Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

It's kind of hard to believe that tomorrow my kids go back to school.  The summer seemed to pass too quickly.  And now my little girl is starting a new grade and is bursting with excitement after meeting her new teacher.  Even my son seems to be catching the excitement at the idea of a new school year.

Of course, within a week the housework will be caught up, I will be able to get some naps in so I'll be more of a human being and the kids will be realizing that they have a while until their next vacation.  And then we'll start counting down the days till Christmas break.

In the meantime, it's been busy around here.  Between me having to harvest some of the garden earlier than I would have liked due to bugs and things, surprise visits from friends and family (welcome though they were), picking raspberries at my mother-in-laws and just generally trying to get the kids ready for school, I'm ready to drop the kids off at school tomorrow, come home and sit staring at a wall for ten minutes until I move onto the massive to-do list I have going.

People think I'm busy when the kids are home.  They have no idea.  When the kids are in school I seem to always be rushing to get things done before the school day goes by too quickly and I'm helping my daughter with homework and cooking dinner.

This week's to-do list kind of got bumped for other things like those mentioned above, but I did manage to get some of it crossed off today.

I made a tablecloth for the living room coffee table (some of it seen above...I didn't want to take a pic of the dirty carpet, so you don't get the full effect, but you get the idea).  I used some of the unbleached muslin I bought on Jo-Ann.com on a Black Friday sale.  I love it so much I really do want to get some more of it I have a chance.  I got the super muslin that is pre-shrunk and it is totally worth the money as it is decently heavyweight and doesn't shrink like the cheaper muslin does.  The nice part about it is that it matches so much of the things in the living room.  My husband picked out the color and brought up all the neutrals in the curtains and carpet and he was right.  The muslin works well.  I can also make others for different holidays and just embroider on some designs for fun.  But, that's in the future if I feel motivated.

We went to the used stores over the weekend (more on that on Thrifty Thursday) and one of the things I found was a solid marble checkerboard (seen above).  I decided that it would work great as a tray when it wasn't being used as an actual checkerboard to help keep the tablecloth on the table, but I needed to resurface the back of the checkerboard as the felt they had coated it with was completely shot.  So that was another project I ended up doing this weekend.  Came out looking great though.  By the way, Elmer's Craft Bond?  Totally worth the money as a craft adhesive.  That's like super super glue in a can.  I nearly had to take professional strength solvent to my hands to get it off!

We're hoping to start doing a board game night on Saturday nights as my daughter does enjoy board games and I think my husband and I really need to spend more time with her doing things like that.

I also sewed a handkerchief (didn't get to the other one as my son was in a MOOD the last little bit) and a pillow sham.  I plan to embroider both of them with different designs.  I was planning on doing a pillow sham for my son as well for Christmas, but I might be redoing my plan into a blanket as the material was actually quite wide when I unfolded it and I think it would make a wonderful little accent to his room design.  I'm still contemplating on that one.

I harvested and dehydrated herbs this week and also pulled some garlic (the details on the garden can be found in my Frugal Friday post for this week).  I still have two garlic plants left (I pulled two more garlic plants today) which I'm hoping might actually make it to small bulbs of garlic as the stalks are still doing pretty well.  I'm planning on composting the spots where I pulled plants a bit later this week.   I haven't gotten my vacuum sealer out yet.  It's in my pantry in a spot where I'd have to pull a bunch of stuff out to get it and since I just got my pantry done a while ago it's going to be painful to make a mess in there *laugh*.  I'm hoping to get the nerve up to get it out this week.

I made laundry soap today too.

This week's goals are:

1.  Shampoo carpets.
2.  Change beds.
3.  Figure out son's Christmas gift (sham or blanket).
4.  Bake bread, pizza rolls and cookies.
5.  Work on sewing and mending.
6.  Can raspberry jam, wildflower jelly and salsa (if I have time and the temperature permits).
7.  Work on son's room (decorating, etc).
8.  Make up home made Rice a Roni type of mixes.  Put in pantry.
9.  Deep clean kid's rooms (now that they are going to be in school and not hindering me).

And there are my basic goals for the week.  Hope I can get it all done.