Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals (the Mid-Week Edition)

Sorry this took so long to post up this week.  Sunday I was just too sick still to really care much about anything and then Monday and Tuesday I was just plain busy and was exhausted by the end of the day, so the last thing I had energy for was blogging.  Trying to get tons of stuff done while still recovering from being sick will make you really want to rest by the end of the day.

So, what was I up to that I have been too busy to post up much of anything the last couple of days?

Well, for one I have been working on getting the mittens I am making for my niece done and I'm getting there, which is nice.  I've been doing that in the early mornings and late evenings.  During the day I've been cleaning and organizing like a mad woman.  See, every year I'm determined that the house is going to be "that" clean before I put up Christmas decorations.  Every year it seems I fail pretty much, but this year there was a list of things I wanted to get done before Christmas decorations got in the way, so I've been really working hard on at least getting that done.

One was moving the video shelves upstairs as I'm tired of the pile of movies in the middle of my den every day that my son has been nice enough to leave for me.  By moving the video shelves upstairs we'll be able to better protect the videos from abuse, which is definitely needed with how my son has gotten into tearing videos off of shelves to find "that" video to watch for two minutes.  It's been driving me nuts.

So, Monday and yesterday, in between laundry and cleaning, I started to clean video shelves clear of videos and got one of the bookcases moved upstairs today.  So, reorganizing is going sporadic, but it's getting there.

The next thing I needed to tackle was the couch (seen up top in it's "before" state).  The loveseat is next after I'm done with the couch as it's in about as bad of shape as the couch, but has a few more patches to see it through until I can work on it.

The couch had gotten so bad on the shedding/peeling front that you'd sit down and it was like sitting down on sand paper.  Then you'd get up and there would be brown flecks all over you, the floor and anything that was nearby.  It was gross, uncomfortable and I just had enough of the entire situation.  I didn't have the money to go out and buy upholstery fabric or new leather to upholster the couch in (or new furniture obviously) , so I grabbed a really thick suit fabric I'd gotten for like five dollars at a used store a while ago and have used for different projects when I wanted a long length of fabric, measured it up by throwing it over the entire couch to see if it would work (yup, I'm that detail oriented on this stuff) and went to work.

Here's step one completed.  After ripping the back off the couch and having to hammer in a lot of tacks with a tack hammer that worked about as well as trying to hammer a nail in with a feather, I am seriously considering renaming the blog, "Puncture Wounds and Blood Blisters" but at least it's done.

I like to call the final product "Glorified semi-permanent slip cover aesthetic" because that's really what it looks like, but it was the best I could do with the materials I had at hand. After I secured the fabric on the back and to a certain extent on the sides, I took Elmer's Craft Bond and went over the cushions hard with it and literally adhered the fabric to the cushions.  I'm hoping that will help to prevent slipping of the fabric and hopefully help the fabric wear a bit better.  I might end up having to buy a better adhesive for the job later, but I had the Craft Bond so that's what I used.

The next step is going to be to sew on the arm covers (I just laid the fabric over to give an idea of what it will kind of look like here).  Then it will be a matter of making individual slip covers for the cushions.  I found that the big "pillow case sleeve" type of way of doing a slip cover for the couch wasn't going to work as the middle cushion just threw it off too much, but I did find that the muslin slip cover works GREAT on the loveseat with it's two cushions, so that's where the old slip cover for the cushions went.

So, yeah, when it came to my weekly goals I didn't get a lot of them done.  The cabbage sits in the fridge coleslaw-less, I still have to make brine for the turkey and pie tonight and I for sure didn't take it easy on my arm getting things done, but at least they are getting done.

So, onto the goals for the rest of the week.  I'm just going to lump them all together for the sake of simplicity at this point.

Goals:

• Make Thanksgiving dinner and thoroughly enjoy it!
• Dig out Christmas Decorations to put up over the weekend (hopefully)
• Get rest of video shelves moved upstairs
• Get rest of house cleaned
• Wrap Christmas gifts done so far and get them put aside in a better location (they are stacked with everything else in the den right now).
• Finish mittens for niece.
• Work on couch some more.  Hopefully finish it.
• Make new Christmas table runner for den.
• Catch up on blog reading (especially since I found out Jeannie has a blog and have been reading through it.  The blog can be found HERE to those interested.  I'm really enjoying it!).  I need to read through Brandy's posts on "The Prudent Homemaker" too.  I've been so busy I know I missed some gifts in her "Gift a Day" series and I love looking at her sewing projects!

And there you are folks.  My goals for the rest of the week.  How about you?  Up to anything this week.

Oh and by the way, in case I don't get an opportunity to say it later, "Happy Thanksgiving" to all of my American readers!