Saturday, April 14, 2018

Monthly Goals: April 2018


I really need to get more on the ball when it comes to making the monthly goals out.  I mean it's nearly half way through the month and I'm just NOW writing these things down on something other than the mental pad of paper I have in my head.  Not a great way to get things done.

The last few months I have been floundering on getting a list of goals done, mainly because life has been...well kind of crazy.  I keep hoping that life will settle down and kind of mellow out, but it just doesn't seem to be going down that road, so I have just been working on getting anything done that could pass as constructive.  It has actually worked decently well and I've slowly but surely been making progress getting Spring cleaning chores done around the house, although I still have a long way to go.

For instance this last month (and a half) I have managed to:

1.  Get my kitchen kind of reorganized, although that is still a work in progress.

2.  Get the wood furniture in the living room washed down with Murphy's Oil Soap and resealed it all with wood oil.

3.  Grabbed all the things that were in the living room in a big pile on the coffee table and elsewhere that really needed to be down in my "office area" in the den instead of in said living room and got it all moved where it needed to be.  Also weeded out things that I didn't need anymore (old receipts and the like) and started to reclaim space doing so.

I'm still having a hard time getting used to all of my stuff being in one spot downstairs and working downstairs (which means I am doing work once the kids are in bed and things inevitably), but it makes the living room look so much nicer I'm determined to keep it the way it is.

4.  Weeded through a lot of stuff, primarily in the kitchen area, and got rid of things I didn't need.

5.  Continued to organize the china cabinet to work as a utility/linen cabinet instead of a china cabinet. 

Doing that has made it so much nicer to access things upstairs, especially towels.

6.  Ended up having to replace the phone, my camera and my hand mixer, but managed to make it work.

7.  My husband, while the car was in the shop getting fixed (we got it back this week, yay!) started to weed out things in the garage and start to organize things better out there.  We haven't had the garage organized well since we moved in, pretty much, as the garage inevitably had to house things that used to go in my husband's office at our old place, so it's nice that he's been able to find time to start going through everything.

8.  We got a new to us truck and had all the paperwork craziness that goes along with doing something like that.

9.  Got new glasses (picked those up this week as well and am THRILLED with them!  I can see and read again =D.  I haven't been this thrilled with a new pair of glasses since the first pair I ever got as my eyes were straining THAT bad with my old script.  So, yay for new glasses!!!).

10.  Found out my husband has high blood pressure and have been working on getting that under control with diet,  He's now solidly in the "elevated blood pressure" category and doesn't need to take the blood pressure meds regularly, so we're making progress!

And yeah, I'm sure there are things I'm missing in that list, but anyway...there was a lot going on in the last little bit.

When it comes to goals this month, I'm hoping to focus mainly on sewing as I had to put off a bunch of it while waiting for my glasses to come in.  Now that my left eye has stopped hurting as it got used to being able to see clearly again, I've got a lot to catch up on. 

I was hoping to add some garden goals to the goals for this month, but we seem to have started to revert back to more typical Alaskan winters the last few winters, so we're still hitting the low twenties at night, or lower.  While it is warming up during the day the last week up into the upper 40's to mid 50's, there is still plenty of snow piles on the ground, so I'm not seeing garden goals happening until at LEAST next month and maybe into June. 

The garden this year is going to have to be a pretty simple affair mainly because of moose activity last year (thus they KNOW WHERE I LIVE *dum dum dum!!!!*) and because I don't have the money to spend on plants again this year (and honestly any money I can save I'd rather put toward the U-Pick farm instead later in the season), so I'm down to what I have for seeds, essentially, on things I can grow.  So, I'm figuring growing greens is going to be my best bet.  Chard, kale (not a favorite by any means, but it seems to grow well) lettuce and the like and just see what I get out of it.  I've fought the animals and the bugs so hard the last few years in a desperate attempt to glean as much food as I could from the garden, that I don't know how much I really want to fight things this year and how the weather is going to be this summer is still anyone's guess, so yeah...it's still up in the air, but at this point I'm not making any elaborate plans on things to grow.

Anyway, before you have to read the great American novel here, let me get onto the goals for this month :).

Sewing Goals:

  • Work on love seat (this WILL get done by the end of the year.  I'm determined *laugh*).
  • Fix husband's work shirt
  • Make a couple of skirts for daughter and for myself
  • Make template and make a couple of new table cloths 
  • Make new shower curtain for kid's bathroom (I just want a back up one so I can wash their shower curtain more regularly...it's white and gets dingy from the iron in our water pretty fast)
  • Make new comforter for son (this depends on if I have a couple of twin sheets I can put together to make one...we'll see what I have in my materials :).
  • Start work on embroidery projects and other small projects to sell.  I am trying to get some things done so I can make some additional income.  We are going to need it as the price on things up here is going to go up, either through taxes or due to things like environmental regulations kicking in for truckers, thus shipping costs are going to go up...either way we are going to need some extra cash coming in.  And if things get really bad and we have to move sooner rather than later, I'd like to at least have that option available to us, so once again...money.


Cleaning/Organizing Goals:

  • Take recycling to recycling center
  • Take donations to used store
  • Go through son's closet and get rid of old toys that he doesn't play with and then reorganize things so he can play with toys in his closet more readily.
  • Wash down walls.
  • Move furniture around in son's room to wear the carpet more evenly (and get anything that is in the carpets out of it by a lot of shampooing)
  • Continue to go through master bedroom closet and get rid of things that are no longer needed and organize what is left.


And, yeah, that's definitely enough to try and get done this month.  How about you?  Got anything you need to get done this month?

2 comments:

  1. Is it okay that I laughed because "the moose know where you live" ! But - oh on the organizing! I hear you on that...today my goal was to....take down the Christmas shower curtain in the bathroom and put the regular one back up! And it is done...may be mid April - but it is done - it was just such a tiny thing to do so it always got pushed back so I could do larger things. Besides - I did like looking at the snowmen!

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  2. Like you, my to-do list is pretty much nonexistent. I did get to Michaels for some crafty goodness. I haven’t spent much money there in years! This year, I feel it’s time for me to get back into something for my creative enjoyment. My (kids) have been gone, and on their own, for many years. It’s ‘me’ time.
    Talking of gardening....We’re in the U.P. Of Mich. That big blob you see may bring us up to 14” of snow, maybe more. (Or less) There will be no gardening here for awhile, either. I’ve decided to spend money at the farmers market, instead. I might plant a few pots of greens but that may be all. I’d love some fresh tomatoes but they’re hard to grow here. Peppers are impossible unless you buy large plants or have a greenhouse.

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