When the weather gives you spring...

We've had basically no snow this winter, and lately the temperature has been getting above freezing during the sunny daytimes. It feels like spring, but it is still January. My husband said the other day, well, if the weather is acting like spring, then we should act like spring, and start working on our normal spring-time chores and property fixups.

We walked around, and decided where the next side of the yard fence would go, to keep the dogs a bit better contained (hard to stop the disgusting poo-eating behavior when you can't see them, ahem), and to better define the distinction between maintained yard/orchard/future pasture.

One of our goals this year is to get the rest of the yard fenced, so we have a safer place for the dogs to be, and a safer place for the kids to be, requiring a little less parent supervision. This way we are hoping that the dogs and kids (and thus us!) can be outside a lot more, but in a more contained space. That was part of the idea behind having the new side garden, and the playstructure right there, so that we could be close enough, but each be doing our own thing if desired.

As you can see from the pictures (taken at dawn as the moon set and the sun rays then started to hit the mountains to our west), there really isn't much snow! It might be a bad year for the river levels, and for wildfires, if we don't get any significant snow in the next couple of months. And this canadian expat is seriously jonesing for some white blanketed views!

I think this is going to be one of those 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' times, and the mister was already out earlier this week doing some pick up of leftover logs/boards from the side garden fencing we did last spring, and used them to keep working on burning the stumps out of the bottom of the yard. There is always work to be done, and if winter snow isn't going to force the work to stop, then I guess we had better make use of this time, who knows what weather the next months will hold!

On future goals and things to learn

I started this post near the end of last month, before the craziness of September hit, and then never had time to come back to it and publish it. However, looking back at what I drafted up, I'm finding it amazing to see what progress I've already made towards these future goals I almost shared! I inserted my progress in bold italics...

I'm slowly surfacing from new-baby-itis, and I'm realizing that since back in January I didn't really set goals for the year other than having a healthy baby, I'm starting to feel a bit aimless. Now let me assure you that my number one goal this year is still to have a healthy baby - that doesn't stop just because she's out in the world. Oh no, I'm still breastfeeding her like crazy, and we won't be starting to introduce solids until she's good and ready (whenever she decides that is). So really, for the rest of the next year plus, I'll still be primarily focused on keeping myself well watered, de-stressed, and eating as healthy as I can manage in order to keep her as topped up on breastmilk as I can.

But I'm starting to feel a bit restless, which generally means I need to define my future a bit more clearly for myself. Some things I'm thinking of putting on my learning goals list in the near future include:

• making our own vanilla (I happen to know a great recipe book with this in it is hidden somewhere in the house for my upcoming birthday!)
• making soap
• looking into essential oils, maybe buying a first one or two - peppermint? lavender? (I'm hoping next month to get an intro pack of 3 doterra oils - peppermint lavender and lemon) 
• making and freezing/canning? our own chicken stock
• sourdough. I wanna bake bread with it - thus my own starter is needed... need to learn more!
• ferments? not sure about this one, still don't know enough to feel comfortable
• brewing my own beer now that I'm not pregnant!
• decide on a chicken breed or 2 to stick with from the seven we have currently... and decide whether to add to the flock this coming year or try to hatch our own - need a rooster first for that though! (We brought home a free americauna cross rooster last week, he's young still, and apparently pretty shy, but we'll see how that goes over the winter and then perhaps settle on Speckled Sussex if he doesn't work out) 
• getting back on the cloth diaper bandwagon I've not yet got started on with baby #2 - every time I put her in them she has a crazy blowout poop. totally coincidence, but not making my life easier! (I determined that the problem is our old ones have shot elastics, and the inserts needed to be replaced, something about using them solid for almost 3 years with Little M! I've started to order replacements, 5 should be coming in the mail later this week, and I'll slowly build my stash back up!)

Other future plans I need to think more about in my free time (usually when I'm walking the baby getting her to sleep, or nursing her at night)

• setting some (easy) rowing goals
• doing a better job recording our garden harvests for planning for next year - for example 22.5 & 6.5 lbs of potatoes needs to be written down somewhere or I'll forget come next spring let alone next fall! (I've started developing a spreadsheet that I'll print and put in my home notebook once it's finished, with columns for seeds sown, amount eaten & preserved, etc)
• figuring out a plan for next spring's most likely outside big chore - in-ground irrigation and some grass seed, plus figuring out the ideal fence location on the east side of the inner yard.

Well, there you have it, some plans and dreams for the future year. Hopefully this will give me some guidance on lonely evenings and quiet days for what to research and think about! Nothing like setting goals to get me motivated :)

Setting priorities to get the necessary stuff done!

So the mister is on true nights for the next 3-6 months, meaning 4 days a week he's leaving the house at 5 when we are eating supper, and returning at 5 in the morning when we are all soundly asleep. This means that for most of the day Little M and I  (and the dogs!) need to stay as quiet as possible. On Saturday this worked out well, we had some errands to run in town - recycling to sort and drop off at the recycling depot, and potatoes to pick and buy at the gardening store. Sunday I had grand plans of spending most of the morning outside putzing around the property. We have lots to do, but I wasn't going to care if we got anything done, feeling that keeping the house quiet was goal met enough. However, we woke up to this, which kept falling for over 2 hours in thick wet bunches!

So the wet snow falling and slightly sticking kinda put a damper on our outside plans, so instead we ended up inside in a somewhat cloudy-dreary house. What to do? While Little M occupied herself with a little game while swinging herself in the much-too-small baby swing, I decided that since we're getting down to the last (less than 10!) weeks of this pregnancy, I likely should have a master list of what I want to get done before baby arrives, so that I can prioritize the most critical items and let myself relax the rest of the time... For example, I've been spending a lot of time and energy on the new side garden space, which really isn't one of my yearly goals, let alone a goal for before the baby gets here, meanwhile there are definitely things that need to get done before baby comes that I've been putting off.... Hmmm... So time to start prioritizing my limited time and energy I figured!

I won't bore you with a play by play list of what all I need to do, but lets just say I was fairly specific, writing down small chunks of tasks that would each be easily do-able with the energy levels and time windows I typically have. By the late morning, I had my list complete, broken into sections - Garden, Property, Little M, Cleaning, and Baby, and then color-coded by month. Month, however, ended up being a bit of a mistake. There were some things that had specific months for completion - planting certain vegetable starts out, or certain baby doctor appointments for example, but for the most part, I just shoved everything else into April, although I sorted it by importance. I'm not yet sure if that will leave me feeling overwhelmed and make me attempt to get everything done, or if it will work in that I do the things I have time for and don't get done the less important things. Time will tell!

Already yesterday I did 2 of the more pressing tasks that I had definitely been putting off for much too long in favor of new garden fun chores - I made contact with a doula about her availability for our due date time window, and fixed the kitchen sink faucet which had (again, sigh), come unscrewed from its base so was requiring two hands to turn on and off. So I'll consider the list successful thus far :)

On learning to set weekly goals

I like having goals. And I like meeting them even more. So that means having the ability to set reasonable yearly goals. I've been doing pretty good at that the past few years. Last year, with my household notebook I was even better, and I think I did a good job at setting reasonable monthly goals that were in line with my yearly goals. Again with the help of my household notebook, I was really good last year about setting daily to-do tasks that were within reason. The thing I wasn't very good at was setting weekly goals that would get me to meeting my monthly goals, and taking daily to-do's from those weekly goals.

