's good that you are feeling lighter, great description I know just what you mean

Sorry for lack of personals I've read all your posts but have missed a lot today and haven't kept up! Sounds like there has been some stressful days today ☹️ I hope your evenings are a little bit more relaxing at least.

If anyone can recommend any good online Scrabble games please do! I tried one a while back but it was rubbish, or at least I didn't understand it 🤷‍♀️

It has been full on today
Ta das
School run
Mum and dad collected ds
Worked this morning
Dishwasher on
2 X LOL
Wiped sides
Took rubbish out
Emptied food waste bin
Pilates DVD
Messaged two friends about meeting up
Spoke to my dad about tomorrow
Rearranged an appointment for tomorrow as another appointment has changed time 🙄
Spoke to dh about tomorrow (it's house renovation related and he isn't going to be here so I need to know as much as possible! This is not my area of expertise!)
School run
Took kids for their hair cuts
Nipped to shop for pizzas and chocolate for dinner as no time left to cook
Put chicken and bacon in the freezer
Cleared freezer of a few things that have been in there far far too long and will never be eaten because we have run out of tupperware 😂
Tidied up quickly

Need to update the meal plan / online food shop now...bye for now!

There’s words with friends foxes not played it myself yet but would happily try :) Also love a word game called Letterpress.

My day went a bit weird but I got some shopping done that I needed to. Still got no wrapping paper, or food for tomorrow. 🤦‍♀️

ug, I hate Monopoly. I used to think it was because I never won (my 5-years-older sister usually did) but I now realise that I don't like it even when I'm winning. Household are largely ok with this now .

For some reason I never knew O Holy Night growing up. Newly-formed church choir were talking about it and they all said "oh, you'll know it when you hear it" - I really didn't. Never managed to establish whether it was because my dad didn't like it . I suspect part of the reason I have a soft spot for it is because it really shows me off

I like Rutter's stuff, but suspect that you shouldn't do more than one per occasion. We learnt Angel Tidings ("in all towns and villages") recently which - even though it's in the Blue Book - I hadn't sung before. I realised that that's because there's never an occasion where you'd choose it over the Star Carol ("sing this night: For a boy is born in Bethlehem"). What Sweeter Music is lovely. Nativity Carol ("born in a stable so bare") and Jesus Child ("have you heard the story"). One of my favourites growing up was Shepherd's Pipe Carol.

In Dulci Jubilo is fun, as is the arrangement of We Wish You a Merry Christmas (or We Squawk You a Merry Christmas as it is known to sopranos). Hark The Herald means Christmas to me, to the extent that for a few years I couldn't sing it without bursting into tears (on one memorable occasion, on the first note). The Carols for Choirs descants, (O Come All Ye Faithful, O Little Town, Once in Royal, HtH) and that fabulous final verse of O Come.

The Three Kings (Cornelius) is gorgeous (). Another of my favourites is Byrd's Out of the Orient Crystal Skies, which we had a recording of as sop-alto duet ()

My mother used to sing "Christians, Awake!" at us first thing on Christmas morning. Oh, and that reminds me that Good King Wenceslas Looked Out can be very mildly tweaked to be Good King [oursurname] Last Looked Out . We made our own entertainment in them days...

O Come O Come Emmanuel goes deep. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (I know I've veered well away from Christmas territory here...).

Final bit on carols - Patapan, Past Three O Clock, Zither Carol, and of course Sir Christemas. Possibly more fun to sing than to listen to...

I remember (age 7-8) being Utterly Horrified to hear my dad mutter under his breath "I've been dashing around like a blue-arsed fly all morning..." - made even worse by the fact that this was prompted by me having, literally as we pulled out of the drive, exclaimed "I've not got my glasses!" so that he had to dash back in and try to find them

Have just supervised S2 going into the loft to find Christmas jumper and Santa hat. Apparently 6th-form are doing a Halloween dress-up tomorrow and he's going as "someone who starts Christmas far too early". I was So Proud . Even though a good part of the reason is probably that we own Christmas stuff and don't have any Halloween costumes... H asked if he would take the black Santa hat, and he said no, that would be double irony and wouldn't work.

Oh Christmas-y spirit going on here!

Ta da:
🎉Living room dusted and surfaces cleaned
🎉Bedroom cleaned
🎉Small piano room cleaned
🎉Bathroom blitzed
🎉Upstairs and downstairs hoovered
🎉Indoor pants watered
🎉Make dinner aka fridge left overs stir fry

Yesterday's ta da was few LOLs and making scones and a whole pile of Yorkshire puds (love them, can happily munch them on their own).

Now taking my usual place on a sofa, ready for Bake off.

