Fledging flyers - December's messaholics anonymous meeting place

[droitwitchmum]

Everyone welcome, newcomers and old(ish) flappers alike!

Here you can do any of the following:

• repeat or start baby steps

• repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

• reinforce babysteps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering

As Christmas is approaching I will also be posting Christmas missions.

I'll post links early in the morning on the relevant day while I'm making the coffee and brewing tea. There might even be toast...

Good luck!

Aw, PF ... is everyone larfing at your craters me duck???

Hello! Just dashing in from work and dashing out again (to hear dd sing carols in her school choir).

THANK YOU, thank you, so very much for all your tips about wires and cables!!! So sorry to post the question and then, very rudely, not to respond before now. Out last night and up and out early this morning as covering for someone who is ill at work so had extra hrs.

Really appreciate all the info and will be back later to digest properly ...

"........now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, la da dah da dahhhh"

[SC going slightly giddy and batty at prospect of Christmas emoticon]

Needed to check and see what I've got left to do today ...

babysteps : catch up (need to make that file this evening)
mission : oh god, does it need it still needs it
other:
tumbletots with DS done
walk to shops to: order xmas food (if not too late...), return library books, buy lunch, buy supper, take out cash to pay plasterer done
washing x2 loads done
hoover entire house (cf plasterer) will do saturday
make xmas pudding
soak fruit for xmas cake
new get more cash for plasterer cos he will stay late to finish today

Should have something more substantial than mince pies for lunch ... oh well, it's only xmas for another 2 weeks
Will get DS to sing me his version of Rudolph or Jingle Bells as my xmas concert. I'm pretty sure either will involve the mention of poo at some point, I guess that's part of the magic of xmas when you are 4.

Today I really noticed the little ways in which I make life difficult for myself

First lost the appt card for ds1's physio so spent ages trying to find out if and when he had an appt (remembered approx right)

SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN IT IN THE DIARY

Second spent ages trying to find my address book

AFTER WRITING A PALTRY NO Of XMAS CARDS, PUT ADDRESS BOOK BACK BY PHONE NOT IN CARD PILE

Third had to wash out two saucepans for making mulled wine for school fair, and put all spices together at short notice
COULD HAVE DONE IT LAST NIGHT

Walked with ds1 to school on crutches, because had to use wheelchair to carry heavy saucepans and wine, thus late preparing said mulled wine.
SHOULD HAVE DRIVEN, but car was too messy to fit wheelchair in...AS I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO TIP LAST WEEK

Lost dcs' raffle tickets, bought new ones, and spent a lot of time looking for a pen at school fair to write our names on them.
ALWAYS HAVE A PEN IN YOUR HANDBAG, and PUT SCHOOL STUFF IN FILE

Otherwise a very good day - house is a total mess but we had a great time at the School Fayre and I managed to get some Brownie points for helping clear up.
And paid buildings's insurance, took ds1 to physio and everyone seems in a good mood

At the moment I feel sympathy with anyone trying to catch up on themselves
and admiration for those who have managed to get ahead.
hope you don't mind me posting here in this random fashion...

Random away swanriver we're good at that - any of that mulled wine left...

Evening all,

Things didn't go quite as planned today
Mum arrived early before I'd managed to stuff some clutter into the cupboards and thus resulted in the usual comments about how I'm 'not really getting on top of things' I just kept smiling and thining 'my sink is shiny, my sink is shiny ........'

Went to pick up a parcel from the depot only I forgot they close from 2.00pm till 3.00pm and I got at 2.30pm so spent half an hour in the car when I should have been packing the kids bags & knock on effect was that pandamonium reigned after school.

Did manage to wipe down the kitchen worktops and pick up a majority of the toys though.

Pluto lol at the Tesco man . I'm selling at the craft fair but I'm sure I'll also be doing loads of buying too, just can't help myself! Maybe that's why I live in a house full of overflowing stuff?!

Waves to everyone and hope you have a good weekend, will report in on Monday and will keep that sink shining

Oh I know that feeling Mrs GG, doesn't take much to set everything out of kilter
well done for staying afloat with your mum

I'm just tidying up now - just going to try and do 30 mins now rather than just before bed (which is too late)

Am sitting here laughing aloud at your post Swanriver and thinking 'thank God someone is equally as annoyed with her lack of organising skills as me!!!!' Well done you for doing mulled wine in the first place with a DS on crutches!!

