Goals for this 4th week of January

Glad to start off a new week!  And I've already completed 3 of Cara's lessons and worked out at the Y today :).  Love starting weeks feeling 'ahead' or at least 'on track!'

Here is how I fared last week:

1.  Have budget meeting with E and set our financial goals for 2012

Done, though there is still tweaking going on....right honey?? That volume pedal was just miraculously NEEDED yesterday  :)

2.  Continue my daily chronological bible reading

3.  Work out at the YMCA 3 times--well, I walked for over 2 hours Monday at the zoo and did level one of the 30 day shred on Thursday.  Didn't hit the Y three times, but I also couldn't walk all weekend (from soreness--yes, I am out of shape, DUH), but I've gone back today! :)

4.  Stay caught up with my Perspectives reading

I cannot say enough good things about this class. It is blessing my socks off and I'm learning and digging into things I've read before but didn't really comprehend! Would recommend to ANYONE!

5.  Create coupon filing system

Done, if you count "putting date on front of insert and stacking them in order" as a system :). But it works!

6.  Finish reading Molly's Surprise to Cara and start book 4

--well finished reading, but we are starting book 4 today.

7.  Schedule spring swim lessons for M & C

8.  Complete 2 digi-scrap pages

You can check out my facebook albums here and here :)

9.  Write out birthdays for the year and plan gifts so I can shop sales

FAIL

10.  Bless 2 friends by watching their kids this week (this may or may not already be planned) :)

70% is better than last week :)

Here are this weeks goals:
1.  Continue my daily chronological bible reading
2.  Stay caught up with my Perspectives reading
3.  Work out at the YMCA or at home (30 day shred) 3 days this week
4.  Take C & A to the zoo on Tuesday with our homeschool group
6.  Read Molly #4 with Cara
7.  Get 3 new books from library and read with Micah
8.  Complete 2 digi scrap pages
9.  Write out birthdays for the year and plan gifts so I can shop sales
10.  Plan our next date night (me & E) :)

Menu Plan Monday

All I can say is that over the past 3 weeks of meal planning, I've saved some serious cash when grocery shopping!  And I've been trying to 'shop' out of my freezer full of meat, so it helps that I'm only buying most sides/ingredients/produce/milk.  So here is what's on the menu for this week:

Monday: Snack/leftovers/almost done produce (we had a late lunch from the zoo
Tuesday: cereal and fruit, pasta lunch, veggie chowder for dinner.  YUM!
Wednesday: biscuits, fruit, leftovers for lunch, tuna casserole
Thursday: Sausage & Cheese crescent squares with homemade crescent roll dough, leftovers, tacos
Friday: cereal and fruit, leftovers, baked potatoes with our recipe to taste like hot wings (cooked chicken, cream cheese, Frank's hot sauce and blue cheese)
Saturday: smoothies (have JITC deal to use) and pancakes, sandwiches, fish and veggies
Sunday: cereal and fruit, grilled cheese/avocado, Lasagna (already in the freezer)

Trying a few new recipes this week, thank you Pinterest :).

Linked to Tip Junkie's Menu Plan Monday.

This week's goals

New week, new goals.  Eric had the day off so we took the kids to the zoo mid-day, every one slept in the car on the way home, we played outside for hours (well, he and the kids and I got to vacuum the whole house and fold clothes alone!) and now everyone is exhausted and in bed.  Love days like today, but it doesn't help with my blogging :)

So here are last weeks goals:

1.   Continue with my daily chronological bible reading 

2.  Work out at the YMCA 3 times (did 2 times last week)

3.  Finish reading What Women Fear (Bailey nook-lent it to me, finished today!) another post coming!

4.  Follow meal plan and cook 5 days this week -- mostly followed it, but went out one night when we hadn't planned--but have leftover meals to make this week!