Ha, DH says like a blue arsed fly a lot :o

Just about to get DD1 to do some extra chores (she is “earning” the right to do some more stuff in half term... if it’s still possible by then) and I need to edit the Tesco order too.

foxes words with friends is my fav online scrabble

merry I don’t really like monopoly either! Love your DS’s dress up choice!

You’ve done a lot mc! How are you feeling?

@Merryhouse have you tried monopoly deal? Which is a card version of the game. Love that game and hate monopoly. It was great when ds was younger because if there were only 2 of you playing then you could get through a game in around 15mins so you could shove a couple of games in before bedtime after tea and getting cleaned up for bed. I miss the days when ds would play that.

I have a love hate relationship with Christmas carols. Mostly they just get bastardised. I have a particularly fond version of deck the halls which reflects the actual mood around here at christmas when things are usually going wrong. It involves dropping geese and burning holly

This afternoon did not even remotely go to plan. Rang opticians re ds' glasses and ended flying out the door straight away to go sit in traffic to make the appointment. Next thing it was tea time and tea was a posh faff (baked camebert with fig jam with sides for 3 of us with ds having left over pasta and sauce from yesterday) it was a lovely spirit reviving tea but work

Zoo sorry about "d"p being an arse. Hopefully dd2 is comfortable and little zoo doesnt rub it in her face too much.

I hope to be back and finish catching up with the thread. But apparently there is this social normal of wearing clothes to work so laundry is needed.

comfortable I mean that you are able to comfort her not in that she was comfy.

It's been a day. A hard one emotionally. 3-5yrs is dad's life expectancy. numbers are so mean sometimes.

I love In Dulce Jubilo too Merry, the Mike Oldfield version is always on my Christmas playlists. Last year I discovered the Jethro Tull Christmas album which was really lovely.

Also, this - when my DCs were at primary school they had this at the carol service every year, happy memories.

Re swearing, i must admit I quite like it now my DCs are old enough that I can swear in front of them. Nothing too extreme, just the odd "oh bollocks" or similar.

Tada!

Lots of hotspotting and paper clutter removal.
Charity shop run - 2 bin liners and 2 carrier bags of stuff gone
Reorganised furniture in front room (well, swapped armchair and coffee table around)
Top up shop at Tesco
DS to orthodontist
Found PIP forms
Supervised scaffolding being put up, no sign of sweary painters
1 x LOL
Took DS to football
About to finish kitchen and head to bed, up at 5 tomorrow for swimming

Pumpkin I think since now I've got more time I just started lumping all the jobs into one day.. not very flylady of me.
Feeling well, thank you very much for asking! Got just under 2 weeks until due date, and I am swollen.. sausage fingers and puffy face. Awesome. Trying to capitalise on naps whilst I can!
Zoo "d"p is such a pain in the arse! Very frustrating. Hope it doesn't cause too much tension.
Wellies I would get quite riled up about those comments too. How is your DD feeling now? Would she be comfortable enough standing up for herself if the situation arise again? The first time I came across similar comments directed at me when I was much younger, I remember feeling a bit taken aback and not really knowing how to reply on the spot. Now I can bat that sh*t away right there and then, those guys need to know it is not ok to behave like that. I hope she is doing ok.

A Mike Oldfield in dulci jubilo, you say?!

Much of my Christmas playlist is Annie Lennox and Pentatonix, and I think it’s the swingle singers?!

Argh I am Very Achy Indeed this evening despite having a hot bath run for me when I arrived home. It’s just from carrying heavy bags today TBH but it’s stupid timing because I’m now flying solo for a couple of days and feel utterly unprepared. Cagletini is out of isolation (never did have symptoms) but nursery still shut so I’m glad I don’t need to do the walk and playground etc. I would love to take her to the duck pond near us but I don’t think that’ll be happening tomorrow. We have my friend and her DS round for a bit both days too so although I feel unprepared for the lessons it’ll be lovely to have some company.

ta da

🦂home ed
🕷did edits on my assignment as she already marked it - good feedback overall though yay
🦂shopping for Halloween supplies, things to entertain toddler, clothes to replace outgrown stuff
🕷bath
🦂gave chores to DD1
🕷bit of decluttering with her
🦂both of us started designing our mini chest of drawers
🕷ordered a couple of Christmas presents as they are hard to find

Oh and I finally returned my library books, reserved DS’ next book for English (the London eye mystery) and borrowed a book for myself... shouldn’t have really as I have plenty on my to be read pile (charity shop bargains and kindle books mainly) but they need all the issues they can get to justify their existence TBH :( it was like that when I worked there but it must be much harder now. I will try and get back to reading more.

Bedtime, knackered.

I’m glad I asked you about the carols. Some lovely chat and memories thank you.
Merry I heard the Shepherd’s Pipe carol for the first time today and put it on the list. I went to discuss it this afternoon and the lady of the house said she knew it well and it is one of her favourites. The plan is to do Advent windows with Carols as the theme. I have made a list and I am going to write a little about it in the newsletter. I chose most of the ones on here though a few I didn’t know so shall listen to them tomorrow. I hope to get the school involved.

