Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

I am in a state of "eating the lining of your stomach with the huge acid ball of doom" near panic right now.  Ugh.  We're having issues with pay right now and doing the math I'm not sure how we're going to make it this month.  If I drain our VERY meager savings, which I'm going to have to do...I still don't think we're going to have enough to make it.  I mean basic bills (which are all due the first week of the month, unfortunately)...let alone gas and food.  Why do these things happen when you end up with 500.00 in extra bills a month paying for new teeth for your spouse?  Times like this I really wish I had anti-anxiety medication and then I laugh at the idea that I need to go the doctor to get prescribed medicine for anxiety but can't afford to go to the doctor to GET anxiety medication.  A dark sense of humor will get you through a lot in this world.

Sorry to be depressing.  I'm just worried and honestly don't know what else to do BUT worry and so here I am.

Anyway, I had a productive week this week and do have things in the works for next week, so let's get down to brass tacks on things shall we?

I got a ton of canning done this week and I think I'm pretty much done for the year.  I was able to get green tomato relish canned (above), raspberry jam and wildflower jelly.

I even got a gift of some rhubarb from a neighbor as well as some 1/2 pint canning jars as a thank you for delivering a package to his house.  He must have dropped the key for the package pick up box down by our mailboxes one day a couple of weeks ago and I found the key (and people give me a hard time about looking down...ha!).  I didn't know what else to DO with the key so I used it to open the package box and found his package inside.  I, luckily, recognized his name and so I delivered the box to him.  It turned out it was medicines that his wife needs to take regularly, so he was very grateful that I'd done that for him and he brought the rhubarb and canning jars as a thank you (he knew that I canned as I've given him jars of strawberry jam and such in the past).  I gave him a hug as a thank you and went in and made some rhubarb BBQ sauce out of it (I'll post up the recipe as soon as I can).  I dropped off three jars to him which made him laugh that I was giving them some of their rhubarb back along with some of his canning jars, but it was the least I could do.  He has his grandson and three of his great grandchildren living with him right now, so I know the BBQ sauce will be used.  I'm very lucky to have the neighbors I do.

I sewed the quilt for my son's birthday this coming week and made a pillow sham from some of the leftover material from making the quilt top.  I then embroidered a matching theme onto the pillow sham.

My son has been spending more and more time in my daughter's room since I redecorated it and I'm really starting to think that he is envious of the older kid things in her room.  Sometimes I forget that my son is getting older because I end up seeing just the autism too much, so I decided for his birthday that I'm going to give him a more "grown up" room.  I settled on a theme, dug around the house and the internet to find things to work within the confines of what I have and I'm going to get it all done while he's in school this week.  He'll be getting a new room for his birthday.  A bit early, but I think he'll like it.  The pieces are coming together nicely so far, so if it comes out as well as I plan in my head I think it'll look really nice.  I hope he likes it too.  Unlike my daughter's room where I had a 20.00 budget to get her room done, my son's room I have no budget.  Luckily I already got the quilt done, so that 7.00 was spent before monetary panic set in, but I still have no budget for the rest of the room.  Which is testing my creativity, but I think I'm stepping up to the challenge and doing alright so far.  Here's hoping it all works out well :).

I got baking done with the exception of the pizza rolls, which I plan on doing tomorrow while the kids are at school (doing any real baking that calls for a lot of rolling and things is hard with everyone home as I have a tiny kitchen that suddenly becomes grand central station as soon as I decide to bake things).

We're having board game night tonight, so I will teach my daughter to play checkers then :).

I got our new printer set up this week as well and I'm SO glad I did.  I didn't realize how old, slow and crappy my printer was until I hooked up our new printer.  So much nicer to print something without having to force feed the paper down into it and have a great quality print out in no time flat compared to the old and slow printer we had.  I didn't realize our printer was 7 years old until my husband pointed it out to me...so yeah...that explains a lot *laugh*.

We awoke to a decently heavy frost this morning, so I think I'm going to have to harvest my tomatoes soon and just let them ripen inside before the frost starts to hurt them.  They are too big to put plastic over, so that seems to be the best option.

And now onto this week's goals.

Canning/Preserving Goals:

1.  Can cranberry sauce, if I have time.
2.  Dehydrate herbs from garden (I managed to get the herbs picked yesterday, but have yet to dehydrate them all). 
3.  Keep an eye on the tomatoes.  Pick if instincts tell me it's time.

Sewing Goals:

1.  Make bunting for son's room.
2.  Mend more of husband's work clothes.
3.  Darn some of my socks.
4.  Work on Christmas gifts.
5.  Oil sewing machine and clean it.

Baking Goals:

1.  Bake pizza rolls.  Freeze.
2.  Make icebox cookies.  Place in freezer for later.
3.  Dig out cake flour to make son's birthday cake.

General Goals:

1.  Have faith.  Don't panic.  Breath deeply and feel grateful for what I have in this world. 
2.  Work on son's room decorations and get ready for the big "reveal" of his room for him later in the week.
3.  Work on one month meal plan for next month.  Make as pantry heavy as possible.
4.  Work on goals for next month and shopping goals.

 And there you go folks.  My goals for this week.  What are you up to?