I still managed to make most of my monthly goals, and I still think my daily to-do's were ok, but I think I could have been better about meeting & exceeding my monthly goals, or accomplishing more ambitious monthly goals, or just being more effective in my daily tasks - getting the most important things done, if I had weekly goals to focus on & help me along to my monthly goals.

This year I am determined to make progress to improve my weekly goal-setting abilities. Part of what it means for me, especially in this season of my life where I am growing a new baby, preparing for said new baby to arrive, and wrangling a 3 year old, is breaking things down into discrete chunks of work that can be done in around 10-15 minutes per task. Because seriously, about the only times that I get longer than that to work on things is when Little M is napping, and that is about the only time I get to have any of my down time, so I don't need to be filling that precious time up with to-do things!

So on my list of weekly goals for this week is making a detailed list of everything I want to have in Little M's big girl room & what steps are involved in those items. Like that? See, no difficult tasks, just planning/brainstorming tasks! So yesterday I sat down and started that brainstorming process. I didn't have too long, so I just jotted down what I'd been thinking of including in her room. Next I'll likely make a more detailed list of what we have on hand of those things, what needs to be made, and what might need to be purchased to round out the items.

The one thing I think I still need to work out better is each week going ahead and not just putting down my weekly goal, but ahead of time, like when I make my weekly goal list, sitting down and splitting that weekly goal up into daily tasks that take about 10-15 minutes. I've noticed that when I have items on my weekly goal list that are basically just one task that takes about 10-15 minutes, those items are much more likely to get finished. But when I have items that need to be split into 2 or more daily tasks to be only 10-15 minute tasks, its not as common for me to get partly done as I would expect. For example, last week one of my goals was to '(finally) finish M's play kitchen'. I didn't break that down into all the little steps that I knew I could fit into my days - cutting the doors, cutting the oven shelf, cutting the back down, sanding the pieces, attaching the doors, screwing on the shelf & back, etc. And so while I definitely had time to fit at least a couple of those items into my week, because when I looked at my weekly list and saw 'finish play kitchen' and felt overwhelmed at all the little things that the play kitchen still needed, I didn't get anything more done on it.

I think this is going to require a bit of re-working the sheet in my notebook where I write down my weekly goals, to fit both the 10ish weekly goals as well as their broken down small task components, but that is ok - after all, practice makes perfect, right! I also think that I'll have to have some sort of rough guidelines on number of sub-tasks to my weekly goals. For my daily task list, I only have room on my sheet for 10 items. For my monthly goals list I try to only write down 6 main items to accomplish. For my weekly goals I try to have only 10 goals. But I think more that that, for the weekly items I need to make sure that if I have 10 goals, each can really only have 1-3 sub-tasks. Otherwise I need to have fewer weekly goals!

In the past few month of setting weekly goals, typically I've had about half of my weekly goals be items that really don't have a sub-task - like 'take the ashes out from the wood stove', or 'go to dentist appointment', so it has worked out ok for the most part, but if I had a bunch of items like last week's play kitchen one, where there might have actually been over 10 sub tasks, actually accomplishing all of my weekly goals would be doomed from the get-go! Realistically, starting & finishing M's play kitchen was a monthly goal, but because after I got it functional for her birthday that first week in January, I didn't work on it again until I realized in the last week that I had listed it as a monthly goal, I made it my weekly goal to finish it, without really looking at what all was involved in that as a goal.

The nice thing about setting weekly goals, (apart from the obvious help that give me in getting to my monthly goals), is that knowing what the most important things are in a week really helps me each week & each day in focusing on what are the important things for me to get done. Which really is only important because then it lets me let go of the things that aren't important for me to get done, so I don't rush around 'doing' all of the time, and can fully enjoy this 3 year old, only child, stage that I'm in right now with Little M!
I think that's one of the biggest benefits I started to see last year of having my to do lists. Once I had my 10 items on my to do list nearly done, or well on their way, I didn't feel guilty, or rushed, spending quality time with Little M. In the past when I had a miles-long to do list, which I was always quite good at generating before I started keeping my daily list to 10 items long, I would never feel good about how much I was doing, so I could never really enjoy my down time, whatever my down time happened to look like. Now, when I can see that I'm doing just great on my 10 items, I find it easier to truly relax & enjoy myself.

I know that not everyone is like me, a person who enjoys checking things off a list, and that's totally OK! But for me, as a person who feels most content when I've set goals and clearly completed them, having concrete goals & clear steps to get me to them is a really great way to feel satisfied and content with certain parts of my life and what I've accomplished. There are other parts of my life that I really don't want or need to-do lists in to make me feel satisfied. For example, a lot of people have big lists of things to accomplish by the time they turn 30. I'm going to be turning 30 this coming fall, and honestly, although when I was in my early twenties I thought 30 was just so old, now that I'm almost there, I'm pretty satisfied. I don't feel old, I just feel good. I mean I look at my life, where I am right now, where I'll be at 30, and I just feel really content - I have a life out in the country, a great husband, a decent job that let's me focus on my family, an adorable and spirited 3 year old, and by the time I'm 30, if everything goes smoothly, I'll have a new baby to boot. Married with 2 kids at thirty? Sounds pretty happy to me!

As an aside, with this pregnancy, the baby hormones have been producing these amazing satisfied & content & happy feelings pretty regularly - which is pretty awesome for me, and you can be sure that I've been savoring them to the fullest extent possible when they hit! Definitely making me think about what I can do in my day-to-day life to make sure even post-pregnancy that I keep producing these feelings! (that's where I'm hoping having a great goal & to-do system worked out might come in handy!)

Selling our farm products - getting customers

In my post last week about putting myself out there to fill up some spots on our weekly egg list, I promised to share some of the bits I've learned about getting customers. I'm definitely no expert, and I hope I keep learning more and more as time goes on, but here's what I've learned so far.

When we first had extra eggs, I took them in to work and hoped that some of my coworkers needed some. I sold a fair number, but then my hens started producing more than my coworkers could eat. Plus, I hated taking the eggs in and asking if anyone needed eggs - I think it made me feel slightly desperate, which I really wasn't. So then I let people know that if they wanted eggs they could contact me and get some occasionally. I also followed up when I saw people interested in eggs, and made sure they knew that I sold the occasional dozen. We had a regular buyer from the start, but due to distance, sales to her weren't as regular as either us or her would have liked, so that led to another lesson - customers have to be really local to make it work & be worthwhile.

Once we decided that we had consistently enough extra eggs to be able to sell regularly, and once I decided that selling just on an occasional basis wasn't exactly working for me, then we sent out that email. But before that, we had done a lot to prepare our market, to convince them if you will, that we regularly sold fresh good quality eggs for a decent price. We did that by offering a free dozen when we had extra to people who we thought might be interested in buying eggs but that we hadn't reached yet. We asked often enough at work or events with friends that those people knew we had eggs available, and a handful of them purchased from us occasionally when they needed eggs.

