Fledglings May 2021 thread: MAYbe we’ll keep our routines going as the outside world opens up 😊

[halfhope]

Welcome fledglings to May’s Flylady thread – many, many thanks to ED for her expert guidance through April 2021.

All are welcome and especially Newbies. Don’t be shy in making yourselves known because we are a friendly bunch.
We follow Flylady’s system for house and sanity maintenance which is based around 5 room zones spread over the month. There is a weekly quick home clean in the midst of more thorough zone cleaning. I am an aging fledgling who really should be more proactive about following the plan but to be frank I enjoy the natter and good company more than I enjoy cleaning. Every day I will be checking in and giving the ‘flight plan’ for the day with links to the Flylady site. You can join Flylady on her site for email updates but she does like to send a lot out, just so you know!
The most importantist thing to know is that you are NEVER behind – just do what you can when you can. Many of us post ta da lists as we cross items off our [never-ending] to do lists.
You may find the following acronyms along the way (adapted below from ED’s useful list from April)
LOL = load of laundry
S&S = swish and swipe, a quick daily clean of the toilet and sink
PO3 = power of 3. When motivation is on the low side or you’re overwhelmed just pick 3 things at a time and do them
DNLMS = did not lose my shit
Ned = our mythical mate who helps with the laundry
Pointy stick —-> = for when a fledgling needs a motivational prod
The naughty corner = a relaxing haven where we hang out when motivation is low or when life becomes overwhelming. Usually enticing food is left there with squishy cushions.
KCC – (Keep calm corner) these are little stories, photos, memes, off-topic questions, just to keep us all distracted from the general tedium of lockdown life. Feel free to chip in.

ta da
🪴booked/paid for DD1’s dance for the week (£11 for four 1hr classes, not bad!)
🪴messaged eBay seller about missing item
🪴sent DS off to forest school (not well enough to join him today)
🪴gathered a bit of rubbish/recycling
🪴LOL
🪴wrote various lists relating to decluttering (things to send to the tip etc)
🪴reading/comprehension with DS
🪴checked some naice mini jigsaws through the day - two incomplete/damaged ones thrown, the rest moved upstairs with the “definitely keeping” games
🪴attacked some BRCs with Cagletini - some rubbish/recycling, some stuff rehomed, left the rest so was just thinning it out really
🪴LOL into dryer
🪴emptied one BRC so the tub could be used for play food (parents brought some more with them for Cagletini) and got a ziploc bag for the felt food bits
🪴found missing library books and wedding certificate!!!
🪴bit more BRC sorting
🪴started a box each for the older Caglets so I could just put their stuff from BRCs into those, rather than needing to ask them about individual things (although I did ask DD1 about a few teddies which she happily ditched half of)
🪴made a pile of books that need to bring down
🪴found proper box for all the pens etc to live in until I sort them into the proper thing (doesn’t feel like a priority right now)
🪴filled and ran DW

Pretty pleased with that, feel like I cleared a decent amount of clutter while also getting a lot of rest :)

Great de cluttering Sing glad you had help...bless her.
I have done natural dyeing at C&G 3 Felting. There are a lot of plants that give you natural dyes. You have to ‘set’ some of them. We spent a couple of weekends dyeing. What colour would you like them to be and I can try and find my notes? I know some are in my large portfolios with samples. The Eden Project were planting and using those for dyes and also doing the solar dyeing experiments when I was there. I got quite excited and was telling DH and DD about them I think DH was quite impressed. Not sure how much I can remember but I hope the notes will be there.

Zoo oh bless you really don’t have the best of luck. Sorry the surgery mucked things up. Ours are usually very good but my prescription still isn’t in and I have had no capsules over the weekend so the girl kindly asked the pharmacist and he granted an emergency 8. These are for my BP so really should be there. She marked it urgent for the second time ( sighs 😧) glad you made them sort their room. Go Zoo 😁
Would/could she eat porridge I find a small bowl of porridge at least every second morning keeps me right. As well as prunes- figs.
Natural liquorice too. Lakeland sell Darell Lea which is the best Australian brand of sweets and they do liquorice. Two pieces a day is plenty. You want more as it is so yummy but you really don’t want to do that. Not so expensive if only two pieces a day.

