It's February - Fledglings are Flying (let's face it there's not much else to do).

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Here we are on the February 2021 Flylady thread - this time last year we were just starting to realise that the world was going to change in a big, big way. The Fledgling threads have pulled us all together and been a great source of comfort and distraction from it all.

This is a friendly housekeeping thread based (loosely... Extremely loosely sometimes 😂) on Flylady's housekeeping system . Welcome one and all, lurkers and long-time posters alike. Join in, hang out, but above all remember you are not behind, just jump in where you are.

The beauty of Flylady is that you don't have to flatten yourself trying to get your house clean to begin the routine upkeep; the first - and only - thing she asks you to do is to shine your kitchen sink. Routines - morning, afternoon and evening - are built gradually through her Baby Steps. To those, you add a Daily Focus and a weekly area to concentrate cleaning on. By the end of a month, your whole house will have had some attention. If you miss a bit, never mind, it'll come round next month!

For this month, I'll be posting daily links to the Launch Pad on the Flylady site so you can follow the daily focus and cleaning missions. You can sign up to receive emails from Flylady, but we suggest you don't - she sends masses, which will clog up your inbox and drive you insane into the bargain.

Because this thread has been running a while, there are some acronyms we use to make life easier
S&S - swish and swipe, round the bathroom to keep it acceptable daily
LOL - load of laundry. No, we don't find washing that funny!
Ned - born of a typo, a mythical being who assists with laundry mountains
The pointy stick ----> to motivate people
PO3 - Power of 3, if you can only face a few tasks. People often find groups of 3 tasks stack up over a day!
The Naughty Corner - where we head when it's all Too Much. Usually stocked with fresh coffee, fluffy throws, delicious snacks and the opportunity to sit quietly with friends or build a blanket fort and sulk in it if you need to.

During the Pandemic, we have also been using the KCC or Keep Calm Corner, invented by long-time poster / thread leader SC. This is a regular dose of memes, questions for discussion, random trivia etc to distract us from the rest of the world. All contributions welcome!

Remember - No Fledgling Left Behind!

Morning. There have been few ta das in this neck of the words. Just a couple of very busy days at work.

I’m actually feeling much more positive after Monday’s announcement (looking at it purely from the point of view of me and my family). A schedule works well for me. I’m far from convinced that the dates won’t be changed but I can deal with a change in plan, it’s no plan I can’t cope with! I’ve found not seeing family and friends far more difficult than the fear of the virus - I think I’ve blocked that out as with having to go to work everyday all round the hospital, DH still working and DD at nursery, I couldn’t think about it. It must be such a scary change for those of you have spent the last year struggling to keep your own safe bubbles. Hills made a very good point about the vulnerable who don’t quite make the government’s idea of vulnerable. Really hope those of you with health worries get the vaccine ASAP

Zoo I had no reaction at all (other than sore arm) to my vaccine, and out of my 20odd work colleagues of various ages and health conditions there was only one that did - he was the youngest and fittest but the only one who had previously had Covid. So it’s not a given that you’ll be unwell when it’s your turn. Sorry I can’t offer any sort of idea with the school struggles. It must be so stressful worrying about each of them individually let alone the worry of all 3 together. I assume officially homeschooling isn’t a good option because you would lose the input of the teachers?

Ah Waders poor DS3. Teenagers think they have all the answers don’t they.

I’m loving the colours in your control journal
Naptune

Hope McTiny is feeling better today Mc

You’ve done loads Hazel. Wish I had your motivation for DIY and painting.

Sing it’s exciting about the voluntary role. Sorry you and Dancing had a shock with your shielding letters. As if things need to get even more complicated for you.

I had to google notion Hills. It looks fabulous. Is it mainly a work thing or can it be used purely on an individual level? Hope you continue to lurk and things ease up for you soon. I read something that resonated with me re to do lists the other day - we always try to get to the end of them and feel guilty when we dont, but that just isn’t possible! We should be celebrating just crossing a few things off at a time.

Ta Das this morning:
✔️ convinced DD to tidy up one lot of toys before getting the next lot out... twice!
✔️ fed everyone that needs feeding
✔️ LOL on
✔️ meatballs out for tea

Need to go and make the beds, get dressed and head out to the park before it gets busy. Have a good day everyone 👋

Oh forgot to say happy birthday to Foxcub Foxes. Hope you all had a lovely much needed day off.

Morning all,

Sorry to hear about all the eating / weight issues Waders, that sounds really hard.

Dancing - well done to DH with the sink.

Sing - sending hugs, hope you are feeling a bit less shocked about the letter today.

Zoo - hope you and the Zoolets are OK.