5.  Figure out new coupon system (have re-started couponing as of 1/1/12!)  Not really done unless you call pulling the inserts and putting the dates on the front a system :)

6.  Finish reading Molly's Surprise to Cara -- 1 chapter left!

7.  Try to finish beanie I'm working on -- NOPE, only worked on it once last week!

8.  Write 2 more Christmas thank you cards

9.  Making bags to hand out to homeless people in our community tomorrow with our homeschool group: goal this week is to find 5 people to hand them out to. -- well made bags and have handed 2 out.  I think I like them in the car, it makes me search for people to bless and pray for.

10.  Date night with Eric!

Eric's mom watched the kids and we went and saw Sherlock Holmes 2! I actually enjoyed it, it was funny!

So 50% completion rate :).  Let's (or, haha, I'll) try for better this week.  I will have to say that although I didn't get these all completed, having them made me think more about my time.  I also had 3-5 to do's each day (based on Money Saving Mom's homemaking binder--I used her daily docket here.) so I feel like I got even more accomplished.  I finished my 2nd book of the year and started my 3rd, stayed ahead on my reading for my perspectives class, scheduled and launched the Tot 2 Tot Spring sale (with my partners) and we had a decent home school week and stayed on track.  

Goals for 1/15 - 1/21

1.  Have budget meeting with E and set our financial goals for 2012

2.  Continue my daily chronological bible reading

3.  Work out at the YMCA 3 times

4.  Stay caught up with my Perspectives reading

5.  Create coupon filing system

6.  Finish reading Molly's Surprise to Cara and start book 4

7.  Schedule spring swim lessons for M & C

8.  Complete 2 digi-scrap pages

9.  Write out birthdays for the year and plan gifts so I can shop sales

10.  Bless 2 friends by watching their kids this week (this may or may not already be planned) :)

This post links to Money Saving Mom's weekly goals.

New Needle Crafts

I taught myself how to knit about 3 years ago. It was fun, and I still enjoy it. This time of year always gets me wanting to do things with my hands. Good football game on, or something where I have to sit for awhile, and my fingers like to keep busy. I realized how much I like it, and so I'm trying to work a few minutes (like 10-20) in my day, typically at the end of the day after dinner. We eat VERY early (like 5:15/5:30) and while we're either reading together, or cleaning up, I'll sit down and try to get a few stitches done.

So, a couple days after Christmas, I kept seeing all these super cute things on Pinterest, and I decided I needed to learn how to crochet. I've heard knitting is harder, so I just needed to sit down with youtube for a bit and learn. Eric ran an errand and the kids were playing, so I taught myself the basic few stitches in about 10 minutes.

Here's my first flower. A little lopsided, I am bad at counting stitches, so I added an extra petal :)


My second attempt. This was actually very fast and easy, but I still need to be better at counting.

That's my only problem with crocheting right now, it takes lots of counting, and my house is rarely quiet enough to do that well :).

Going back to my goals post yesterday, I'm trying to get things finished. So this hat I started and was supposed to be a newborn hat for Anna, ha! It was all the way done I just had to tie it off!!! So I finished it last week (though I still need to add the pompom at the end.

I made my 3rd flower with the same yarn and it's the best one yet!

I thought it was cute together!

So now I'm working on crocheting a baby beanie. This is what I'm picking up and working on in the evenings. It's pretty easy, but it takes counting, which I'm not so hot on remembering!! So it'll definitely be for my kids to 'love'!

Interested? Here are some of my favorite tutorials. And if you don't know a stitch, just google it, you'll find NUMEROUS videos and tutorial!

The "Magic Ring" tutorial

The baby headband with flower tutorial

Basic beanie tutorial

First flower I made tutorial

Goals

Making goals, even if they are very short-term goals, helps me. I've been doing a lot of them the past few weeks and wow has it made a difference. It's funny, because I know how to do all these things, and we can survive without them, but doing them makes the days seem SO much better, and things just get done.  So over Christmas break, with Eric home (especially the week after Christmas), I had a goal to get some things done.  One of my projects was probably the very first thing I pinned to pinterest.  This fall we got back to using our cash system, and I decided to make some envelopes to use.  We have blow money, groceries, gasoline, Christmas, clothing and dining out here.  I used an iron on transfer for the words.  Some came out, some didn't.  But I LOVE them, and I've really stuck to the budget and it's been fun for me :).