MC. Happy I reminded you. Such an easy thing to take with you too. I love avocados.

Hope I am still in the boudoir too. I moved some BRC around the room. Now charity stuff is near the door. I just need to sort and find homes for the rest.

I haven’t done much flying today as we have been out getting garden stuff. New neighbours recommend one place that BF had mention so drove over there to find it shut. Went to another but didn’t have tomato bags and gravel was £2 more per bag. I bought some bedding plants though. Next we went to a chain one and very expensive so bought one plant an unusual mint for £1:75. Went to place that made our Summerhouse for late lunch. Lovely. S’wich and Lemon Meringue Pie. They now sell plants 🤔🤭🤫 I might have bought some. Good plants for an excellent price so should have all bedding plants for pots and hanging baskets. Going for yellows and oranges this year.

Also having trouble sleeping Zoo.

Forgot about licorice.she likes that!
Might add prunes to shop list too!

Thanks guys
Sing fab work decluttering/sorting💞

Tada
2hours recipe sorting
Wash on
Feed furry overlords
Clean behind sofa one
Removed 3stash bags and sorted into new homes/bin/chazza
Wash in drier
More in
Clean kitchen surfaces
Sweep kitchen floor
Sweep living room floor
Wipe dining table ready to do brekkie
Find recipe for apple oat muffins

About wake lol zoo and see how she is..

Thanks red I’m not too bothered about the colours really as I’m more excited about the process :o so anything would be good really. It’s for her vests. Definitely want to do avocado skin/stone which apparently gives pink?! And I’ll try turmeric and red cabbage I think, possibly onion skins.

Not got up yet. Volunteering at 10 but otherwise no plans! I always feel like crap in the mornings but I seem to usually manage to get stuff done later in the day anyway. So hopefully I can do some more decluttering once I’m a bit more with it.

Morning. Trying to garner enough energy to go to Lidl in the next ten minutes, so I can be back in time for maths homework / the man to do the fence at 10.

Naturally, next door have gone away without leaving me a gate key, so their plants will just have to take their chances.

It appears my DF protein breakfast muffins were a hit (32 made in total, 16 banana and raspberry, 16 banana and blueberry). We are down to 26 already!

Yeah i did not get pink with avocado. You have to watch your mordents and modifiers. i got a vomit peachy beigy colour.

Rule one for dying - DO NOT EVER (even with natural dyes) use anything for the process that you would use for food. basically you will need a couple of old pots.

Point 2 - prepping the dye and mordent can be a time consuming arse.

Point 3 because the dye is natural do not assume that the dye process is safe. Some of the mordants and modifiers are quite nasty. Not using a mordent means the colour either doesn't dye or it doesn't stay dyed.

I am going to be honest i prefer the food colouring technique with microwave heat setting because you can just clean the microwave afterwards as you place the item in cling film and a sealed bag. And the fixant is white vinegar. Not sure how it would work on cotton though because it is trickier to get to take colour than wool.

I discovered that most of my vidoes were wool based and thus not applicable to the cotton that was wanted to use.

I have a whole heap of nope! going on today.

ta da
dry shirts for teen
watch a load of natural dying on cotton videos
procrastinate
consider plans for day (should vs want to dos)
discover i suck as a grown up and I have no clean trousers to wear.
mutter dark words about the fucking spider that every year decides a house alarm is the best place to live and sets it off

I need to do a whole heap of stuff and something tells me here is not the best place to be to get it done if i want to concentrate. So i think the plan is laundry and then a picnic in the hills with a bunch of study books... Lockdown saved me a whole bunch of petrol that is for sure! not complaining! really not complaining. But truly spoilt by where i live

P.S. if you ever wanted to dye wool I can enable you to the point where you will want your own yarn dying business to justify the fun and games

Hills it was wool we were dyeing. Either unprocessed or felted pieces that we dyed afterwards. Some fabrics too. Cotton possibly linen and silk chiffon.

