So, I decided to copy and paste my goal past from the beginning of September to give us all a really good laugh at what I didn't accomplish! Check out the info below :-)
September means the official end of Summer, time for School to begin,
and time to focus on finishing out the year strong with my goals. It
usually means cooler weather so I can get more done even though this
coming week is being forecasted as "the hottest week of the summer".
Yikes!
Anyway - this is what is on my radar for the coming month:
1. Sell My Stuff. I mentioned in a previous post that I've given
myself until the end of September to get the stuff I sorted out of the
basement sold or it goes to Good Will. I have about 6 bins of stuff
plus about 5-8 bigger items to try and sell. I had good intentions. I even listed a couple of things and got zero response. Then school started and I never made it back out to the garage to do a thing. I need to take an upcoming Saturday and go through stuff. I'm thinking of just taking stuff to "Once upon a Child" to see what I can get for it and be done with it. I guess now I'm giving myself until the end of October to get it done HA!
2. Do the finishing clean-up in the basement. This will get
accomplished by doing #1 above, purchasing the last shelf I need to
store bins (which I have the $ for thanks to selling some other stuff),
and getting the last of the rubber floor mats for the boys room (again,
I've already sold stuff so I have the $ for these as well! Whoo whoo!) So, this sounded good when I wrote it but it never happened. Not one bit. Lets try again in October.
3. Shelf by Shelf - This project I also mentioned previously. It's so
much easier to tackle one/two shelves a day. I can clean the area (or
empty the bin) and make sure everything either gets donated, trashed, or
put in its rightful home in a matter of about 15 minutes. It always
amazes me how quickly things get cleaned out. A "shelf" doesn't really
mean just a shelf - it's a drawer, cupboard, bin, etc. I tend to "stash
and dash" when I'm doing huge cleaning jobs like I did this summer with
the basement so when I have random things, I pile them on a shelf (or
shelves) and now, I can go through all of those items. I didn't do a single thing on this project. Not. a. single. thing. I'm gearing up to start this again.
4. Scrapbooking - It's time to really focus on one thing. Getting
current. I will be ordering digital pages, working on current photos
and making sure that I am 100% current ASAP. I'm not even setting a
specific goal for September at this point - more like I need to plan
during the first week on how I'm going to do this and then just do it
every day. Scrapbooking? What's that? HA!
5. Birthday's and Christmas - With two birthdays and Christmas coming
so close together I have to plan now. I need to order the boys birthday
shirts this month. Plan what we will do for their birthdays, make gift
lists for both birthday and Christmas and plan ahead for all things.
There are always Christmas activities we would like to do so I want to
make sure that i plan then now so our family takes priority over other
things! Ok, I did actually do something! I ordered Josh's shirt. That's it. Time to plan, plan and plan some more!
6 The Outside. Our yard has been neglected this year. Right now, the
grass is long because we have a huge underground wasp nest we are
dealing with. Darryl got swarmed not long ago while mowing and ended up
with a pretty severe infection in both legs from the stings so he isn't
too keen on mowing until the wasps are gone. Planting new flowers
wasn't high on my list because there were other things I wanted to spend
our money on (like camping) but, it's time to weed and trim stuff back
to get ready for fall. This will happen closer to the end of the month
but it still needs done. Also, the pool will come down this month and
we plan to do a small fire "pit" in the pool area since the grass is
dead anyway (we did that this past spring too). I might also try to get
some bulbs to plant this fall - we planted some tulips last fall and it
was fun watching them come up this spring. Ok, the pool is down. I did clean out one flower bed and still have lots more to do.
7. The windows. Yep they get their own category HA! Darryl and I work
together on this project since I'm not tall enough to wash the outside
windows even wtih a ladder. He does the outside while I clean the
insides and spray down the screens. It really doesn't take that long,
it is just a pain to do. We'll also pull the A/C units out sometime
this month and store those away. hahahahahahahaha
8. Family Activities - I'd like to get to a zoo with the kids. Nate
requested this early this year but I like to wait until fall to avoid
the heat! We are also planning to camp one last time near the end of
the month. We did camp. I'm still trying to get to the zoo.
9. Planning - I've also started planning about what I want my theme
word/focus to be next year. It seems early, but it isn't. I have an
idea and want to research ways to actually implement the concept not
only in my own life but that of our family too. I have some other
planning to do too - just taking time to write down some
things/ideas/plans that I would like to accomplish not only for me but
for/with the family too. Still thinking . .and thinking . . and thinking
10. Financial goals - I'll be honest, the "no spend" concept in August
didn't go as well. I let it slide a few times and once it starts to
slide it keeps sliding. So, for September, I'm back to planning out our
budget and not spending where we don't need to spend. August was a
much better month but we didn't end quite where we wanted to so I'm
hopeful that September will put us back in the right spot. I'm also
doing lots of researching on ways to make just a little more income from
home as the Munchkin will be in school full time. Time to start over again
I think that's all for the month. Now to take this list and break it
down into some daily tasks that can be accomplished around school :-)