Nap - well done on both the control journal and the living room rearrangement, ours is tiny and although I tried to get the DCs to use the other downstairs room (which is a thoroughfare to the kitchen, Victorian terrace) as a playroom they always migrated to the middle of the living room floor.

Red - nice to hear about gardening, I need to get started on both garden and allotment. I did start decluttering my potting shed at the weekend and got DS to cut back the buddleia. I had my morning tea and toast in the garden today too.

Right, work beckons. Back with links in a moment.

Big hugs waders I had scribbled a note last night to PM you as hadn’t seen you around :( glad you’re back. I’m sorry things are so tough. Clashes between kids are so hard to be in the middle of and it’s a special kind of AAAAARGH when they think they bloody know it all and act like perfect hypothetical parents my inbox is always open, anyway. Xx

I’m a bit miffed as in the ultimate first world problem I was excited about a lie in today, since shielding appears to have relieved me of my nursery run duty . But DH was worried I wasn’t awake for my phone call at 8.30 so woke me up shortly before leaving with Cagletini. I have been known to forget about setting alarms etc so I don’t blame him for checking in but I had told him it was 9.30 not 8.30 😩 but anyway I have almost finished the last episode of Hidden so time not entirely wasted. Must get up for meds.

Wednesday is Anti-Procrastination day, find a job you've been putting off and do it.

Today's mission is to declutter your make-up. chuck anything that's manky, old, etc.

Here is today's Flight Plan flight plan

Today's babystep is Swish and Swipe. This one is well worth doing, giving your bathroom(s) a quick wipedown / squirt of bleach / tidy up every the morning.

Up can be used purely as personal. Apparently web version woks better than app atm. Be aware not encrypted at present so you might need to be mindful what you use it for. But personally if someone wants to steal my DIY/house renno list, my crafting projects lists, my cleaning lists and my college stuffs lists; I would hope they have the decency to help reduce the work load.

I like the idea of being able to set it up with reoccuring tasks do there is no duplication and organise by category and project etc.. Put a books I would like to acquire on there etc and use it more like the Alistair rolling weekly thing from bullet journals but for the munadane and as a complete brain dump.

Ds brought his washing up down last night. I am surprised that the kid has not turned into a baked bean the amount of them he is eating but at least on the grand scheme of things it is not the worst thing he could be eating.

ta da
distribute various personal shopping to people (eg pen refils/no prescription meds etc)
start reoragnising the pantry shelves
make token jesture at putting the shopping away
make token jesture at getting seeds started
unload DW
Reload and run DW
I have aired out my room

There is rather a lot else to be done but might try that dressed to shoes thing... I have a lot I need to do to focus and tbh I cba

Just had my phone call with the volunteer coordinator. All sounds good! Impatient to get started on training now though, the first one (of seven) is 17/3, so three weeks today. Zoom sessions are 3 hours long 😱

Also part of the training is taking turns to share our own journeys through getting our kids diagnosed. I’ll have to write some notes 😂

Which reminds me I also need to make more notes for tomorrow’s CAMHS appt. 😩 DH also has a potentially very tough psychology appt 2 hours beforehand. No peace for the wicked eh?

Maybe don't tell them that CAMHS actually stands for Can't actually make hell stop....

Well done Sing!

Haha hills I shall resist :o

Ironically DS is probably my easiest kid. DD1 needs the assessment and potentially meds far more than DS but I don’t even know if they’ve accepted her referral.

Just had a phone call from the GP and the specialist she spoke to gave the go ahead for escitalopram. Have to say the anxiety has been far better the last few days anyway. But I think it’s the right thing to do.

Just hope we have time to play forbidden island now :o

Waders- I know you love Ds2 loads, but you will have to tune him out....for your own sanity.
He has reached the stage Mc above has mentioned.

You will have to use the old aged phrase of...
'When you have your own children, you can make sure you do that.'

You are doing brilliantly as a mum. Any puppyness ds3 may probably lose when he gets to Ds2 age.

From a fellow similar body type, sometimes the stuff we eat, keeps our body ticking over to survive to keep to family going. (I may have eaten many many desserts over this week, when i shouldnt, but i did.) Its ok, this week i am going to try and fill my plates with half vegs when i remember and chuck some fruit in when i get a chance. Aiming for a bit of Balance.

Sending you a massive, massive hug waders! you are a wonderful caring mum. Thats why it got to you.