I, myself, looked at the mission and thought 'Great I've moppped my floor' only to then go and flood the kitchen which required me to mop the floor - again!!

As I am literally LOL my DD (14) is asking how on earth Mumsnet can be so amusing - oh well!

Have a good weekend!

Good evening!

Realised today that I didn't do a round-up yesterday so I'll see what I can do now

Mellie am loving the random capitals

SC loved the Munch! My mobile is usually at the bottom of my bag where I can't hear it if it rings, with probably no battery life and no credit. Keys are put straight on a hook on the hall. No idea where all the leads come from. The ones we use are under the table next to where we recharge things; any others I find are being hidden away and will be thrown away soon unless I can work out what they are for

PF if the holes get too big/stay there too long you could fill them in and make them into a skating rink for the winter

Pluto Mullered & MrsD I would suggest that you do as much decluttering as you can before you go back to work as it is hard anough sometimes to do the basics (MC's top tips for working mums coming to this thread v soon!) and there is NO shame in having help from a cleaner/ironing service/whatever to take the pressure off (and it gives someone else a job)

Cadmum hope today was better for you and that you have managed to get some sleep

OM have you finished your cards yet?

Annabel you have done really well to carry on flying without having us rambling on supporting you

HARudolph hope you had a lovely day today

SSCat just keep on with the babysteps until after the Christmas mayhem has died down and see if you are able to do a bit more then

PMPSS hope DD is ok - sounds a bit worrying but if they have picked something up now at least she will be able get help for it

SBB did you manage your list today? Glad you put on a couple of things on for yourself

Gruffalo enjoy the weekend. I'm vvvv

QOD OMG! How much time do you have before you need to leave? Pop by when you can to let us know how things are going

Swanriver you are so right! A lot of my dashing around like a headless chicken is because I should have done something earlier to prepare

Is that everyone? 18 of us today and yesterday, no wonder we can't keep up!

See you all tomorrow

Thank you all for your support this week!

My parents have arrived safely. My house is a mess. Ds1 (12) and dd1 (10) woke up sick with fevers and ds2 was not much better. As a result I spent the last few precious potential tidy hours offering medicine and comfort to sick children and amusing a bored toddler.

To be honest, maybe it is just time for me to admit that I am not a domestic goddess (like my mum) and that I find it very hard work moving frequently and being thousands of miles from friends and family and that the state of our house is merely a symptom of this. (My mum did point out that it might be untidy but that my house is always clean and this is generally true.)

I think that I have set a bad example for my dcs this week by trying to do too much in order to impress my parents who should love me (and them) regardless of the clutter in our house... I would like to think that they will never feel similarly inclined...

I do intend to keep up with the Flying once the holidays are behind me. I will certainly endeavor to start fresh in our new house next year be it in Cambodia or NYC.

Thanks again for making me feel welcome and best of luck with your progress. Baby steps!

[Serves MummyClaus and others mulled wine although you are probably, very sensibly, in bed]

Thank you again everyone for cable and wire informatin - very much appreciated. Am hatching a plan ...

Oh dear, it seems to be the season for niggling things going wrong doesn't it?

SwanRiver randomness is good !!!Hope you are recovering from your stressful day ...
Ditto with Optimistle ...and MrsGrumpy most days I drive myself and everyone else batty with this sort of thing ...just relieved it's not only me that does it

Today for eg:
Couldn't find my keys or mobile phone (that's perfectly normal) but then bizarrely couldn't find my trousers (had done bedtime routine but they had been moved!!!) but then was 10 mins late for an appt, which I hate!! And this had knock-on effect of not being able to stop off at fish shop so ended up spending far too much on dinner from traiteur instead ...(sigh)
Tried to take back library books when library was shut (a quick check last night would have saved me 40 mins)
Couldn't find camera to film dd's Christmas concert (fortunately dh came to the rescue with office one but then had spat with him (totally unreasonable on my part) because it wasn't charged and ran out of juice half way. And so on ...

All totally preventable with a bit more advance planning .....

He's not doing his glossing under the mistletoe is he Optimistic???

Pluto lol at Tesco van and lol SSC at your ds (thanks again for cable info)

Sorry to hear about the notice QueenofDreams - a bit unsettling just before Christmas - Flylady has a "how to move" house section if you are interested ... I can't quite find it on the site right now but will try again tomorrow

SSC "In a parallel universe I have worked out which gadgets can be charged via USB" - you see it's just this sort of useful info (being ancient and a bit of a techno-twonk) that I'm missing ...

