Reasons to be Cheerful XXVI ( #R2BC )

This week's guest host is Clare at Seasider in the City. It's been a mostly cheerful week this week so here we go:
1) School Trip
For the first time ever I managed to go on a school trip with my daughter. Until now I was either working or had her little brother to look after when ever there was one on. I struck lucky and got a trip to Manchester. The photographs from the day featured in this week's Gallery. We went to Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) and Manchester Jewish Museum both well worth a visit.

One of the lovely stained glass windows

The children on the trip were all very well behaved and it was such a pleasure to spend a whole day with them. I look forward to going on another trip sometime soon!
2) Operation 3rd Bedroom
For full news on this read this post but needless to say finally getting everyone in their own bedrooms for first time is a reason for all the family to smile! The children no longer have to share and get in each other's way. I can get my daughter to bed at a much more reasonable time as I don't have to wait for my son to go to sleep. One of the strangest reasons to be cheerful is that I can now get out of bed on both sides as my bed is no longer tucked up against a wall! My daughter is now on a Hello Kitty spending frenzy and turning her room into a girls only zone:

Mission "Organised Mum": Report 1

After yesterday's disorganised post I'm going to start laying out how I'm trying to undo 40 years of chaos and train my children to be more organised than me! This may be mission impossible and I have tried before and failed but maybe this time I'll do it...


Organising My Life


For a couple of years now I've been using an Organised Mum family calendar to keep track of all the activities that we get up to as a family. It is displayed in a prominent position in the kitchen next to where I prepare all our meals. It has lots of room for writing everyone's commitments on and nice colourful stickers to make things stand out. I'm getting much better at using it and adding school events on it as soon as the letters come home. What I need to do better is adding things like the car service etc on with a reminder the month before to book. 


Organising My Home


This is the area that I've fallen down the most on over the years. Between the 3 of us we create complete chaos with things not being put back where they belong. It seems to me that every time I sort out one space then the stuff that was in the wrong place that I moved out gradually works its way back... I've never managed to get on top of things so give up and go back to chaos!


So I'm once again trying the FlyLady system which was created by an American lady called Marla who herself was fed up of living in what she calls CHAOS (Can't have anyone over syndrome). I have had a few goes at this in the past but either ran into opposition from my partner or life just got in the way. I still try and do some of the bits I remember from the last time I signed up such as having a launch pad to place items needed for the school run and laying out clothes the night before so make mornings less stressful.


However the system starts with Beginners Babysteps as FlyLady knows we can't fix everything straight away so she doesn't want to overwhelm us! I've got to day 5 now and have tried to stick to the rules - though getting dressed including make up in the morning is really not my normal style... 


Alongside her babysteps I'm trying to keep the basic household chores running more smoothly and getting the children to do a lot more around the home (putting away clothes/tidying toys etc). I know I'll have to get back into things such breaking into zones and using a timer to get things done. 


Watch this space to see how I get on... Oh and I found the missing spectacles under the driver's seat in my car...