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!