MrsDingDong - oh yes your shoe-box idea is great thank you - think I am going to steal it

Well done with your list today BigBoots

Thinking of you and your dd Pluto hope all OK ...x

Hello to Mellie, HavingaReindeer and welcome back to Annabel

It's far too late and the screen has started going up and down by itself so I think I'd better go off to roost ...
G'night all ...

X posts MummyC!!! Helloooo!!! [I KNOW I should be in bed as 1 hr ahead here... I am going ..honest] 18 is mega!! Thanks for keeping us all on track. Here's a ladle of the mulled stuff ...

What a lovely post Cadmum. So sorry to hear your dc are ill just when your parents arrive. It's always like that isn't it!! But glad they arrived safely and they'll understand about the mess. Sorry, missed where you are based/why you move so frequently, but I can imagine it being v. stressful (understand about not having family around anyway). Don't give up the Flying!! Flylady is not about being a domestic goddess - no perfectionism is allowed - just keep doing one 15 -min baby-step a day and all will be well (or at least it will be considerably better!!). Enjoy your time with your parents x

Morning one and all

Had a very busy day yesterday so didnt manage to get on No random capitals today but no punctuation marks because if i want a ful stop i get this > apostrophe this @ you get the picture> So apologies for grammatically incorrect post and no smilies either which make me feel alittle bit like my arm has been cut off grin

Not much flying going to be done here We are having a big family outing (mum dsis dn dbil auntie and uncle) to a nature reserve on the coast near us where at this time of year seals come ashore to have their babies on their beach and you can Walk right along side them Should be lovely if a little chilly
Then out for lunch afterwards

When i get back will have a general tidy but i suspect that may be about it Am going now to do that online shopping ive been trying to do all week Have a good day everyone Will be back for a proper catch up later

Morning all!

Mellie - perfect family day a la flylady instructions - enjoy

No missions - Christmas or otherwise so we can catch up on the wrapping etc. DS made me start yesterday: I did some in the office as I had bought his stocking fillers and some wrapping paper. Decided to wrap so he wouldn't see them on the way home THEN he announced that he wanted to do some wrapping so most of what we have is now wrapped - hooray! Just need to buy some tage today.

Today's babystep is deleting the e-mails the fat fairy has sent (if you subscribe to them that is)

QueenofDreams - MOVING HOUSE LINK

Have a great saturday - might make fudge today. Will have samples later for testing

Morning Mummy, morning all ...I will be wrapping in sync with you today...

Hello to everyone else

So far have done:
Morning routine (swish and swipe) sink shiny etc
Dishwasher on
Dropped dd off at ballet

To do:
Sort washing and put one load on
Sitting room newspaper/magazine recycling
Find other camera
15 mins master bedroom (X2 or x 3 if poss)
15mins home office (ditto)
Wrap, wrap, wrap presents
French study
Dh feeling a bit flu-ish so making home-made soup
Gather all cables and wires and try and make sense of them and allocate shoe boxes ...

Hope everyone has a productive weekend

Back to try out that fudge later ...

Forgot to say "enjoy your outing Mellie"

the baby seals sound wonderful ...

Have a lovely weekend everyone. Not too much flying now, we should all take a leaf out of Mellies book...
Cadmum - I'm sure you are setting your DC a great example. Rushing around before your DMum arrives isn't necessarily trying to please but a sign of your love and respect for her! Just keep doing the babysteps and don't beat yourself up. Dispensing medicine and love is far more important. Enjoy your parents' visit and don't forget us!!x

MC - lookin forward to the fudge. My contribution with be mincepies. I have done my cards to be sent btw!

SC - you're up and about nice and early or are you an hour ahead (I can't remember!) Have a great day..

Mellie about the seals. We go to the east coast very regularly and enjoy watching them in the water... I'm loving your posts with the keyboard issues - hope you aren't using your laptop at school!!!

Evening all,

Busy, busy, busy.

Following on from SR's lessons in life, which had me chuckling away, I taught myself the following on Thursday:

Nice meal out spoiled by being wide awake till 3am - shouldn't have had the coffee.

Feeling slightly queasy the next day - shouldn't have had the wine

Not much Flying on Friday - shouldn't have done all the above on Thursday night. Oh, what the hell, it's Christmas. Might dodge the coffee next time!