My email was pretty straight and to the point. I mentioned how many hens we have, that we feed them organic locally produced feed and let them free-range in our fields and orchard daily, and that they have constant access to a fully enclosed small yard attached to their coop. I told them that they were still more than welcome to purchase eggs from us occasionally, with no pressure or commitments, but that we had a list of weekly purchasers with some available spaces on it.

With our 11 hens, especially lately with one of them invariably broody, we have 4 or 5 dozen extra eggs a week. That means that I feel comfortable having 4 people who want to buy from us weekly, and I think we could likely pull off 5 if we were sometimes willing to give our personal eggs up to ensure that every week we had an extra 5 dozen. At the moment we don't have our list quite full, which actually works out well as we are still able to supply our occasional customers with eggs when they need a dozen, or give away or trade a dozen when the need arises.

Another thing that we would have given more thought if we had more hens and thus more available eggs is to have a sign at the end of our driveway. But we like our privacy and solitude, and just don't have that kind of farm yet. So we've shelved that idea for the years to come, when we might just have more than eggs to offer. What about you? I know some of you shared your strategies to obtain customers last week, and you had some really great suggestions, so check back there if you're looking for more. Any others that come to mind that you'd like to share with us?

Later next week I'll share what we've learned so far about keeping customers, and how careful selection of customers goes a long way towards keeping them around long term :)

Linking up to the Homestead Barn Hop.

On putting yourself out there, farming-wise

Last week I sat down and typed up an email that I'd been squirming over for a little while. I included the email addresses (via bcc to respect my customers and keep their information private) of local people who had bought eggs from us once or more over the past year. You see, we've got more eggs than we can possibly use ourselves, and in the past month we have ended up having more than we are able to sell. We needed more regular customers.

We are looking to develop a list of local people who want eggs weekly or biweekly, which we have put off before now because:

1. we seemed to have enough occasional buyers, and

2. because with our young hens we were still attempting to figure out how many extra dozen we had to sell in a given week and month.

Now that we've kept detailed records of production & sales all spring and summer, we've got # 2 dialed in - we know how many eggs our hens produce and how many our family eats on average. But lately # 1 hasn't been working out, so we've had extra eggs.

We've always had occasional egg buyers, either local friends or coworkers, but none had moved from occasional to regular customers, likely mostly due to us not having a regular customer distribution list, and them not being aware we were thinking of starting one. I was also fairly successful at selling eggs to a local corner store for several months earlier in the summer, but lately they have had enough from their other sellers, and since they buy the eggs for less than I can sell them to direct customers because of the store's mark-up, I haven't wanted to push to be on their regular seller list, if they even had an opening. In addition, I really value the direct connection between farmer and consumer that we get when we sell directly to the people eating our eggs. I know I feel better when I know exactly where my food is coming from, and I love being able to provide that connection to my egg customers.

In the future, as we attempt to move towards a bit more of a sustainable farming venture, we will need a good base of customers for our increasing line of farm-grown & produced products. This requires me to do what doesn't come naturally to me, put our name and our goods out there. Stir up a bit of interest in our product, and get some customers to shift from occasional purchases to being committed to buying from us regularly. Occasional customers are great, but in order to supply some kind of stability to our family as we attempt to shift a bit more into farming, we would love to have a larger regular customer list as well as all of our occasional customers.

Egg production from our hens will fluctuate as the seasons change, as they moult or become broody, as our current hens age, and as we add and remove hens from our flock, so we won't always have as many extra eggs as we did back in the height of this summer with young birds and long days, but having a list of regulars that are committed to buying eggs from us will keep us committed to providing good quality eggs on a weekly or biweekly basis.

My email was pretty basic, letting people know that we had a couple openings on our weekly egg-selling list, and if they wanted to move onto the weekly (or biweekly) list they just needed to let me know, but I was sure to give them a brief update on how our chickens were doing and what they were up to.  Later next week I'll share some more detailed tips on how I went about attaining my customers, both occasional and regular, but in the meantime, I know some of my readers are also small farm owners, or heading along that path. Have you gone out looking for customers? When you were starting out, or as you are starting out, did you let your business grow by word of mouth or have you been a bit more persistent to let people know about your product and it's availability? Did you find it difficult to pointedly ask your occasional customers if they would like to be on your regular list? What part of the customer-getting process do you find (or think you would find) the most challenging?

Linking up to the homestead barn hop!

My rowing elephant

I can't remember if its something I found on Simple Mom, Money Saving Mom, Dave Ramsey, or elsewhere, but I've been using this elephant concept with my rowing goal. You see, this year I decided that I wanted to get to 2 million lifetime meters rowed. That's a lot of meters, let me tell you, and thinking about the large chunk of those left (I was at about 1.2 million as of January 1st) was pretty daunting. I made alright progress during the winter/early spring months, but once it started being serious gardening season, my monthly rowing goals (about 74k/month) to meet my yearly goal just weren't getting met.

Enter the elephant. Last month I sat down and figured out what rowing pieces (distance rowed per exercise session) I needed to finish to meet my ideal goal of having the rowing done mid fall. I drew this elephant in my household notebook, and then split the elephant into the pieces I needed to do each month to get to my distance goal by fall.

Each time I row (obviously almost every day in order to get every piece done within a one month time frame), I color over the piece that I rowed. It's a really nice visual, and knowing that I have a pre-determined number and assortment of pieces to do each month has really helped me make real progress on my goal. For example, even with our week vacation to Hawaii at the beginning of June, I still almost finished my elephant by the end of the month! And although I didn't finish, I came so close as to be not that significant, especially compared to my much shorter total distances rowed the past couple months without using this elephant concept.

I know this concept is applicable to other things, and it's really nothing new - breaking your yearly goals up into monthly and weekly and daily tasks is something lots of people talk about often, I'm remembering some great posts by Crystal of moneysavingmom about doing just that. I can't say that the rest of my yearly goals are so nicely broken up into discrete and daily-finish-able chunks, but this elephant thing is really helping me meet my rowing goal. Which I of course think is great! Now I just need to figure out how to break the other things high on my priority list & yearly goals list into do-able chunks like this... hmmm...

It's been a quick February

Not only is February a trying month for me in terms of winter dragging on, low light, etc, but it is a short month (although longer this year!), and so it has been a challenge for me to make progress on my month's goals. The combination of fewer work days to accumulate my monthly-needed hours and fewer days period to complete tasks is like a double whammy... So I suspect most of my February items will be transferred over to March, not really a problem, as none of them were time-critical or anything, and the most important (taxes!) I finished off during a stellar 2 hour nap from Little M this past weekend.