Ha ha! I like it Hills
At least he brought his plates down...next step...wash them up🤣 I can remember some of ours doing that. DH used to get really mad and put them all into one DC bed once. There was hell on when they went to get in.
The garden was a two day wonder. Back to pouring rain and a huge list of flood alerts for the county.
Anti procrastination today is somehow moving money from one account to another. I. Set up online in the bank but didn’t do it when I got home. I need to learn to do it but don’t want DH to know how much is in higher account. I know you should have secrets but he has let me down in the past ( sure some will understand that)and I feel safer with a nest egg. It also means I can help DSis and I leant someone from work some in the past year. I couldn’t know someone didn’t have enough food and I had money sitting in the bank. We’ve always got on well and I imagine I will get it back but if I don’t it isn’t the end of the world 🌍
I need the ——————————> please. I treated myself to breakfast in bed so need to get cracking now.

Struggling to get stuff done...don’t forget The Power of Three.

🌸Make bed
🌸 Dust top of other drawers ( did some yesterday)
🌸 Collect a LOL to do.

🍒👋🍒👋🍒👋🍒👋🍒👋🍒👋to everyone

Ooooh! That congratulations on a boy🥰. How many of each do you have? I have lost track.

Ooops sorry everyone with my crossed post....i didnt see it had gone to page 35
Sorry

Waders you need the poster card I had. If I can find it I will take photo and post. It got to the stage I just used to smile at DD and point at it. That used to wind her up but then she wound her neck in.

Dancing lots of cross posts this morning...I think there is lots of procrastination going on🤣

Procrastination? What procrastination.

Tbf ds2 is verging on being a bully and this might need to be pointed out. Just because you care about someone and YOU think that you are being helpful, does not mean that actually what you are succeeding to do is bullying. Not everything you think needs to come out of your mouth!!

Urm - that ^^ needs some extra words to make sense.

but my brain does not figure that out right now, good luck

Oh and just for the record i have a sibbling I have absolutely no contact with due to a similar situation that was not about food. She knew better, she used to spent hours and hours and hours telling me about it behind my mother's back. It resulted in her getting punched in the face and we did not speak for over a half a decade living in the same house and even now I point blank refuse contact with her. Our mother despairs of the situation. I have no time for having her and her opinions in my life when they were so toxic in the past. It has caused some serious problems within the family as I avoid events where she attends and it took forcible threats for me to attend her wedding because "it would look bad if I didn't go" personally would not have given a shit how it looked. And I spent the entire event avoiding her. I have not seen her or her kids in nearly 5 years now. All because of her having a mean mouth when we were younger and it not being called out as the bullying it was.

ta da
👊Beat forbidden island. Was a very close call.

That’s my only other achievement. But I’m so so glad I added some games onto the weekly home ed plan. Feels like proper quality time which is deeply lacking.

I really want a proper competitive game of Frenetic with DH soon.

Finishing the Stonehenge documentary now.

Hi all, I've missed so much chat again sorry, it's just been a full on week so far.

I will just jump back in if that's okay.

sounds good on the volunteering sing

No anti procrastination has happened here yet I'm not even sure what I'm putting off at the moment but there will be something!!

My day started off badly because the cat did a poo in the bath , I don't think she is stressed as no other signs and she doesn't appear to be ill. I have a feeling she is just being fussy about her litter tray and possibly another cat in the garden meaning she's reluctant to go outside. But she has done it a few times recently. then I tripped over ds toys and hurt my foot! So we were almost late for nursery but made it in time because the kids actually did as they were told!!

Ta das this morning
Nursery run, packed lunch etc
Maths with dd
English with dd
Ordered coloured paper for dc
Hoovered downstairs
Cleaned the bath and the toilet after cat incident!
25 minutes exercise
LOL
Dishwasher on
Recycling out
Filled up charity bag
Took toys upstairs and brought various cups downstairs

Waders

Foxes sorry thought it was your birthday this week but it seems it was your foxcub. Sorry that cat left unwanted gift in bath - urgh.

Love that meme hope

DH has gone to collect the littlest (DD1 will prob meet them on the way home from school) and DS is having a break which means so am I. IPlayer time!

Oops. Got severely demotivated. Only just sent DD1 upstairs to do work, Cagletini is eating crisps in front of Pocoyo and I doubt we will get to read northern lights today (much easier when Cagletini isn’t around). DS is just doing maths now. DH is resting for a bit - there was good reason we split the nursery runs between us, as he’s now shattered and in more pain from doing both.

I did have a lovely unexpected phone call from my work coach though, she said she’s not discharging me (she should do really as I’m not actively jobseeking) but will just phone once a month or so, it’s really warmed my heart TBH, as it’s nice to have someone checking in and encouraging me with the studying and finding voluntary stuff etc. I’ve promised to have phoned the OU to discuss my options and support needs by the next phone call so I’ve set a reminder for next week.

That's lovely sing. She seems lovely. It's nice to have continued interest. I've just been at a webinar on digital content - now finishing a cup of tea and pondering a walk. It's definitely spring here!