Still in bed after a disturbed night. Did get some sleep laterly.

Plan to dust sitting room and vacuum.
Boudoir - try to reduce piles of crap that crept in here when we were doing the hall. Finding homes for it could be tricky.

Wool is just so much more obliging...

People are just "helpful" Yeah i need to get out of this house. I might LMS if i don't

Today is plan and play day so I'll be menu planning.

Finished with zone 4 for me so I'm moving on to zone 5. red glad to hear that I'm not the only one!

today

babystep25

Thanks so much hills I shall settle down to watch those later! About to have my second volunteer call (why am I more nervous this time?!)

I won’t take you up on the wool dying because I am absolutely useless at wool related craft 😳🤣 I have tried knitting and crochet but just can’t do it. 🙈

Other crafts I want to do include making soaps and body scrubs 😁 also will try jewellery making with DD1 at some point.

Right, best go!

Soap - melt and pour will be best especially if working with DD. Starting right at the beginning requires lye and that be nasty stuff.
Jewellry making is really good for fine motor control skills. and swearing as you play hunt the thing that pinged off in fook knows what direction

You don't need to knit to dye wool. some of the best dyers are the partners to those who knit and can't actually knit themselves. - i think its a case of if you can't beat them join them

none of you are surprised i have played with or researched all of this are you?

The hand lotion i made was really easy and didn't require much equipment (2 old jam jars and a clean old wooden chopstick for stirring) to make. Give a shout if you want the ingredients - you will likely have most in the cupboard.

Not surprised at all you researched it Hills! 😂.

It's funny, I think of soap making and home dyeing as old fashioned and environmentally positive, but they use some really nasty stuff, which is why the Industrial Revolution was an ecological disaster. I think only tanning is worse!

Ta da
❤️ Been to Lidl
🧡 Been to Tesco
💛 Unpacked everything and put the cold stuff away
💚 Now sitting down with a coffee and several a bourbon biscuit to wait for the fencing man who was supposed to be here an hour ago!

Long list of other things to do split between house / business / supporting DC / not going mad myself. Think I might adapt the Fat Fairy's Crisis Cleaning approach and spend 15 minutes on each, in rotation, with a break every 45 mins.

Hey ho. 🍒👋 everyone!

Willow you want soap wort
And actually they used to make soap out of the rendered fat of animals they butchered and the ash of fires. So not that environmentally bad tbh. Industrialisation and the chemical industry is a whole another kettle of fish.

Oh lordy my brain really is full of useless facts. erm..... cleaning? um... There is a load of laundry in the washing machine?

They used to use pee as the mordant... aged pee is actually a really good mordant, but stinks to high heavy. Also good for the garden well it used to be before modernisation and all the crap we are exposed to

yeah I know, couldn't help myself. Sorry?

:o hills you are the font of a whole lot of knowledge!

Yep definitely planning on the melt and pour stuff for soap rather than from scratch! Haven’t the patience or space for the latter.

Phone call with my befriendee was good :) none next week as half term means both of us have younger ones about.

Just going to chill watching something on my phone for a bit. I’m on DD1’s bed (DH on zoom call in our room) and CBA to move!

Re the pee I expect if I suggested we dye fabric a la Horrible Histories they’ll know what I mean 🤣🤢

Ugh I’m so tired, I’m talked out! I’m hungry but still not moved 🤣 and the last few crispy M&Ms are in with DH so I can’t get them yet.

Spotted this on FB this morning re dyeing. This plant is everywhere round us at this time of year.

I did a bit of jewellery making as a teen, I suspect all my equipment is in my parents garage still. Want to take it up again one day.

Hurray! It is the end of the day.

