Monday, December 5, 2016

Monthly Goals: December 2016 (and a Couch Reveal)


You know, I've been so preoccupied worrying about making bills and getting things accomplished that I completely spaced it was December and I needed to make out my goals lists for the month until yesterday.  Oh yeah!  If anyone is with it this time of year, it's me! 

Bright side, it was REALLY easy to figure out goals for this month as Christmas preparation is definitely taking precedence over everything else.  So, that made for a quick list to make.

I was saving the couch reveal for the "Monthly Goals Update" post for this week and then realized I wasn't going to have one because it's a new month *laugh*, so a picture of the finished couch is up top there.  I ended up using a red pleather suede type of fabric for the cushion covers as it was one of the few fabrics I had that was big enough to make three slip covers from.  It's not the heaviest materials in the world, but I had it and it looked good with the grey, so I went with it.  Hopefully it will live for a while.  I find it funny that all through the project my husband didn't seem at all happy with what I was doing, but when it was finished he said, "Everything looks good together."  So bwahahaha!

I'm going to add the love seat repairs to this month's goals, but I'm dubious in my ability to get to it as I still have gifts to make and baking and things to do, so yeahhh...we'll see how far I get.

The video shelves are now in their new home up in the living room and three boxes of videos are parked in my living room waiting to be put away (honestly after doing video moving for three days straight I just burned out, said "To heck with this!" and moved the rest of the videos upstairs.  I'll get to putting the rest of the videos away in the next couple of days.

And really, looking at the monthly goals I wrote last month about the only thing I didn't get done was the master bedroom closet (I DID start on it, though) so that was a good feeling!

Now onto this month's goals!

Sewing Goals:
  • Get Christmas Gifts Made (or "Sew woman!  Sew!!!")
  • Sew new table runner for den
  • Work on other projects if I can find time (like love seat repair)

General Goals:
  • Get Christmas Gifts Made
  • Wrap Gifts and Get Ready to Give them out (nearly done with wrapping up what I have done so far)
  • Donate to "Toys for Tots" (I was only able to get a couple of new videos to donate this year that I found out in storage of all places...I'm thinking they were future Christmas gifts that I forgot about and ended up buying the videos later on after we moved...but it's better than nothing :).
  • Donate a few things to holiday food drive
  • Bake and have fun with kiddos
  • Get kids through dentist appointment at the end of month
  • Figure out something fun, but preferably free, to do for my birthday at the end of the month (we're going to be broke again this year for my birthday, I can just see it, so I need to plan ahead).
  • Get back to menu planning (I NEED to get back in gear with this as it helps so much to take the worry out of what's for dinner).
  • Finish putting videos into the shelves in the living room.
  • Work on getting master bedroom cleaned up and organized.

And there it is.  My goals, such as they are, for this month.  How about you?  Got a list going yet?

8 comments:

  1. My compliments to you Erika, Your couch looks pretty darn good!
    I would have just been lazy and thrown a blanket over it and not tried to fix it.
    Wohoo!!!!

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  2. In the future I will only buy fabric sectional sofas, or else not sectionals! No slipcovers exist for my once beautiful and massive yet still comfortable cherry red sectional.

    My goals...I have so freaking many. Sigh. This is such a busy month. October to January is always so crazy. I need to plan the Christmas Eve and Day menus, and shop for those ingredients, as well as the treats to bake for my sons prek teachers, and husband class party, as well as our own assortment I love so much. Theres still a pile of gifts to wrap, three to mail, and cards to do. I have the church party past approaching and Ive not finished two decorations, plus I need to cut then staple the little papers on the grinch candy canes we were doing (200) then the ones for my sons class and my husbands. Also need to prepare the classroom Christmas gifts and party foods for him.

    Our dryer was acting up, seems to be better now thank goodness! I made a huge batch of freezer soup tonight. My husband only had 1 bowl so I have a bad feeling if I forget to freeze half of it, it may get wasted. Hes not a soup person. We still have a little leftover party food from Saturday, so thats been great for lunches. The weather here has been really weird, warmer than usual but that artic blast is supposed to hit us overnight, then a storm from texas moving up too, so no slow, but loads of heavy rain, maybe sleet. I've been worrying all day about going to work in that, and taking my son to school. I pray it isnt as bad in the morning. We both ought to go if possible. I just hate to drive in it, and I worry about having him out in that air, with his asthma, mild or not. Hes just sounding so much better after a few months rough patch, I'm scared to mess that up. I worry too much though. I always have.

    I hope you manage to meet your goals this month! As a birthday idea, why not a favorite meal of yours for dinner, then binge watch a show during the day, with a special drink or snack and give yourself the total day off!!

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  3. You did a good job with the couch--it looks really nice!

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  4. Well...lots of stuff going on here. Goals, finish cleaning rabbit cages today before our first big freeze of the season, (son now has 17 rabbits!!), get ready for 4-H rabbit show this weekend, make 4 gift baskets for rabbit show silent auction, learn music for church on Sunday, learn small part in a play my friend wrote and attend practice Saturday, finish decorating tree, replace driver's license I somehow lost, plan husbands B-Day celebration on Dec 19, finish Christmas shoppIng, finish my CEU's for the year to renew my social work license, and other random stuff I'm forgetting. I did do a bunch of cookie baking and much of Christmas shopping is done. Erika, maybe one year you could just move your birthday celebration to a different time of year. Mine is in a January and sometimes I move it to the summer because I want to have a picnic for my birthday!

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  5. Great job on the couch, Erika! The colours do look great together. I'm sure it is more comfortable to sit on without all the little leather pieces coming off all the time, too.

    Just a suggestion for your birthday, have you considered having a small, informal get together with a few close friends and/or family. You could do a potluck, so the food cost is shared (with possible leftovers to share too...yum!). You could play some fun family type games as a group (like Pictionary, charades or something like that), with teams of adults and children mixed. You've mentioned that some of your friends also struggle financially. This would be cheap, fun entertainment for everyone! Oh, and don't worry about what your house looks like...if these are good friends of yours, they won't care.

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    1. I love this idea. Most of our birthdays and other family celebrations are celebrated in this way--with everyone bringing food items, etc. Also, whenever we get together with friends, we always ask "what shall I bring" and they do, too. It's just expected in our circle. Lack of money has and never should be a barrier to celebrations for us. We don't play very many games anymore, but those sure sound fun! It's more challenging here in our new teeny, tiny house, (comparatively speaking) but we've managed to have friends over twice, cousins sleep over and around 20 for Thanksgiving Day.

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  6. You are amazing - recovering a couch? Wow!!!!

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  7. I hate to be the party pooper but I don't like the couch. It is missing something...something to add color...something to make it homey...I know! IT NEEDS A CAT SITTING ON THE BACK! Yes. That is what it is missing. Other than that, it looks wonderful.
    Jeannie

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