Here's the tutorial I followed.  Only took maybe 30 minutes!  

Something else (again, I know!) I got back to doing was meal planning.  Even if it's just a basic meal plan though (that's how I like it!), I love being able to see the whole week, especially to make good use of my time.  Today, thanks to planning and a dreary day, we were done with school pretty early.  So after lunch, while Anna napped and the big kids played, I went ahead and prepped dinner.  Turns out, I had double the chicken thighs, so I made one for tonight and put the marinade together for one for the freezer.  Love that!  

Then later, after we got back from the Y, I had a few minutes while dinner was cooking, and looked down our list.  Pizza is one day this week and I'm out of my homemade dough, so I whipped that up, and it rose while we ate dinner (though we were confused when the timer went off---haha!  took us a minute to figure out what it was for!).  

I got this cute menu from a local gal.  She also makes labels similar to the expensive ones that start with an M and end in abel for half the price!  She's great!  Here's a link to her facebook page.  

This weekend was so refreshing!  We had absolutely NOTHING on the calendar, so we played, had fun, and got some major STUFF done.  I'm completely done pricing, entering and tagging all of my items to sell in Tot 2 Tot this spring.  That typically doesn't happen until the night before.  And when you're the owner, that doesn't work well!

We also got some items listed on craigslist, cleaned out the garage, got items ready for a friend who is having a garage sale soon to bring home their little one, and even had enough room for the '57 that Eric inherited from his dad!  It's been sitting in the driveway, which is fine, but when the kids want to ride bikes, it takes up a lot of space, so now we can move our cars to the street and they have lots of space!  

So, after all that accomplishing, and watching my sis and Money Saving Mom do it, I decided to set some goals each week.  I may not get them all done, and I may not post every week, but the past 3 days have been so great, might as well try to keep that going!  So here are my top ten:

1.  Continue with my daily chronological bible reading

2.  Work out at the YMCA 3 times (did 2 times last week)

3.  Finish reading What Women Fear (Bailey nook-lent it to me, finished today!) another post coming!

4.  Follow meal plan and cook 5 days this week

5.  Figure out new coupon system (have re-started couponing as of 1/1/12!)

6.  Finish reading Molly's Surprise to Cara 

7.  Try to finish beanie I'm working on

8.  Write 2 more Christmas thank you cards

9.  Making bags to hand out to homeless people in our community tomorrow with our homeschool group: goal this week is to find 5 people to hand them out to.

10.  Date night with Eric!

This post is linked up at OhAmanda's Top Ten  Tuesday...check it out! 

Of books and Goals

I love fresh starts.  I'm not big on resolutions, but I love setting goals, and I have a renewed love of reading now that I have fun new toys to help me be able to pick up where I left off more easily.  Another blogger I enjoy has set her goals of reading 24 books this year.  I want to set a goal.  So here's my list.  I'm going to be doing some of these on my own, and some in a newly forming book club of friends.  I hope to read (much, much) more, I was going to put more on the list, but since one is over 3,000 pages, I thought 12 was good.  Plus, I'm taking a very reading intensive class this spring.  If you have some great fiction book ideas, send them my way.  I've been out of that loop for a few years, but love them because they're fast and easy!

Ok, so here goes:

The Bible (I started out following the 90 day reading plan, but have slacked some)
What Women Fear by Angie Smith (my sister lent me this on the Nook and I'm about 1/3 of the way through)
Bloodlines
The Hole in the Gospel (about 1/3 of the way through this one too) :)
Kisses for Katie
Celebration of Discipline
The Hour that Matters Most
A Positive Life
Totally Together
Adopted for Life
7
Radical (because I've been putting it off now for far too long)