I've done really well this month on some of my personal & our family 2012 goals - lots of rowing (gotta crank it up for March's 5000m per day challenge!), lots of quality time with Little M, planning our (belated & childless!) honeymoon, saving money for our financial goals, and there have even been 2 viewings of our for-sale rental house (even with a renter in there, granted she's keeping the place looking even better than our staging was - we're so lucky to have her!). I've also been feeling really good about how my daily to-do list is structured, and I've been really content with how our days have been flowing because of it. So really, I'm doing good on keeping up on daily and even weekly things, and making great progress on yearly and even season things, but not doing as hot on monthly things. Whether it was an overambitious February goals list, or whether I need to re-evaluate how I transfer items from my month list to my week list to my daily list, I think I'll be doing things a bit differently in March :)

I'm still just as glad I finally made my household notebook this year, because I'm definitely way more organized, productive, and calm because of it!  And heck, getting those taxes done and out the door in February is weeks and weeks ahead of the near-to-deadline-scramble of the last 2 years, so really all I can do is be very content with getting the most daunting and important item crossed off the month's list! Here's looking forward to a March that involves no tax prep work, lots of seed starting (more on that later in the week, I picked up a bunch more seed packets Friday!), and a journal article coming out from my thesis work!

Why a short To Do list works for me

Like it or not, I am a goal oriented, productivity driven person, whether the goal is getting the kitchen cleaned, or having fun coloring with Little M. When I have a To Do list, I'm happier, more content, even calmer.

It took me a while, upon becoming a mother, to learn to put fun Little M oriented items on my To Do list, and while sometimes I wish I could be the mother that plays all day with her kids, that just doesn't make me happy. I want Little M to grow up with us doing fun things, with me taking the time to play with her, to read to her, to build barns for her animal cars, to make bubbles in the bathtub, but also to grow up knowing how to do all the practical things around the house that keep our household running.

The way that works for me right now so that we do things for her and things for me and things for the household, is to plan things out in advance. That isn't to say that there isn't flexibility, because, being a mother to a 2 year old, I have to be flexible! But I have my ten items I aim to do, and some of them are for the household - feed/water/shavings for the chickens, bringing in some firewood, cleaning the bathroom sink. Some of them are for me - writing one of my manuscripts, walking with dogs in the woods. And some of them are for her - coloring, bubble baths.

I don't always get all 10 items done, but depending on whether I have written mostly big items or mostly small items, sometimes I get more done. The key is that I can look back at the day, and not be looking at an unmanageably, impossibly long To Do list where really I only got a couple things done because M had a short nap, 4 poopy diapers, the chicken water took 3 kettle-fulls of boiling water to completely de-ice, etc.

When I have my short To Do list all nicely laid out, I know by the crossed off items, just at a glance, whether I got some or most of my 10 items done. And I have now learned to let that be a judge of whether I had a productive good day or not. Having just 10 items means I don't rush around from task to task. I can try to stop and enjoy the little things when they appear. Like Little M sleeping so sweetly in her toddler bed, growing up way too fast. Or my rosemary plant beginning to grow tender, leggy new shoots and leaves again, an early sign that the longest days of winter are passing, and that spring will soon be just around the corner.

For me, right now in my life, this system is working. It's helping as I try to find peace in my often too-busy days, feel good about the things I accomplish, move closer to my goals, and enjoy the moments with my family that matter. Isn't it amazing what a simple to do list can do for you? :)

**my ten item To Do list is inspired by Tsh of Simple Mom, and her book Organized Simplicity**

Photos from a busy weekend

Since one of my current goals involves learning to use our newish digital SLR camera on the fully manual setting, I figured that I should set myself up to succeed by 1 - sharing that goal with all of you, and 2 - sharing my photos on here more regularly even when they aren't strictly garden or project-related! Keeping that in mind, here are some pictures I took this past weekend. I think they turned out fairly decently, although I know there is room for improvement - particularly with the white balance settings... :)

Over the weekend Little M and I kept ourselves busy - we went on a couple walks, so that explains the chickens and the scenery shots, and then we decided to change the furniture arrangement up in our living/dining room to see if a different floor plan would work better for us, so that explains the inside shots. Thanks for looking & hope you enjoy them!

Setting goals for next year

Has anyone else been working on their goals for next year these past few days? I sure have. I've actually been working on designing a homemaking notebook to print & have bound, and some of the pages I'm including are lists of my goals for the year, and other detailed sheets related to my goals. There have been some really great blog posts floating around in the last couple days that I've found really helpful and timely.

Crystal at Moneysavingmom has written a series of great posts on time management which I have found helpful in the past, and this week she has written a couple more nice posts, one on how she decides her yearly goals which I found really useful as I was setting out my goals for 2012, and another one where she provided several useful goal-setting links, including a link to a post I really enjoyed on 7 habits of organized people. This evening I read another great post, and the bit that stuck with me was about not adding to your goals until you have finished what you started and done it well. This stuck with me because several of my goals for 2011 were met, but barely so. I'd already sort of started my 2012 goals to reflect a desire to become more proficcient at some of these barely met goals, but now I think I will go back through intentionally with that filter.

If you are thinking about intentionally setting some attainable goals for yourself for 2012, I really encourage you to check out these posts! I'll share more about my homemaking notebook in the days to come - I still need to finish up some final editing touches, print it all out, get some pages laminated, and have it bound!

Harvest tally - 2011 edition

Although some of the quantities harvested weren't as good as last year, or weren't as plentiful as I would have hoped for, the harvest of other things far surpassed my expectations, so overall I can say I am pretty pleased with our 2011 garden!

Lets see how things tallied up, shall we? I don't have accurate counts from last year although I do remember approximate numbers and have included some of them for comparison...

3 baggies of Corn
This was really disappointing. We planted half as much corn as last year, and it just didn't do as well. I think I need to go back to the variety I grew the year before, because it did much better. Also I need to grow twice as much next year!

2 cups of Popping Corn
We got a fair number of harvestable heads of popping corn, but since we don't really eat pop corn I'm now wondering why I thought growing it would be so cool. Hmmm... mama fail there. At least at work we have a popcorn popper so I can donate the kernels to my coworkers!

4 Gallon bags of Tomatoes
(plus lots of cherry tomatoes eaten throughout the season - mostly by Little M!) This was encouraging. Last year we had more plants, but they weren't caged or supported at all so it was a disaster trying to harvest them. This year, with 4 cages, it was much better. The two extras that I planted without cages were still a disaster, but at least they only sprawled onto the potatoes! I think in the future I'll try to pick an earlier ripening variety so that we get more from each plant. Most of the tomatoes ripened on the sunporch, very few were ripe before the first frost. I also really need to get around to getting these canned!

0 Watermelons
I think in order to get more usable & profitable space in the garden, I need to postpone my quest for a ripe watermelon from my very own garden... Sad, but likely true! :)

1/4 cup of Dry Beans
This was fairly disappointing - even less than the dismal 1/2 cup I harvested last year! I tried a different variety, and I think that was a mistake. I likely need to try again next year and try picking a shorter growing season bean.

5 baggies worth of Green Beans
We had several meals worth, and froze several more, but just didn't have the production that we had last year. And last year's 10-15 baggies frozen didn't make it until spring, so I need to improve here!

