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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Weekly Goals ... Week of October 1st and Update on Last Week

Please note that I managed to cross off EVERY SINGLE ITEM on my list!  Just the fact that the list is sitting there next to my computer keeps me so much more accountable.  When the computer is being touchy or slow, I get up and do something.  Ingenious, Huh? 

Hope I can keep this up.  I might actually be ready for Christmas this year!


Last Week's Goals.... Week of September 24th

Family:

  • Make copies of Bible Study Stuff.  Finally got this done!  Now to actually start the Bible Study with the kids next week!
  • Write Gene a Love Note.
  • Check four things off the Fall Bucket List. Johnny Appleseed Day Celebration with apple food at every meal, Johnny Appleseed videos on YouTube and a trip to the apple orchard.  We had hot spiced apple cider.  The kids didn't care for it.  I drank a half gallon by myself.  We made a fall wreath.  Cute, with glittery spiders.  And I got the porch decorated for fall with the help of my oldest minion.
  • Check in with kids on school work every day. I need to make this a habit.  I think that the kids were a lot more diligent about actually finishing everything when they knew I was going to check each evening rather than at the end of the week.
Personal:

 
  • Read The Five Love Languages of Teenagers.  I finished this book while exercising this week.  Excellent sugestions.  now I need to figure out the kids' love languages.
  • Exercise four times.  I actually rode the exercise bike five mornings this week.
  • Lose four pounds.  I lost enough that I was a half pound lower than my lowest weight when I went to the doctor on Thursday.
  • Pedicure.  Who knew that painting spider webs on my toenails would be such a pain in the patootie?  I redid them three times and I am still not so happy with the results.
Homemaking:
 
  • Fall decorations on the porch.  The cats seem to think that I put the hay bales out there just for them!
  • Get out Abby's winter clothes.  They are out of storage.  The process of trying on everything and getting it hung up takes a while.  There aren't enough hangers to hang it all up until more of the summer stuff can get put away.  It will have to be a work in progress. 
  • Make daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning check lists.  Done.  I like it.  I think that just having one list on a clipboard rather than three or four will make it easier to see what needs accomplished.
  • Switch my clothes to winter. What a mess!  I got rid of a bunch of stuff that is just too big and sloppy looking.  Woot!  I hope all of the jeans I have will fit.  I didn't try anything on; I just stuck it in the drawer.  The bonus of it all was that I cleaned up my closet a bit and went through my Christmas Gift/Project tote and rediscovered a few things that I intended to do last year and can finish pretty quickly this year if I get on the ball.
  • Make laundry soap.  Done.  I love the smell of Fels-Naptha! I have my own recipe that is a combination of lots of other people's powdered soap recipes.
Finances:
 
  • Track all spending for the week.  I kept track and I was apalled.  Apparently every time I leave the house I spend a great deal of money.
  • Write six blog posts.  I wrote five posts.  I am calling it a success!
Christmas Prep:
 
  • Cross stitch for at least three hours. I worked on this for about five hours at the beginning of the week.  I need to get it finished so I can figure out about framing it!
  • Start a Christmas Gift List.
  • Crochet borders on nine squares.  I also got a couple of solid squares finished!
  • Christmas gift budget.  I even made an excel spreadsheet to keep track.  Now I am going to have to make it a goal to keep it updated.
School:
  • Post about interest in high school breakfast club.   No responses.  How dissapointing.  I think Marshall and his one buddy will just start meeting for breakfast once a week on their own!
  • Co-op lesson.  Not my turn!  How nice is that?
Green items have been forwarded from last week's list.  Blue items are ongoing until they are finished or become a habit.

On to next week.

There are only 85 days until Christmas.  This is my favorite time of the year!

Weekly Goals .... Week of October 1st

Family:
  • Start Bible study with kids.
  • Write Gene a love note.
  • Check two things off the bucket list.
Personal:
  • Exercise four times (two on the treadmill).
  • Lose four pounds.
  • Three blog posts.
Homemaking:
  • Organize sewing basket.
  • Complete living room list.
  • Put out Halloween decorations.
Finances:
  • Make spending spreadsheet and update.
  • Keep Christmas budget spreadsheet current.
  • Menu plan around grocery deals.
Holiday:
  • Nine squares completed and assembled.
  • Complete cross stitch.
  • Finish one gift.
School:
  • Lesson for co-op on elections.
  • Check in with kids' school every day.
Green items have been forwarded from last week's list.  Blue items are ongoing until they are finished or become a habit.

Here's to keeping the momentum going!

Happy Johnny Appleseed Day


Can you say "Good Sports?"