Ta da
❤️ Fence fixed and I think all the plants survived
🧡 Went through maths with DS3. Unravelled the rigid thinking that two triangles always make a parallelogram. He had not noticed / been taught a parallelogram was a specific shape 🤷. Many tears over "being useless" and "getting everything wrong" 😢 neither of which are true
💛 Fed DS3
💚 Went through DD's Connors 3 form for her ADHD assessment. So sad to focus on what she can't do and see what she feels she struggles with. She says we don't yell at her, but we expect too much 😢. Forward the teacher's form to the teacher again.
💙 Feed me
💜 Ordered DD's prescription
🤎 Ordered DS2's Leavers' photo
🖤 Sat down to finally work... And DS3 asked me to go and help with French
❤️ Wrote a nice 35 word paragraph with DS3 about where he lives, in French. I don't know exactly how the teacher is approaching it but he doesn't seem to have the basic phrases needed to say "j'habite a angleterre. J'habite a une maison avec mes freres et ma soeur. J'aime parce que c'est beaucoup des magasins" etc (excuse schoolgirl French, haven't done it since GCSE except skim reading history scholars which is a very different skill from making yourself understood!)
🧡 Finally got back to writing. Finally finished the section about the worthy Victorian boiler maker who did nothing of note except throw everything up in the air when he turned 50 and become a publican in Canning Town after his wife died 🤷
💛 Made pulled pork with stuffing, applesauce and roasted peppers for tea, to eat in baps. Strangely flavourless and disappointing
💚 Fed DS3 a cod goujon wrap. Alright, yes, I admit it was actually a fish finger sandwich. He had some salad bits with it and a yoghurt to follow!
💙 Did an hour's embroidery
💜 Shepherded DS3 through bath, reading and bed

I think I shall do the same shortly!

Evenin all.

Aargh. Stress levels on the up... had an email about a couple of job opportunities with the charity I just started volunteering for. Very very little chance of getting either (especially as the one I’d be more suited to requires some experience I don’t have yet). But. Do I throw my hat in the ring, or even speak to my boss about it... aaaaargh

Also got a stressed DS due to the changes that need to happen in his room. Change + messing (in his view) with his Lego = disaster :( but the way his room is now - for example literally not being able to open his door properly because of the way the furniture is - is simply not sustainable. We need to maximise the storage space he does have and I’m now googling some ideas to increase the surface area he has to display his Lego builds. This is the issue more than storage for loose bricks (he creates new models often as well as building actual sets) and we have really crappy walls so just putting a load of shelves up isn’t an option. I’m going to give him our two Kallax shelf dividers (actually I think we still have a third downstairs?) which will help a bit, but I’m also wondering about getting some of those little extra shelves you can get to put in pantry cupboards etc. Maybe some freestanding display shelving to go on top of his trofast. Any ideas welcome!

Also though I’m wondering if an exterior wall would perhaps be better. It’s the interior walls that are crap - when we had a handrail put up for DH they said it was a stud wall which caused an issue. But presumably the exterior wall would be ok with the right drill etc? There’s a little space next to his window where we could put something up.

It's how i got my job Sing worth writing the app even if you don't send just for practise. Also worth finding out if training available. Never know you might get it. I would never have applied for my job if i hadn't been pushed into it by my then line manager. At the time did not appreciate, but now grateful. Even if you don't get it you can always ask for feed back and that can really help when you apply for other jobs.

Lego does not weigh much and you can get special screws for plaster board walls. I have used them in the past and they are fairly sturdy if you get the right size and number to attached. Obviously maybe not the best place for a full set of britannica encyclopedias but should be more than plenty for lego

I am so glad today is over. I've been chasing my tail all day, but achieving very little. I hate days like that. Baby has been cranky too.

Did not get around to any zone cleaning today. I did, however, put the rubbish out. The bean bag leaked bin juice into the kitchen bin 🤢🤮 That was a joy to clean up. Recycling went out as well. It might have involved some rage stomping to flatten few Amazon boxes and assistance of a shovel to get it all into the bin...