LOTS of Peas
We had SO many peas this year! the sugarsnap peas kept producing almost until frost, which was amazing. We had weird weather - a much cooler summer than normal, and although it affected most of my plants negatively, it sure was great for the peas. Little M loved the peas, and we had so many sugarsnaps initially that I was giving bowl after bowl away at work! I need to figure out something to do with them other than eat them fresh. Frozen and used in stirfries? Hmmm... the normal peas were great too, although I let them get a bit past early on and that slowed most of them right down. We had one delicious meal of them with some friends, but other than that I didn't shell and cook them. Next summer I really need to get my act together better and blanch and freeze them so that we can eat them throughout the winter. Frozen peas get used in lots of dishes here, and being able to use our own would be great!

4+ cups of Raspberries
We ate most of the raspberries straight off the vine. I do however have a tub saved in the freezer for a smoothy in the depths of winter (don't tell my husband where they are though!). I think next summer we will have more, and hopefully I will be able to put up more.

4+ cups of Strawberries
We ate WAY more than this. This is just what I have saved in the freezer to make jam with (any day now!). Next summer I will try to save more, but they are just so delicious its hard to put them in a bowl let alone the freezer!

25-ish Potatoes
We dug up maybe 10 russets and about 15 fingerlings, but I didn't weigh them. This was our first success with potatoes, and we were pretty thrilled. We still really need a good storage spot for them, but next year we plan to grow more! (if we can find the space). I want to grow some Yukon Gold potatoes next year - they are my favorite!

3 cups of chopped Peppers
We grew several different varieties of peppers, and typical me, I didn't really let any of them ripen enough before eating them, freezing them, or using them on pizza's. I like green peppers, but my husband likes sweeter peppers, so next year I really need to be more patient and let them ripen more on the plants!

1 (sad) Zuchini
Need more than just one plant. Also need to place them in a better spot! (huh, guess sticking them in the shade of the overgrown raspberries didn't work!)

0 Cucumbers
Picked a poor spot for these guys too. wimpy plant, zero mature cuc's!

5 Butternut SquashThis includes several small ones that likely aren't fully ripened/hardened. Last year we had around 7 butternut, and I recall them all being riper than these seem to be.

7 Hubbard Squash
This also includes a small one that likely really won't have much edible portion inside. There is one huge one, but overall we got much less squash than last year, where I think we had upwards of 15.

3 Pumpkins
Two large & one small. Last year we had 6, but 3 were small and from my husband's wildlife garden, that he didn't have pumpkins in this year. So about the same. Since we just use these for carving at Halloween, 3 was fine :)

20-ish small onions
I was very disappointed with our onion harvest. A lot of the onions just weren't ready to be picked by the late fall - they were still growing leaves and had very little root bulb developed as all their energy was in their leaves. I tried to harvest and dry these as best I could, but I'm not sure whether they sucked because of poor soil conditions or tending, or if it was just a poor year for onions here!

15-ish carrots
The carrots didn't do as well as last year, due to poor germination and then overgrown weeds! Lesson learned - I really need to way overseed and then thin if necessary!! (oh, and be better about staying on top of the weeds!!)

3 beets
These were sort of planted on a whim, none of my family is into beets, but my MIL is, and had these seeds leftover from the previous year. I offered to plant them and give them to her, but didn't bother checking germination, just threw them into the ground alongside radish seeds and hoped for the best. Well, lesson learned! Likely we won't grow beets again for a couple years.

10 radishes
These were rather spicy for us, so next time I need to pick a milder variety, or do something different in growing them. I did let them go to seed though, and so could use those seeds next year if I decide not to buy new ones. I think if I found a different way to eat them, or pick them earlier, or water them more, they might be less spicy? I'm not that familiar with growing radishes; its been awhile, so I'm not sure.

Before next spring I'll have to figure out where we will have the manure pile - right now we have a black plastic compost bin by the house, but no formal compost bins by the garden or coop... I've been dreaming of a three bin system near the garden or coop, but haven't even gotten around to sketching it out or figuring out the board lengths needed, let alone starting to save up for the lumber or deciding on a location... Hopefully by next spring we'll have the location and design down and will just need to purchase lumber and build it!

This past spring I had really hoped to be working on a garden addition by this fall or next spring, but I'm thinking that is likely still at least a year off. I've really been wanting raised beds closer to the house, orchard, and coop, but we just haven't prioritized saving for the building materials. Oh the things we are sacrificing to try to get this house paid off ;)

As far as the garden composition, obviously it will have to change next summer to include more corn, more beans, more tomatoes, and less.... hmmm.... well I'll have to work on that one a bit more over the winter months, because it does seem like I would like to have more to harvest of pretty much everything we harvested this year! I would really love to be growing enough to can and freeze so that we would have food from the garden kept until the next summer. We were nearly there with corn last year but not much else, but this year I think we are a bit further away from that goal on things like corn, because of how many different things we grew even though we had more variety in what we have preserved.

Ah... now the planning for next year's garden can begin :)

Do you have a life list?

So I've seen a couple blogs this past week write about life lists. You know when something becomes trendy and you don't want to be trendy or do the current 'in' things, but find yourself really liking whatever the idea is? Yeah. I'm there. While I sorta have a life list of birds I've seen, I don't have a life list like these blogs are talking about. I don't have a master list of things I want to do in my life.

At times in the past I've had lists of things I wanted to do before moving. When I lived in B.C. I had a list of things I wanted to do before I left. I'm pretty sure when I was back in Ontario I had a list of things that I wanted to do before I moved out west. But now that I am in that adult stage of being 'married with kid and real job and house', I don't have a list of things I want to do in my life. Because now that I am here, the next steps aren't as major as, say, packing up and moving out west in my truck...

So the idea really stuck in my head. The concept of having a goal, or a set of goals, to be living my life around is one that I think is important. I do have a list of sorts of where I want to be with my life in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years. And while I have never had a list for longer term things than that, I think it is something that really appeals to me. I'm a pretty driven person, so I'm really not worried about waking up one day in the future and wondering where my life went, but I do like knowing I am aiming high and getting more out of life. Since I generally think that lists are pretty great, making a list of all the dreams I have for the future sounds pretty good to me!

So far I've only got a few things on my list. Visit all the continents. Swim with dolphins. Visit Alaska again. Visit all of my grandparents graves. Shoot a deer. But I'm sure with a little time and a bit more thought, I'll be able to come up with a fitting list. What about you? Are you feeling like following this current blog-world trend? Do you have a life list? Should I share mine here once I am done it?

Making progress slowly but surely

So my time until my self-imposed end-of-the-month deadline to have the rental house back ready for viewings is fast approaching, and although we're crossing things off the list, our progress might not be as good as I might have liked. However, I have gotten an extraordinary amount of painting done in the last 5 days!

Let's see, I had already painted 2 walls in the kitchen, and now adding both spare bedrooms and the bathroom, plus every inch or trim in the house and every door in the house (and garage), that is a lot of painting! I do still have a second coat to do on several of the doors, since I ran out of paint (oops!) and will have to run across to Home Depot to get more of the low VOC stuff that we have been using. The local Ace Hardware doesn't carry any low VOC paints and I've never been that happy with their color matching abilities, so we don't bother go there for paint any more.

