Wow! This post took forever to get done! Namely because my computer went completely bonkers again and I just spent last night and this morning (and into this afternoon) restoring the computer to an earlier time, running scan disk, running disk defrag and all kinds of other wonderful programs to TRY and get this sucker working right and I still had to reinstall my internet browser to get it to even load. Ugh. Just ugh! My husband is going to look at the laptop tonight once he gets up and see if there is a way to upgrade the RAM on the computer or not to see if that helps, but my frustration level is right below Kermit the Frog before he'd go berserk and start screaming incoherently right about now *laugh*.
Blogging, though, even before the computer (insert nasty mumbled adjectives to describe said computer under breath) decided to crap out on me again, I was already behind just because last week was so hectic. Summer school started, we had a day where we had speech rearranged on us (and it's looking like the next couple of weeks are going to be like that too) as Alvah's new speech therapist is opening clinics left and right and the latest is actually out of state, so she has to fly down a lot to check on how the therapists are doing in their new home. So, in one day, we had speech therapy, home for about 15 minutes, went shopping, rushed back home and grabbed Alvah's back pack, went and dropped him off at summer school, ran to go get his swimming bag from home and finish up shopping (I had to get some more yeast at our local Eastern European Market as they carry the SAF yeast I love to use) and then we ran back to the school, picked Alvah up early and ran him to swimming. By the time we all got home, we were wiped. Last week pretty much went down like that. My husband took a four day weekend last week so he could spend some time with the family and we had fun doing stuff together. Alvah did great adjusting to summer school, therapy and swimming going on at the same time. Armina worked on getting her room cleaned up and I worked on tons of other things in the time I had available.
Which, actually, ties in pretty well to transition this post, so let's get to this month's goals (since all posts are behind right now I'm AIMING to do this one right now and do the frugal recap for the week tomorrow or tonight, depending, so no I haven't forgotten it :).
Normally, I'd have some garden goals included in this post for the month, but unfortunately, the garden just isn't going to happen this year. This sucks as the garden normally provides us with greens and lettuce, if nothing else, throughout the summer months and in the case of greens, I normally have some of those to put up for winter. But, it just was not to be this year, unfortunately.
I have tried everything and nothing has worked. I have moose tramping through the garden MULTIPLE times a day at the moment by all of the tracks everywhere with more popping up all of the time. I planted sprouting potatoes the other day only to have a vole or other animal (I have no idea what, honestly) dig up said potatoes and eat them (that was a first for me). I finally, despite a sense of foreboding, checked on the raspberry plants around the yard only to find that the (insert really nasty curse words) moose had struck again and had eaten every single plant off at the snow line over the winter. How those suckers will leave EVERY SINGLE rose bush and other plant, but go for the raspberry bushes is amazing to me. So, I am definitely not getting any raspberries out of my yard this year, unfortunately. The roses are blooming, although not as many as I'm used to seeing by this time in the year (it's still pretty wet and cold). I've still got plenty of rose hip jelly in the pantry, it turns out, when I went digging, so at least THAT was a relief as making jelly isn't a core need this year. I'm glad I still have some raspberry jam and jelly left, as well, as I'm not sure how my mother-in-law's raspberries are going to do this year either. With how wet and cold it is, I'm wondering if the raspberries are just going to have one of those years where they rot on the plant before they ripen. It's been known to happen.
So, yeah, giving up on the garden was AWFUL, and hard, but there comes a point where it just isn't going to work and when you have a family of moose tramping around the garden looking for cabbages or other goodies since you had them last year...you either have to put up a 12' fence (so not in the budget, not to mention where in the heck would I put it since the garden beds are right up against asphalt?) or you just need to say, "This ain't going to happen" and get yourself a greenhouse...also not in the budget unfortunately. The husband is going to try hard to get me a greenhouse designed and get it put in by next year, but we shall see how it goes.
Anyway, let's get to less depressing matters. As goals go, I did manage to get the love seat done last month (finally!) and I got one skirt made for the daughter (yay!), but I still have a list about a mile long of things I want to get done this summer before the inevitable rush of school and things takes over, so I'm going to list things I'd like to get done in the next couple of weeks and pray I can get even 1/16 of them done. Wish me luck!
Cleaning and Organizing Goals:
- Continue to reorganize pantry. Consolidate like items together. Make list of things that need to be used (I found a few things when I was organizing my home canned goods...in progress seen up top there...Prince totally photo bombed no matter how many times I took the picture, so I just finally admitted defeat there) and try to make a more in-depth inventory list for the pantry. Make list of needed items to get over the coming months.
- Organize Master Bedroom Closet. My husband kind of wants me to put this off, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm so tired of looking in there and just seeing mess everywhere. I might only be able to use what I have on hand, but by God I know I can improve it if nothing else.
