Monthly Goals: June 2017

June is a month where it's always busy around here and this year it's going to be even more hectic.

For one, I signed my son up for summer school this year so he'll have at least some therapy going on this summer no matter what, so we will have that going on.  I'm hoping that the one speech therapist I found is able to get him in here soon (she said it was going to be at LEAST the second week of June before she could start with him) so we might be running to speech therapy again, hopefully soon.  And then there's just a ton to get done around here as well. 

For instance, I went to Fred Meyer yesterday to redeem a coupon for a free container of ketchup I had loaded onto my card (it was the last day for said coupon...and it didn't even work, so I had to go to customer service to get my free ketchup coupon applied) and while there I picked up an ad since the online one is just MIA this week for some reason so far.  And I never even opened the ad (no seriously I didn't...and I left it in my basket at the U-Scan by accident so I have no idea what is on sale this week *laugh*) once I saw that they were having a three day sale and it was on various produce items.  The big one that I saw that I KNEW I had to find money for one way or the other was peaches were on sale for .99 lb!!!  I ran and got ten pounds (if we'd had money I would have honestly gotten 20 lbs as my daughter LOVES home canned peaches and we barely had enough to last through winter last year) and used a gift card I'd been gifted with five bucks left on it to help pay for it.  So, canning peaches is on my list this week.

I did a quick inventory of home canned goods and decided this year my canning list is going to be a lot shorter than last year.  We still have plenty of strawberry preserves left (and the strawberries I bought earlier in the freezer to make a few more jars later in the winter if needed) and I have things like mint jelly, fig jam and other canned goods still left.  Although I will hopefully hit up  my mother-in-law to grab some more of her raspberries come fall (if they grow this year with how wet it is turning out to be...they might just rot on the bush the way the weather is going) and can some raspberry jam.  Mainly with the logic that going over and gleaning some of my mother-in-law's raspberries won't cost me anything but time and effort vs. actually spending money at the store and we do blow through the raspberry jam as I put it as a filling in cakes and things.  I actually got some frozen cherries from the food bank (so, so grateful for the extra food), so I'm hoping to use those to make cherry pie filling at some point in the future (not too worried about doing it immediately since the cherries are already frozen).

Applesauce and peaches were on my "hopeful" list as we do use that stuff during the winter, which so far I'm super happy about how well that's turning out as I already have 10 pints of applesauce put up and now I'll be able to add peaches to our stores too (IF I can stop my daughter from eating them all before winter *laugh*).  I'm going to ATTEMPT to make peach pit jelly out of the remains of the peaches as I've heard it's really good and will use some of the home made pectin I made when I made applesauce to help it set (don't want to waste ANYTHING at this point).  Rose hips will be harvested this year again to make jelly and rose hip fruit leather (as my daughter actually really liked taking it to school as a treat in her lunch) and I'm hoping to get some fireweed jelly out of the yard as well this year.  The rhubarb is already bolting due to the weird weather patterns we're having and getting eaten alive by various bugs (of which I CAN'T find on the plants, but the leaves are getting big holes eaten in them), so we'll see how well that does this year.  But, I'm down to one other thing to put up for winter in the way of fruit, which is pears, so we'll see if some great sale comes up for that.  If not, oh well, I'll buy canned, but I'm hopeful at this point I'll be able to find some at the store to can as so far I've gotten lucky :).

So, let's get to all the various goals I have this month shall we?

Sewing Goals:

Make reusable shopping bags.  Design and embroider them.
Mend comforters (again *sigh*)
Mend daughter's pants (time to dig up some patches)
Mend husband's pants and a few shirts
Work on figuring out material to reupholster loveseat (it needs it)

Canning/preserving goals:

Can peaches
Can peach pit jelly
Dehydrate chives (the only thing that's growing really good right now)

Cleaning/Organizing Goals:

Gut pantry and reorganize (it's really a mess right now)
Make inventory list of pantry and emergency food storage
Make "food storage space" in den (I'm trying to figure out a good way to keep track of the #10 cans of food storage I have so I know EXACTLY how much food I have to use.  Now is the time to use up what I have left and hopefully add to food storage as I can, but if ever there was time to supplement food with emergency food storage now is the time.  I don't have much left on the emergency food storage as I've used up so much over the last three years, but I'm hoping I have more than I think I do hidden around here in different places).
Clean windows and mirrors

Gardening Goals:

Dig up small garden bed in yard
Plant potatoes
Plant onions
Plant more beans
Plant more peas, chard and anything else that looks viable to grow out of the seed stores I have
Make trellis for peas and pole beans

 Baking/To Make Goals:

Make flour tortillas for the first time (this is hopefully happening today...tortillas are expensive so we'll see how home made ones go over).  Freeze some to use later.
Make crepes.  Freeze.
Make waffles (blueberry, chocolate chip and regular).  Freeze.
Make sausage pancake bites.  Freeze.

General Goals:

Get recycling taken to the recycling center.
Take donations to the used store and get them out of the den.
Take inventory of school supplies and figure out what I will definitely need to get for the kids for school next year.
Celebrate anniversary at end of the month (it's going to be a really simple affair, but I'll probably make cake if nothing else)

So, yeah, that's a summary of things I want to get done around here.  How about you?  Up to anything?