Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

This post is a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short.  Seriously, though, I was just busy last night trying to get the last of my weekly goals accomplished, which ended up being hit or miss this week.

Things I accomplished last week:

1.  I did get some mending done.  I mended some of my clothing, which was badly in need of repair (I've been running around in holey socks a lot lately) and mended a stuffed unicorn I made for my daughter last Christmas that has seen a lot of abuse from day to day (it's a stuffed animal.  What are you going to do?).  I think the hand sewed mending I did on the unicorn will make it last a lot longer, which will make my daughter happy because she does love the unicorn (which honestly makes me happy).

2.  I have NOT gotten my husband's birthday gift done yet.  I felt so stupid.  I made a pistol case, but was operating on so little sleep I forgot these wonderful things called "seam allowances" in my final measurements.  As a result the pistol case was way too small for the pistol I designed it for.

So, back to the drawing board.  I'm going to make a case for one of my husband's many rifles today and this time I'll remember the seam allowances *laugh*.

3.  I harvested my basil plant and made pesto pucks for the freezer.  By padding the basil out with parsley I was able to get enough pesto to make 6 muffin tin sized pesto pucks, which will see us through six meals worth of pesto pasta.

4.  It was too hot and sticky last week to get canning done.  This week we're supposed to be getting rain and cooler temperatures, so I'm hoping to get salsa canned this week.  The applesauce I decided to try and just keep in the freezer for now as really it's already THERE, so there's no point in pulling it out just to can it.  I'm seeing us using more applesauce here very soon as pork is one of the cheapest options for meat right now, so I'm seeing the applesauce becoming less and less of a problem when it comes to freezer space.

5.  I cleaned up and neatened up my furnace room (seen up top).  The furnace room has looked like a tornado hit it for about a year, so it was good to get that recovered.

6.  Due to the "not so bad rabbit invasion of 2015" I ended up harvesting all of my onions last week and curing them, so that is done.  

7.  Not on my original list of goals for last week, but I started doing the math on how many people we have in my husband's family now and started figuring out the things I want to make my children for Christmas on top of it and decided I'd better start getting a move on when it comes to making Christmas gifts or I was going to be on overwhelm in a couple of months.  So, I got a few gifts pounded out last week, well at least some prototypes to improve upon later anyway (such as the teddy bear in my furnace room...it's a design I'm messing with for a gift for my daughter, thus hidden in said furnace room *laugh*).

I did get some mug rugs done, though (they're like mini-quilts that you use as over sized coasters).  I found these through my sister-in-law's boards on Pinterest and I LOVED them, so I made some from scrap fabric I had (including some canvas salvaged from failed gun case #1).   You can see how big they are in relation to a full sized mug at the top of this post (finished dimensions are 8" x 11").

I made them using a nice uni-sex pattern of frogs to give to teachers this Christmas and made a couple for me at the same time to use up in my living room (my son keeps stealing my coasters, so I'm hoping this works better).  I love this craft and am so excited to make more of these in the future just using up little fabric scraps here and there.

Other than that, I put off cutting out shorts for my son as I was able to find him some pairs at one of the used stores for .25 a pair and he's growing again, so I figured it might be best to put it off and see where his growth spurt ends before I make him more clothes.  I did start to get his clothing transitioned to the new laundry soap, though and so far so good.

So, onto this week's goals!

1.  Figure out shopping goals and monthly goals for August.

2.  Work on cleaning up and out the den.

My den is such a mess right now.  I've got a sofa, sewing area, bar area, book cases  and things in there normally.  And now I have tons of yard sale stuff stacked on one wall.  It's driving me nuts, so it's time to reorganize and figure it out better.  I've got some ideas, which might be a challenge to pull off, but I think I can do it.

3.  Work on sewing projects.

4.  Get Christmas list for family finalized.

5.  Make husband birthday cake and finish up gift (since his birthday is toward the beginning of the week...yeah it's kind of important I get this done pronto).

6.  Find containers to use as mini hampers for master bathroom (for my husband and I) and for children's rooms.

I'm tired of big hampers getting just heaped with stuff.  If I can get hampers into both the kids rooms I can do one person's laundry at at a time if needed and get the big hamper out of my hallway.  Seems like a good idea to me.

7.  Dig out bought ahead school supplies and figure out what is needed to pad out daughter's school supply list. 

I'm hoping this isn't going to cost me much  this year as we don't have the money to spend tons on school supplies.  I have my fingers crossed.

And there you are folks.  My goals for this week.