Flying is obviously becoming a bit ingrained though, because even after lovely evening out plus wine etc, I still got all my washing out of the dryer and folded it all up before bed. I even put out my clothes for the next day, which, ironically I am finding that I don't really need to do now, thanks to Flying, about 95% of my clothes are usually clean, dry and ironed, rather than about 15% previously, so it is easy to find something in the morning anyway. Although we are still getting lapses in the ironing department, I did see the bottom of my basket for the first time in living memory this week.

Today has been a bit of a catch up, combined with family day, we went for a nice long walk up a big hill (given that we live in Hampshire that means not exactly a mountain), but have managed to catch up a bit.

Haven't written a single card yet though

SC - do guinea pigs have to be kept inside in winter? That would be a problem for us.

Waves generally at everyone.

Have a lovely evening, I'm off to Sainsburys while DH baths the kids, nibbles and beer anyone?

Evening all (see above for lack of punctuation grin)

have done barely anything today. omg a full stop, where did that come from, and two commas!!! but no capitals now and smilies a re back (mellie realises she is now being slightly random and slaps herself to resume normalness )

had a fabulous day out with family. saw lots of cute seal pups less than a metre away from us and then went for lovely pub lunch with family. didn't get back until 4pm though and was shattered when got back so have done a general tidy as promised but that's it. tomorrow is going to be a catch up day and hopefully some xmas shopping.

mrsdingdong not only have I not written cards i haven't actually bought them yet apart from DS's for school (and trying to get him to write 30 cards neatly is like pulling my teeth out without anaesthetic very slowly or, even worse, doing the ironing ). I live in Lincolnshire, we don't even have hills . AM mightily impressed at the flying after a night out, just goes to show me how rubbish i am compared to some of you guys .

optimistletoe if everyone took a leaf out of my book, sod all would get done apart from wine drinking and general slatternness .

SC another big list. I sat there and thought i might join in the mutual present wrapping and then realised you have to have actually got round to buying presents to do that . We have bought the DC's main presents (a nintendo wii for DS and a doll playset type thing for DD) but that's it . PMSL that for one beautiful moment I thought I had done it

cadmum hope you have a lovely time with your parents. CLeanliness is good, i can't even manage that in places .

swanriver pmsl laughing at your post thinking omg i do that to . We love randomness here (see the begining of my post ).

Anyway, STrictly is about to start to am going to make my merry way off and put my feet up. Have a lovely evening everyone.

Oh, I forgot at add, big waves to everyone on the thread. MC (is it just me that wants to type hammer after i type that ) says there are 18 of us here now so am going to try and remember everyone without scrolling bearing in mind have already mentioned 5 in previous post and 1 above. so big waves to PF, pluto, DSM harr dtg mrsgruffalo annabel
(mellie pauses at 13 and wonders.......)
bigboots,qod, ssc, pmpy
(mellie gets to 17 and ponders some more..........then realises she's being thick and that she is one of the 18 so that makes 17 so that makes her done).

I haven't even had any wine.... yet .

Evening all!
Have just survived DS's (3 yr old) bedtime with no arguments (self bribe of a glass of wine helps enormously!
). Baby not settled but I'm sure she'll be fine as soon as X factor starts. (She hopes )

House has been variously dehospotted and hotspotted again but I'm vaguely on top of it.

Every time things are looking grim I just say to myself - just do one thing!

SC loved your question about the chargers and keys etc - very interesting reading the replies!
We have a key hook thing by the door - I can't believe I'm typing this as it's so bleeding obvious but, it's really useful! ( I am VERY prone to losing things...). For wires and IT crap I have a wicker basket in some ikea boxshelves that's devoted to that. For other by the door crap I have a slim seagrass shelf basket thing that goes on the wall, 2 boxes and 2 small drawers. Took a while to fine the right size. It's dead handy but DP insists on putting things on top of it or on the bloody windowsill above it! Only a little he's good at other things like washing and cooking.

Right, hi and wave to everyone, gotta go make my tea (DP out) before X factor starts!

bugger, obviously more than 18, forgot mullered...sorry please forgive me...tis the season of goodwill .