I also still have to paint the bathroom walls in color, to go over top of the kilz odor blocking primer I put down in there over the weekend. I'm not so sure about my color choice on that one, what do you think? I'm worried the color might be a bit dark. But it's hard to tell since we haven't gotten the light fixture completely installed yet, so we don't have very good lighting in there.

Oh, and here are the after pictures of the spare bedroom (light grey/purple) and office/spare bedroom (light grey/blue). I'm finding that photo's of the rooms make them read a lot more grey than they actually are in real life. In real life the purple room looks amazing. I think I might need to paint Little M's room in that color I love it so much! And the Blue room looks really great too. These new colors really bring the whole house together - they match nicely with the grey/green of the master bedroom and the tan of the main hallway and living room. Before the 2 spare rooms really didn't match well at all, and the colors weren't that great even on their own. I really hope these are some of the extra touches that help someone fall in love with the house and make them want to buy it! So here are a couple pictures of the new bedroom colors:

Rental update at 2 weeks

So it has been (almost) 2 weeks since we took possession back on our rental house, and while it isn't quite ready to be staged, it is coming along. Some parts (the main bathroom) are definitely worse than we thought, and definitely not at the stage I wanted them to be at, but other parts (the doorbell, back doors, front yard in-ground irrigation, and many more) are doing much better than I anticipated or could have dreamed 2 weeks ago. Last week I shared a bit of what we had been up to, but I thought this week, as we head into the weekend, I would share more details with you, in the form of some picture-interspersed lists. So then, here is the list breakdown, with things that we've done crossed off:

Master Bedroom
replace cable outlet
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
install new door & hardware
clean window glass
clean closet mirror door
scrub walls
scrub floor vent
dust/wipe off light fixture
paint baseboard, door, & window trim
touch up wall paint
paint closet (white/color?)

Master Bathroom
scrub walls
 scrub shower & tub
clean toilet in & out
clean mirror
clean counter & sink
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
clean window glass
dust/wipe light fixture
use soap on door
hammer nails in flush in door trim
paint door
paint baseboard, door, & window trim
touch up wall paint
paint ceiling white with ceiling paint
scrub floor vent
strip wax off floor with ammonia
rewax floor

Spare Bedroom
scrub walls
spackle walls
sand spackle
wipe baseboard, window & door trim
clean window glass
rehang curtain
replace door
paint door
paint baseboard, window & door trim
touch up wall paint (repaint?)
paint closet door (?)
paint in closet (?)
scrub floor vent cover

Office Bedroom
fix closet door
scrub walls
spackle walls
sand spackle
touch up wall paint (repaint?)
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
paint baseboard, door & window trim
clean window glass
scrub floor vent

Living Room/Hallway/Closet/Dining Area
remove trim
clean behind trim
level behind trim
scrub walls
cut trim
paint trim
install trim
caulk trim
touch up paint on trim
spackle walls
repaint hallway wall
touch up wall paint
clean ceiling spots
scrub down ceiling vent
scrub 3 floor vents
clean window & door trim
paint front door trim
replace back door
put trim back up on back door
paint back door & trim
replace front door knob
replace back door knob
wipe off dining room light fixture
replace fan in living room
wipe dining room floor down
ammonia floor
rewax floor
scrub door to garage
paint door to garage
clean window glass
fix doorbell
clean entryhall floor
hang curtains
trim curtain tassels flush

Kitchen
remove appliances & clean floor under them
scrub walls
spackle walls
paint tan on east & south walls
touch up paint
replace outlet covers
ammonia floor under appliances
rewax floor under appliances
scrub appliance sides
move appliances back in
replace stove fan filter
wipe out inside all cabinets
wipe down all cabinet & door faces
wipe down fridge
wipe down stove
clean kitchen counters thoroughly
clean sink
clean window glass
fix garbage disposal 
fix plumbing under sink
replace faucet
clean up behind sink
touch up paint behind sink
clean ceiling spots
replace light bulbs with the right bulbs

Main Bathroom
thoroughly clean under laundry & dryer 
trap mice out of dryer vent hose
fix dryer vent hose exit outside
move laundry & dryer out
clean laundry & dryer
move laundry & dryer back in
replace dryer cord
replace dryer vent hose
scrub walls
 remove trim

cut new trim
paint trim
put trim up
caulk trim holes
touch up trim paint
mud around tub
sand mud around tub
finish mud around tub
caulk around tub
spackle walls
sand wall spackle
paint kilz odorblock on lower walls
paint walls (color?)
replace vanity/doors
clean door trim
repaint door trim
clean door
repaint/replace door
scrub floor vent cover
thoroughly clean vent parts in subfloor
replace towel bar
replace toilet paper holder
wire in new light fixture
ammonia floor
rewax floor
hang curtain blocking hot water tank
clean counter & sink
clean tub

Front Yard
weed garden
finish weeding the teensy weeds in the garden
replace garden wood barricade
tidy up the garden space
weed the corner garden
trim lilac in corner
trim rose bush in front
remulch strip beside driveway
get rid of wasps nest above front walk
replace outdoor faucet
shim & screw in outdoor faucet trim
put in-ground sprinklers in
cover sprinklers & pipe up
clean up the yard from piping
set sprinkler coverage up
reseed disturbed areas
put timer on sprinklers
finish the start of the irrigation
replace wood beams
paint new beams green
sand sun down
paint sun green
reattach trellis to new beam
clean front door outside well
sand/scrape wood trim on front door
repaint front door & trim
touch up tan paint on spots beside door
sweep cement walkways
sweep cement driveway pad
clean 4 window/door glass
clean 4 window screens

Back Yard
caulk garage window
touch up green trim paint on garage window
touch up exterior tan paint
get rid of large wasps nest above back door
wire in replacement back porch lights
remove piles of old boards under deck from destroyed planter boxes
replace some boards in deck
clean deck off thoroughly
paint deck guard on deck
pick up dog poop
rake rocks out of yard
get rid of rock & grass piles in yard
clean dirt level in yard up
replace outdoor faucet
screw in outdoor faucet trim

put underground sprinklers in
set sprinkler coverage up
set sprinkler timer up
reseed grass
get rid of pee smell in backyard
hose/scrub off house siding
build new garden gate
hang garden gate
put fencing on garden gate
weed in garden
remove pile of compost & planter boards in garden
hack out all the hops vine coming over the back fence
trim the low branches of the apple tree out of the way
fix side gate latch & hinge

Garage
replace furnace air filter
spackle dog scratches on wall by back door
replace back door
install door knob
install dead bolt
replace trim around door
paint door & trim outside
paint door & trim inside
measure broken garage door spring
order garage door spring
install new garage door spring
wipe down door & trim to inside
repaint door & trim to inside
remove garbage compactor
remove all trash & tools
thoroughly sweep
get rid of cobwebs on ceiling & in corners

The list of what we still have to do is sometimes overwhelming me, perhaps especially since I at first wanted to have everything done and the house staged by today... At home I've recently started making my daily to-do lists only ten items long, and if there are more than ten items then I make a note of them at the bottom of my whiteboard. I got the idea from a book I've been reading - Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider (and if you haven't read Tsh's blog - Simple Mom, I would recommend a visit!). I've been really enjoying the book and all the great tips I've been getting from it, and this ten item to-do list is one of the ideas I've been using that has really been helping me feel like I'm on top of things and productive but not overwhelmed. So that's why this whole having a to-do list that is many tens of items long is getting to me!