I love my kids.

I love the fact that even though they are teenagers they are willing to play along and do silly things, celebrate silly holidays, and enjoy being with me.

Attending a cyber school means that they spend almost all of their time with me.  We are all three at home together every day.  They almost never have an attitude, they do what they are told, and best of all, they enjoy having fun!

One of the items on our Fall Bucket List was to celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day, September 26th.  It was a pretty laid back celebration!  We ate apple french toast for breakfast, had apple pudding and dried cinnamon apple chips with lunch, and had apple crisp with caramel ice cream for dessert after supper.  We read about John Chapman on wikipedia, and we watched a Disney video on You Tube. 

As holidays go, it was pretty inexpensive and laid-back.  The kids might have groaned a little when I woke them up shouting "Happy Johnny Appleseed Day."  But, they got into the spirit of things.

Little things, done with a great deal of enthusiasm make for the best memories.

Especially for moms!

Friday, September 28, 2012

Spider Web Fall "Wreath"


Abby says it's not a wreath if there isn't a hole in the middle. 

I say it's a wreath 'cause we hung it on the door. 



We took an old, very ugly painting from the thrift store that had a kind of fancy looking plastic frame and transformed it into a webby home for some very glitzy spiders.

First I had Marshall spray paint the front and the back of the frame black.  For some odd reason, he was wearing a trench coat while he painted.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to get a picture of that.  {My children are a bit strange sometimes.}

Next we disassembled the frame.  I was glad to see that there were two pieces of cardboard in the frame so we would be able to hide the back of the spider web.

I wrapped some cotton yarn around the frame for the base of the spider web.  I used some very attractive duct tape to hold the yarn in the position I liked.  Abby wove the yarn around the spokes to create a very effective spider web.  We used a little Elmer's glue at each intersection to hold the web in place.



As the glue was drying, we positioned the spiders on the frame.  I was all for just using one spider from the package of six that we picked up at Hobby Lobby, but Abby thought it would be lonely and she found places for all six. 



I made a big, loopy bow from black and orange mesh ribbon and tied it onto the frame.

After the glue was all dry, we carefully reassembled the frame, I struggled to get all of the pieces jammed back together.  Finally, it was all together!  We ceremonially hung it on the door and took a picture.

Another thing checked off the Fall Bucket List.


Super cute, relatively easy, and not so scary Halloween decor for the door!


Abby still says it's not a wreath!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Spider Web Nails



One of the items on my Goal List this week was to give myself a pedicure.  Abby had recently requested purple nail polish, and I had visions of purple nails with spider webs and big black spiders.  Scary, huh?

Since it is rather difficult to reach one's toes with the amount of weight that I still need to lose, I decided to try out my design on my left thumb nail.  I liked the color, the spider web was a little wonky, but taking into consideration the crummy brush I had available, it turned out OK.

The spider, on the other hand, looked like a big fat tick. 

I took it all off and started again. 

No spiders for the toes!

I proceeded to try out the whole process on my toes.  Turns out, third time's a charm on the old toenails.  After much complaining and polish removal, I had what I thought was a credible spider web pedicure.

I'll let you be the judge of that!




In the interest of keeping it real here, take a look at this picture of my toes.  Apparently I am not only hampered by being too chubby to reach my toes, my eyes are so bad that I couldn't tell how messy the polish was until I looked at the picture.

Hopefully, no one looks that closely at my toes, 'cause I'm leaving them like this till Halloween!

Now, that's really scary stuff!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Fall Bucket List...The Cute Version



Because a list written on paper is OK, but a scrapbooked, foofed up, cute one is awesome, I made our Fall Bucket List into a "Bucket" List.

I used a little metal tub that I found floating around when I put out the Fall decorations and some clothespins that had been painted with orange dots and stripes from back in the day when we used to do craft shows.  I picked up a fall scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby, along with coordinating green, orange, and cream colored papers.  A chipboard shape left over from another project and some raffia that I think came off of an old candle rounded out the supply list.  Oh yeah, and a magnet I took off the fridge and pried the embellishment off of!

Talk about cheap!  The only thing I bought was the paper, and it was half off!



I glued tiny strips of paper in two colors to the clothespins.  Chalked the edges with brown to rough it up a bit and used a black Sharpie to write each item from the list on to its own clothespin. 



After I glued the leaf patterned paper to the chipboard, I added three layers of card stock and wrote "Fall Bucket List 2012 on the cream colored rectangle.

All of the clothespins got clipped on, the raffia got wrapped around, and I used the magnet to stick the chip board piece onto the bucket so that it would stay at the angle I wanted.

