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 forcasted 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.
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!)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :-)