I've been trying to pick cross 5 things off everytime I'm up there, but there are times when I put more than 5 new things on the list even while I'm crossing some off... It's hard being at the point of still not making noticeable forward momentum on my list! I guess that just means my list wasn't all that complete though! :(

Right before we took possession back we spent a weekend at my mother in law's place near Spokane. She is right on the lake, and so we spent the weekend playing in the water with the dogs, playing in the sand & grass with Little M, going out on the water in the boat or jet-ski's, and just generally enjoying a weekend off. It was a really great break, and we got some great pictures that I should have shared, but I haven't sorted through them yet since the rental house has been keeping me so busy. The good news is that Little M and I are going back this weekend!

I started a closet organizing project there 2 weekends ago but we ran out of time to finish, so I promised to come back, and since this weekend my husband is working 2 nighttime overtime shifts for another department and will be needing to sleep during the day, it worked out perfect to be away from the house for him to get that sleep in. I'll take one of the dogs with me, that way he only has to worry about the older 2 dogs who are pretty good about being let out only infrequently and at odd hours and my chickens, who he will be able to tend to when he gets home at around 7 in the morning before he heads to bed.

So I'll get a good break this weekend, and am really looking forward to organizing all of her quilt fabric and halloween costumes (she buys costumes at thrift stores during the year and then sells them before halloween on ebay and makes pretty good money doing it!). I'm not looking forward to the four hour drive there, or back, with just Little M and I, but she has done ok on that drive in the past. And hopefully she sleeps better than the other night, where she kept herself up until what must have been midnight or later... makes for one tired mama! Here's hoping I come back refreshed and relaxed and ready to dive back into the rental-fixing next week :)

Being a working mama - finding balance

I'm a working mama. I'm very lucky in that my current job doesn't have set hours, and there is never any obligation (other than meetings or field days that are scheduled in advance for the most part) to go in any certain time or any certain day. However, we do have this crazy goal to pay our house off in the next 5 years, so I try to work a certain number of hours a month so that my paycheck is a certain amount so that we can meet this crazy goal, which basically means I work full time, although we aren't talking 40+ hours a week in the office, its more like 30-35!

But it's a balancing act. I don't want my daughter (Little M) to be in daycare every day. I am the main homemaker in our family, although I don't make supper every night (my husband makes supper on the 3 nights a week when he doesn't work), and my husband helps me out by helping put away clean clothes, care for the dogs, keep the lawn mowed and watered. I still end up doing the majority of work around the house, taking Little M to daycare 2-3 days a week, keeping the fridge & pantry stocked, and all those other little cleaning & organizing tasks that keep a home running.

Back when Little M was born, she came with me to work every day, and I worked much shorter days (more like 20-25 hours a week). But we didn't have our budget as nicely set as we do now, and while we wanted to pay the house off within the 7 year window from when we bought it that our seller contract allowed, we didn't have a plan set up to do that. As she got older, more active, and awake more during the day she started staying home with my husband during the week during his off days (at that point his work shifts were Fri - Mon so he was home with her Tues - Thurs). And at about 6-8 months she started going 2 days a week to a wonderful in-home daycare just minutes down the road.

As she got older and her afternoon naps got more defined, her daycare days ended up being my longest work days, as we got there around 9 (sometimes 8, sometimes 10 depending on my morning work obligations and goals), but she would nap until just after 4! That makes for a long day for this mama! While Little M is doing much better during the night, on her best nights she wakes up once to nurse, and on her worst it is every two hours. For me, I find it very challenging to be a good, present mom when I get home with her at about 5, have to cook and serve dinner, let the dogs out, and deal with a missing-her-mama little girl until bedtime around 7:30.

More recently, my husband's job situation has shifted around, and his days off seem to keep changing. This has made it challenging to arrange daycare while not making our great daycare provider constantly shift her days around (we have certain days of the week that are ours, and when we need different days, unless the other parents can switch their requirements, we are out of luck). Luckily we were able to switch our Friday to Thursday, although it likely will be the only time until Little M turns 2 that we will be able to switch days. That meant that I stayed home with her, first on Tuesdays, and then when my husbands shifts switched again, I stayed home with her on Wednesdays.

At first, it was great staying home with her one day a week, but then we realized that in order for me to get enough hours in each week (and not have 4 too-long days), I needed to work a couple hours from home on the weekend, and a couple hours while she napped during our day at home during the week. And then it all sort of fell apart. I didn't have down time then while she napped to get the other things done that I needed and wanted to do. I constantly felt overworked and stressed and behind on things, and it was a struggle to find things that I could bring home with me to work on.

But I really enjoyed having that day off with her, to focus on her, and get a bit ahead on housekeeping and meal planning. And sometimes we would go into town and meet with other moms, and that was really great. And just about when I was deciding that we needed to revisit the budget and revise our payoff schedule with the house so that I could get away with working a few hours a week less, our daycare provider mentioned that we could come on Wednesdays as she now had them free.

Huh. Well it was a hard decision. I ended up, for the sake of continuing to meet our financial goals, to decide to send her an additional day, so 3 days a week. That would mean I would have to work more hours to pay for the additional daycare costs, and have 3 days of the week where I had to get home from work & picking her up later that I would like, scramble to get supper on the table & dogs fed & exercised, and find energy to play with her before bedtime.

I'm still trying to find the balance in this new schedule. I'm not sure that I will find it; next month we may revisit things and decide to change our goals, or hope that in the next 5 years we start bringing in more money each month to let us catch up from me staying with her one day a week. And who knows what the future will bring to each of our current jobs. Its been hard to balance our goals of having our daughter grow up with (mostly) us around, with our goals of paying the house off so soon. But we both realize that paying the house off a bit later is worth it to enjoy these moments when she is so young. We just have to decide what the right balance is for us :) And the great thing about all of this is it means that my husband and I are continually checking in on our conversation about what is best for us as a family and her as our child, and making sure we are headed in the right direction and making the right choices for us.

Exercise & prioritizing priorities

I've been having a bit of a problem making progress on some areas of my life that I have been wanting to improve on. Namely, getting back into the habit of regular exercise, getting up earlier, eating from (and enough of) each of the four food groups each day, and doing a better job staying on top of household chores. And then a couple days ago I read a great post where Crystal of MoneySavingMom talks about how to deal with exactly that problem here (scroll down to point #4). She had a great suggestion to make a list of all the things you want to work on (done), and then prioritize them.

Ahah. So I'll do that next, here we go:

1. Regular exercise
2. Eating from the four food groups
3. Household chores
4. Waking up earlier

Her next suggestion is to focus on one thing at a time, starting with the highest priority item, for 3 months, then moving on to the next one. Well, that makes a lot of sense to me! And it works out great that I have items to focus on for the next year, and also that waking up earlier is almost a year away, as Little M still is waking up once or twice to nurse throughout the night so I need my rest in the mornings often! So I guess I know what I need to work on through July, August & September - regular exercise!