After we finish an item on the list, we will unclip it and put it in the bucket.




So far we only have one thing completed.  We have to get on the ball!

***Look at that picture of Abby and her Daddy on her second birthday.  Can you tell that her daddy likes her just a little bit?  He doesn't let us take his picture often so it is extra special to me!

Linked to these crafty parties:

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Weekly Goals: Recap and Week of 9-24-2012

Not so much progress on my list this week.  Apparently this was my week to make excuses about why I couldn't get anything done.  Ughhh!  Now I need to accomplish even more this week.

Here is what I accomplished last week:

 

Family:

  • Make copies of Bible Study Stuff. Did not do this.  My excuse is that the copy place is in the Apple Festival area and I didn't want to have to fight to find parking.
  • Write Gene a Love Note.  Done
  • Check two things off the Fall Bucket List. Not a single thing. Everything we tried to do did not work out the way I had hoped.
Personal:
  • Finish Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince.  I did finish this book and it was excellent.  The grace of God toward us is such an amazing thing!
  • Exercise four times.  Actually did this.  I rode the exercise bike and read my book.
  • Lose four pounds. Hah!  I think I gained a pound.  I have an appointment with the diet doctor this week and I vow to have lost some weight.
Homemaking:

  • Fall decorations on the porch. Nope.  Went shopping for mums and was apalled at the prices.  I will have another go at it this week.
  • Put away Abby's summery summer clothes.   One giant tote of stuff is put away.  Still need to get out the winter stuff and go through it.  As cold as it has been I think I could put away the capris too.
  • Make daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning check lists. I sort of made a handwritten copy, but I want to make a printable copy.
Finances:
 
  • Catch up on cutting coupons.  Done!  I had two weeks worth.  Now just to keep up with it.  I am making this an item on my weekly to do list.
  • Write three blog posts. Just one post.  I have been having issues with my photo editor running on this slow old computer.
Christmas Prep:
 
  • Fancy up the Fall Bucket List.   So cute!  I will be posting a quick tutorial for it soon.
  • Figure out the afghan pattern I am going to use and at least get started.   I did decide on a plan.  I haven't actually started, but I am calling this a success. 
  • Cross stitch for at least three hours.   Barely worked for three hours.  Still so far to go.
  • Start a Christmas Gift List. Nope!
So much that didn't get done. We did have a great field trip on Friday to the Ohio Statehouse with the Homeschool Co-op with dinner out, thrift store shopping for zombie costumes, and frozen yougurt!  There were several visits with my oldest son and an emergency waterfall creation for my niece's science class project so I thought I had some good excuses!

I have decided that anything that doesn't get finished from the week before gets added to the list along with goals for this week rather than just forwarding things forever.  My list may be a hundred items long soon if I don't get on the ball.

Here goes!

Weekly Goals .... Week of September 24th

Family:

 

  • Make copies of Bible Study Stuff.
  • Write Gene a Love Note.
  • Check four things off the Fall Bucket List.
  • Check in with kids on school work every day.
 
Personal:
 
  • Read The Five Love Languages of Teenagers.
  • Exercise four times.
  • Lose four pounds.
  • Pedicure
Homemaking:
 
  • Fall decorations on the porch.
  • Get out Abby's winter clothes. 
  • Make daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning check lists.
  • Switch my clothes to winter.
  • Make laundry soap. 
Finances:
 
  • Track all spending for the week.
  • Write six blog posts.
Christmas Prep:
 
  • Cross stitch for at least three hours.
  • Start a Christmas Gift List.
  • Crochet borders on nine squares.
  • Christmas gift budget.
School:
  • Post about interest in high school breakfast club.
  • Co-op lesson.
Green items have been forwarded from last week's list.  Blue items are ongoing until they are finished or become a habit.

Lots of work to do!  No excuses this week!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Update on Last Week's Goals and a New Week

Last week I managed to check off nearly everything on my list.  Obviously putting it out there in cyberspace for someone to read had a motivating effect on me.