- Organize hallway closet (I want to organize it better so it makes more sense and will hopefully house things like paper towels and things I need. I figure the best way forward is just going to be gutting it and starting over again. Once again, I'm pretty sure I can at LEAST improve it if nothing else).
- Deep clean bathrooms and fill in silicone where grout is going on some of the tiles.
- DAP around sinks and bathtubs
- Shampoo stairs
- Take old mattress off of race car bed, reorganize son's room and figure out better way of doing things.
- Take every single thing out of kitchen cabinets. Fix lazy susan shelf with JB Weld (you have to completely rip the entire shelf out to get it fixed, so wish me and my not-mechanically inclined self luck here!) and then reorganize kitchen better (I am DETERMINED to make it work better than it is now as I have bowing shelves, things in areas that don't make sense, things falling out of cabinets...I'm done with that mess).
General Goals:
- Find lowly can of seltzer water by tonight so I can make fish and chips for Father's Day dinner (I KNOW I put it somewhere safe in the hallway closet!).
- Work on daughter's skirts (I should put sewing in it's own category, but then the one lowly general goal I have will be lonely ;).
- Work on mending.
- Work on quilt.
- Work on the saving money blogging series (this will get done if my computer doesn't go into meltdown so often here).
I have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do as well. I've gotten a little bit done but have been distracted by all the parties--4 birthdays (3 to put on, one to give a gift to), 1 graduation for my daughter, 1 party to put on for her graduation, and several others to attend.... I think last night finished those off.
ReplyDeleteMy garden is going well. I am sorry yours is not. We don't love living in town, but the wildlife problem has been solved for the most part. The crows still stole most of my corn sprouts, but we are not fighting against the deer anymore. We finally had to put up a really tall fence to keep them out at our old place. I have been working out there in the yard/garden for several hours each week. The lawn is full of clover blossoms again. I need to mow them off, and try to find something to kill some of that clover. It's taking over.
So, this week, it's more doctor and dentist appointments, to quickly get those in before our insurance runs out on the 30th. I need to keep exploring options to get new insurance in the interim while my husband searches for a new job. His job at the school ended last Wednesday. It was his second year at that particular job--all on 1-year contracts. The district has ended tons and tons of those particular jobs this year, and there are hundreds of people who aren't sure what they are doing in the fall, yet, but they all don't have a job or insurance lined up. On insurance alone, we figure the district is saving over $600,000 this summer alone by cutting all these contracts off. I get that, but it's hard for the ones that get cut. The new postings are for 3-1/4 hour positions, and we can't live on that few hours. He has part-time work that was already lined up for the summer, and I still have my job. Also, we put ourselves on the 12-month paycheck plan for the summer, so we are ok for now. He still needs a job by fall, and we need insurance for summer. We have not exhausted all our ideas for that, yet. Hopefully, we will make progress this week on that.
My car is really, really broken. The engine is blown, I guess, and our very good friend, the mechanic, is exploring options. My husband is trying to get the old Mazda from our nephew going. Hopefully, he can get it up and running soon. Right now, we are sharing the van. Hmmmm. I'm not very good at sharing a car. I drive ceaselessly. But, I've survived 4 days of sharing so far:). FYI, it doesn't save much gas when you do everything in a 15-passenger van, but that's what we have, left over from the days when there were many, many kids still at home.
I'm getting ready to go backpacking as a woman sponsor for the teen agers at church, including my daughter and niece. I'm hoping I have even half as much fun as I think I will have. I've very excited, but know I'm rusty as I haven't been for years.
Then, we will go camping for a few days in our camper. We will take our nephew, and he loves the camper, so we should have fun.
Sending you happy computer vibes! Mine updated itself in January, and that update caused the hard drive to fail. We finally sent it in early this month and they basically had to replace all the insides. We were extremely fortunate that it was still under warranty. It's so nice to have a laptop again that I've had to watch how much time I'm spending on it!
ReplyDeleteYour pantry picture is lovely! All those home-canned jars. Mine are all shoved in the back behind everything else, and I don't have nearly as many. I have plans to can some more jelly, but we'll see if I get around to that. Things are a bit crazy around my place as of late, and we're adding my son's birthday to the mix this week, so I've got all the party planning and food making and cake baking to go along with that.
I'm working on my late grandmother's cross stitched table runner, so I need to update my blog on my (slow!) progress on that. I'd really like to get that done by Christmas- can you believe it's almost halfway to Christmas already? I should also start looking at what I'd like to make my daughter for Christmas. I have a few ideas, including a sewn stuffed platypus, but we'll see. :) I should also check and see if her mittens still fit and if I'll need to knit her new ones. Winter will be here before we know it...