Just wasting a few minutes before x-factor on here being amused by all your randomness! Well done on remembering the 18, Mellie. I will see if I can do it too, SC MC - Yes I always thing hammer too! Mellie QOD OM WTD - Where has she gone???? Not one of the 18, I don't think! MrsDD (I live near you. Where abouts in Hampshire are you? I'm on the Isle of Wight, Hey, neighbour! Sorry, a little dicversion there while I try to work out some more.....YM pluto HAR MrsGrumpy annabel DSM DTG Bigboots Cadmum SR
Is that it??? Apologies to anyone I have missed, please don't take it personally.

I have managed to get the kitchen clean today. I was heartened to read that I am not the one who has the most to do before Christmas. I did actually purchase the cards this week, but have yet to break the seal on the box . I, too have got hte main presents sorted, but the stockings (pillow cases) need sorting! My 18 year old (DD1) has made it quite clear that she is not too grown up for a stocking! All these "little" bits add up really quickly for 5 kids! Budget has gone out of the window, just not mentioning it to DH. We are getting the tree tomorrow, so I may feel more festive then and get down to some card writing!
My ironing mountain is in serious danger of taking over my back lounge again. That will go on the list for tomorrow.

By the way, I like the idea of ice skating outside on the road, only problem is we live on a hill, Maybe have a ski run?? I could charge for a go? make some money for Christmas??? I could also take bets on how many broken bones we have. If my kids are having a go, an A&E trip is a foregone conclusion - especially DS, who is the most accident prone 13 year old I know!

Right, dinner ready, X-factor on, so have a good night ladies and catch up tomorrow.
Have a good evening everyone.

Hi All

I have no hope of catching up with the thread as I've been away most of the week but just wanted to drop in to say hello! Just returned from very cold trip overseas with a cold.

First time I've been away from both DH and DS at the same time...I think it actually hurt to be away from DS (and I missed DH a bit too ). I was only away for one night but had to work extra days...still, possibly a bit pathetic though!

House wasn't too bad on return but I spent a couple of hours cleaning as we have a house guests tonight and I've just been baking gingerbread men etc for a childrens' party tomorrow.

Hope all is well with all of you and that you're nearly ready for Christmas.

Hopefully catch up with some of your news soon.

'Evenin all: walnuts, stilton, crackers and a glass of port out on the sideboard for you...

... ah ...'tis a dark & frosty night and I feel some Camus coming on...

[SC blocks out collective groans from fellow fledglings]

Oh ... alright then ... you can relax ... I've deleted it ... but it was a near miss ..

No, I haven't been at the cooking brandy ... I've just wrapped so many parcels today I've gorn a bit pecul-e-ar...
(well, a bit more peculiar than usual!!)

How has everyone got on? You all seem very busy ...

YourdaysoundslovelyMellieIdidn'trealise youcouldgetsoclosetosealpups(plsnotekeyboardsolidarity)

Welcome back Mini-M - we missed you - impressively straight back in to action I see- hope the party goes well tomorrow!!

Optimistle - I'm up early every day thanks to dd, my all-singing all-dancing alarm clock - the problem is what I do with my time once I'm up

PF .. a hard-core ski-jump is what you need .. at least you'll be off to a Flying (geddit?) start in the morning

Mullered - thanks so much for all the key and wire info - you sound extremely well organised ...I definitely need to find a slim storage unit for our very narrow hall ..if you put down a shopping bag it looks messy ... so will have to go vertical

MrsDingDong - v impressed by your post-prandial Flying, so glad the indoctrination brain washing Fat Fairy system is working for you ..

Sort washing and put one load on done x4
Sitting room newspaper/magazine recycling tomorrow
Find other camera - well, I looked ...
15 mins master bedroom (X2 or x 3 if poss) done (x2)
15mins home office (ditto) ... um [NOT done]
Wrap, wrap, wrap presents done feels like hundreds and hundreds still to do
French studydone
Dh feeling a bit flu-ish so making home-made soup [done]
Gather all cables and wires and try and make sense of them and allocate shoe boxes ...work in prog

Right, I'm off to roost ...

Enjoy the rest of the w/e fellow Flyers...

Didn't quite manage all of Friday's list - still have to finish writing xmas cards, mop kitchen floor and sweep and scrub yard. Not bad though and had a good evening out, although a bit too much wine...

As a result have done precisely diddly today!
Although did stick to routines. Busy day tomorrow, 2 oak trees to plant (FIL planted acorns when each DS was born and the trees are ready to go to a permanant home now - will go in the grounds of DH's work), Xmas cake to marzipan and have promised to make paperchains with DS's. Will have a catch up day on Monday.

Waves to everyone