Here is what I accomplished last week:

Family:
  • Make a Fall Bucket List with the kids. I forced the kids to sit down with me and come up with 20 ideas.  Some were strange and a lot revolved around food.  You can see our Fall Bucket list here.
  • Write hubby a lovey dovey card or note. Done!  Nuff said 'bout that!
  • Organize the Bible Study stuff so that we can start over. I figured out where we need to start from but I didn't get the copies made.
Personal:
  • Read Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince. I did read quite a bit but I still need to finish.
  • Exercise 4 times.
  • Lose back to my lowest weight. I lost a few pounds but not quite where I wanted to be.  I blame it on Red Lobster.
Homemaking:
  • Wash all the glassware on the chicken shelf and dust all of the cubbies. Done!  Epic!
  • Put out all the fall decorations. Did the inside.  Still have to do outside.
  • Finish pinstriping the buggy.  Finished, more on that soon.
Finances:
  • Send resume to the elementary and middle school principals.  Sent and I got a positive response! 
  • Write two blog posts.
Christmas Prep:
  • Finish baby afghan. All wrapped up and ready for the baby shower next month.  Amazing my powers of preparing ahead, Huh? 
  • Cross stitch for at least two hours.  About four hours worth but still a long way to go.
  • Decide on Christmas card pattern.  Still need to buy supplies.
  • Print January through August pictures for the calendar. In the mail!
Wow!  I got a lot done.

On to next week's list.

Weekly Goals .... Week of September 17th

Family:
  • Make copies of Bible Study Stuff.
  • Write Gene a Love Note.
  • Check two things off the Fall Bucket List.


Personal:
  • Finish Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince.
  • Exercise four times.
  • Lose four pounds.

Homemaking:
  • Fall decorations on the porch.Fancy up the Fall Bucket List
  • Put away Abby's summery summer clothes.
  • Make daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning check lists.

Finances:
  • Catch up on cutting coupons.
  • Write three blog posts.

Christmas Prep:
  • Fancy up the Fall Bucket List.
  • Figure out the afghan pattern I am going to use and at least get started.
  • Cross stitch for at least three hours.
  • Start a Christmas Gift List.
Hope I can do as well this week as I did last week.  Christmas is only 99 days away.  Maybe I should just have 15 Christmas prep things on my list!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Fall Bucket List


Fall always means outdoor stuff at our house.  The weather is cooler and we don't have to suffer all of that Ohio humidity.  Camping always happens.  We drag out some horses and I spend a couple days slaving over a hot fire cooking for a whole crew of ungrateful whelps.

Fun time, fun times.

The kids and I sat down and made a list of all the things we want to do and all the places we want to go this fall.  Some strange things made it onto the list, but hey, it is all about making sure that we purposely make time do do the things that are important to everyone.

Fall Bucket List
  1. Go to the Buckeye Furnace Fall Fest and camp after we spend all day making and selling Hobo Pies to raise money for the Friends of Buckeye Furnace.
  2. Weber Farms Field Trip with the Homeschool Co-op.
  3. Spend the day at the Renaisance Festival (in costume of course).  Have a smoked turkey leg for lunch.
  4. Drink hot spiced apple cider.
  5. Make jack-o-lanterns.
  6. Roast pumpkin seeds.
  7. Eat caramel apples.
  8. Make new costumes (for the Ren Fest).
  9. Make pumpkin bread.
  10. Decorate the porch for fall with mums and pumpkins.
  11. Scary Movie Night ( at our house that means an old 1950's black and white thriller).
  12. Canal Boat ride in Coshocton
  13. Farmer's Market for fall flowers and pumpkins.
  14. Make new safety swords.
  15. Make a new fall wreath.
  16. Deep fry a turkey.
  17. Make or buy pumpkin spice lattes.
  18. Visit the Ohio History Center (maybe for a Halloween event)
  19. Celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day on September 26th.
  20. Have a weinie roast and make s'mores.
  21. Fall Photo Shoot with Hannah.
I see a lot of food on that list.  Hmmm?  Wonder who put all that stuff on there? 

Looks like we will have a busy fall!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Weekly Goals ... September 10th

I am hoping that just the act of typing out this list and posting it here will make some sort of magic happen that will allow me to accomplish my goals for this week.  Seems a bit unlikely, but at this point I am looking for all the help I can get!

Family:
  • Make a Fall Bucket List with the kids.
  • Write hubby a lovey dovey card or note.
  • Organize the Bible Study stuff so that we can start over.
Personal:
  • Read Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince.
  • Exercise 4 times.
  • Lose back to my lowest weight.
Homemaking:
  • Wash all the glassware on the chicken shelf and dust all of the cubbies.
  • Put out all the fall decorations.
  • Finish pinstriping the buggy.
Finances:
  • Send resume to the elementary and middle school principals
  • Write two blog posts.
Christmas Prep:
  • Finish baby afghan
  • Cross stitch for at least two hours.
  • Decide on Christmas card pattern.
  • Print January through August pictures for the calendar.
Sounds like a lot of stuff to accomplish in one week, but I like to set lofty goals.  That way if I only get half of it done then I at least accomplished something.

Okay. 

Here goes! 

Abracadabra! 

Hope the bloggy magic works!