Merry the reason you may not know it is that I was told it is a Catholic hymn. I am Catholic so it will be why I have always known it. It seems to have had a bit of a revival just now. I found Katie Melua had a version which was different and lovely. I love the sops bit Fall on your knees so much drama in that chorus.
We have Jethro Tull album and Bob Dylan’s Christmas. Feel free to add any more suggestions as I have until November to distribute the titles.

I must go to sleep. Night.

hillsno one ever wants to hear how long a loved one has left,esp as it will only ever be a guesstimate and can be wildy out either way.

Lil zoo asleep on my shins which is very uncomfy and adding to joint pain

zoo I hope tensions aren't running too high in your household.
wellies I would be raging as well, and I'm pretty laid back for the most part.
bower sorry to hear that your last day didn't turn out the way you deserve

Sorry I have no more personals, I did read them but can't remember 🥴

Ta Das today:
🎃 Grocery pick up
🎃 Halloween gel nails done 🕸
🎃 3 LOLs done, including sheets
🎃 Skyped mum
🎃 Rotated DW
🎃 Relaxed and watched a programme that no one else likes to watch
🎃 Took DC shopping after school, got them winter coats, although one was supposed to be for me but was a little tight so DD will use it instead
🎃 Wrote out my price list (3 times!) for my goodies to take to work as they are wanting to order some. Hopefully they don't freak out over the prices as I use quality ingredients.
🎃 Ended up picking up dinner (late too) as time got away from me and I didn't have anything ready.
🎃 Handwashed 2 wooly jumpers
🎃 Time to relax for a few minutes until I get my clothes ready for tomorrow and get in the shower before bed.
Today seemed to have flown by, this morning wasn't too bad though. There may be other things I did today that I may have forgotten, although wish I was able to do more. Oh one more thing, we emptied out our hoses for watering the grass, it's supposed to freeze this weekend. Brrrr 🥶

hills sorry to hear about your dad, he may well beat the odds and live longer than they expect. Either way try not to dwell on time line, but spend as much time with him as you can, in positive circumstances, if possible.
My dad passed away in 2018, I try to remember the good times I had with him, but there were also a lot of bad times that I still think about sometimes (mostly when he was getting sicker and would lash out verbally). There is nothing I would change although wish I could have visited more often (we live in the US, my family is still in the UK).

Before I lose my post again 🤬
Here's the pictures of my Halloween nails. I don't remember who asked me to put them on here when I did them.

It was me asking to see the nails Hazel, thank you for the pics, they are very impressive. Do you do the ombre thing with the make-up sponge? I have watched it on youtube but never attempted it.

Sing - I have Pentatonix on my playlist too. I've just been looking through the list, one of my very favourites is Sinead O'Connor's Silent Night. Just perfect.

Hills - I must have cross-posted with you last night

I'm up early because of swimming again. It is peeing down with rain and forecast to do so all day so I suspect that means no painters again. DS and I are thinking about braving Ikea, he is on half term but hasn't really been anywhere other than kicking a ball around in the park with his friend from school and we need to look at wardrobes. I also have to go through his PIP form and make notes for the assessment tomorrow, which I have been putting off, it is so depressing.

ed good luck with pip firmz,.hope IKEA trip is fruitful
Hazel those are gorgeous!!

Tada
Cats fed
Harpic lav
Wash on
Finished clearing under my bed
Wake dd2.more rows."dad" text her last night saying mum stop me seeing you etcno you idiot it was gov rules as you are not a member our household,nor have zoolets by yourself at yours/any parental responsibility.of course that caused more rows as both dd2 and I are frustrated his behaviour and ranted each other😔
Start shopping list for dd1(cleaning products so far)
Breakfast dd2 and I(lots toast.so tired and wired I need all the carbs today!)

Have yesterday and today's lists to sort out with zero energy,aching joints not helped by lil zoo laying in them all night and no motivation whatsoever....

Links for Wed

Babystep check out the Ask Flylady section on the website.

mission - straighten up the floor of your closet. Mine has my wool stash in plastic boxes so doesn't really need straightening but she mentions shoes so I think I might put away all my sandals now.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day

Hills I am so sorry to hear about your dad. That's a tough one. Lots of virtual hugs your way 💐 (apologies I missed it yesterday).

Hazel loving the nails! 🥰

Zoo lots of coffee your way. Hopefully the motivation fairy will visit 😘

ED oh enjoy IKEA if you do make it there. It's a form of entertainment in itself.

Sing it's a pity libraries are struggling so much in these days. I like the library atmosphere (although admittedly I haven't been to one since university..).