I'm lucky in that I have an erg (inside rowing machine) out on the sunporch that I can use whenever I want. It's a Concept II for those of you who care about that sort of thing, and I make use of all the great online support and challenges that Concept II offers - check them out here. I am also lucky in that we live in an area with lots of trails and wild space for recreating, with public land literally right outside the house (the vast hillside across the road is all public land).

I am also a fairly active person, we go for walks with the dogs regularly, and I do yardwork on a regular basis as well, but I don't have a routine that makes sure I get enough each week.  I also find that even though I am out doing things often, because I am not out for the purpose of exercising, I don't feel like I am exercising as much as I should. So since I am pretty much a goal driven person, I'll set monthly goals - slowly increasing my exercise each week over the next 3 months. Because I am already fairly active, I'll try to intentionally do activities that are more along the lines of 'real' exercise, and not just yardwork to make up my weekly exercise quota :)

July - exercise 1 time per week
August - exercise 2 times per week
September - exercise 3 times per week

I think ideally I would want to exercise more, but with a little one, 3 dogs, a big garden & yard, not to mention being a working mom, 3 times a week is likely all I can fit into my schedule at the moment.

I'll try to keep you updated with how my exercise goal is coming, and look for more of these sorts of posts in 3, 6, and 9 months time as I move on to the next priorities!

To-Do List Update

I just realized it has been almost two months since I last updated our to-do list on here, and almost as long since I sat down and tallied up all the projects we had crossed off the list! Oops! If you want to check out what I had on the last list, check out February's ongoing project to-do list here. Although I gave you an update on what I did off of that list at the end of February (here), I am realizing that although I updated the to-do list for March and put it up on the fridge, I never blogged about it, and still haven't updated and printed a new list for the fridge for April - double oops! Since it's now almost May (wow, how did that happen?), I guess I really need to move on and focus on May!

We've had some very busy weeks since the end of February, with several interesting little upheavals in our lives. Although there have definitely been some downsides, one upside has been in the amount we've gotten done around the house & property! Can I hear a YAY for spring?!

So the reason I'm updating this list now, when we're sitting near the end of April, is that we have some deadlines coming up - the chicks will be arriving in early July, so we need the chicken coop to be ready by then, and my parents are visiting in early June and my Dad would feel lost if we didn't have a project for him to help with while they are here.


I figure if I set a deadline at the end of May to get a bunch of items on our To-Do list done by, then we'll have just over a month to cross items off our list. I even think I'll make a weekend plan for each weekend or week between now and the end of May to put up on our fridge, so that we know what needs to happen weekly to get everything done on time.

The neat thing about going through that old To-Do List from February is I am realizing that I have crossed (or mostly crossed) several things off the list and although I know I took pictures of the process, I obviously haven't managed to completely finish them or blog about them. Look out for some reno-type posts in the next week or so when I have some more time.

Current To-Do List:
Finish black trim in hall/living area
Screw down the connector trim between hardwood & the kitchen floor & same for the front hallway
Finish the exterior nails & insulation & trim on the sunporch
Finish setting the west sliding glass door in place & sprayfoam it inside
Finish chicken coop
Design play structure
Order play structure components (large beams, slide, etc) that we can't get locally

Next Goals:
Nursery Trim
Bedroom Trim
Build 2 garden gates
Sunporch...

Keeping a goal plan

One thing my Mom got me started on at some point in my late teen years was to come up with a goal plan of where, what, and who I wanted to be in 6 months, 1 year, and 3 years, and then sit down occasionally and go over it and make sure that I've been doing things to meet & keep me on track to meet these goals. This was when I was in my early university years. More recently in married life, where I can see further down the road, I have added a 'longer term' for distant future goals. I set goals to meet personal expectations, family dreams, and financial needs.

I try to review and update this goal plan every few months, depending on how busy I am and whether I need the added boost in my life of visualizing my family's future. I just keep a digital copy on my computer, although a paper copy on the fridge (where I keep lists of that sort - most people likely would put it in a homemaking binder) would make good sense if there were particular goals that I wanted to make sure I looked at everyday.

When I go through my goal plan, I update the date so that my file shows the last time I made changes change the goals as my goals change. Its encouraging to be able to go through and delete items that we have accomplished, and its also neat to look back at my older files, and see how my plans as changed (for example how they changed when I met my now husband, how they changed after I gave birth to our daughter, etc). I encourage anyone who doesn't write down their dreams, goals, and plans, to do so - it keeps you on track to meet them!

Monthly project update

Well in February my goal was to finish as many of our ongoing house projects as possible. You know, those projects that you get to the 'good enough' stage then forget about. Except you never really forget about them, cause every time you take a bath you notice the streaky edges of the paint job you said good enough on and didn't go back and do the second coat... Or the taped plastic covering the join between the kitchen's old laminate and the new wood floor in the rest of the house... My list goes on and on, and if I think about it too hard, I get totally mired in all the stuff that needs to be finished! But enough rambling...

I keep my photos sorted by month for the current year, and after the year is over I combine all the monthly folders into one yearly folder so that the folders don't get too overwhelming. This month, whenever I sat down and felt like the to-do list was still very overwhelming, like I wasn't making any progress, I would look in my February 2011 picture folder and look at all the projects I made progress on or finished. It was so encouraging!

The baby pictures scattered in the monthly folders encourage me too!

I think I have been quite successful in making progress and getting things done this month. On the home reno/organizing/decorating front, I finished the bathroom trim and made serious progress on the livingroom/diningroom/hallway trim. I purchased enough trim to finish the doorways in the hallway, and more than enough for Little M's room. I purchased wood to start working on the trim on the windows and patio doors. I moved my desk from the nursery to the guest bedroom closet, making both spaces so much more functional!

On the garden front I got exciting mail -  my order of seed packets, and planned my seed starting & garden layout. I found an old shop light left in the garage by the old owners, and moved it to the sunporch to use as a seed starting light. And I restarted a pot of herbs on my kitchen windowsill that was looking rather sad and old, and started some new basil seeds in it.

On a personal front, we went across to the west side of the state to visit my husband's family and have a late first birthday celebration with them for Little M. At the last minute I knitted a toque (or, as my American friends and family say, a hat) for a good friend's son for his first birthday. We got new renters moved in to our rental house, and put it on the market. We even had someone go through and look at the place! Our carefully tightened down budget survived having no renters from late January through early February, and we were even still able to put a teensy little bit into our emergency fund. We aren't up to our 3 month goal, but we're slowly but surely getting there. Hopefully with our tax return we'll get it finished and can move on to retirement, college, and paying our house off early!!

I guess, when I look at all the things we accomplished and see such a great list, I can ignore the things I really meant to do but didn't... The manuscript that I promised would get submitted by the end of the month (really, I still have tonight!!)... The monthly chore list that I only finished one task off of... The sunporch that I keep meaning to finalize a new plumbing plan for... But I guess that's why there is next month! And luckily I have a lot of the prep work done on some of my outstanding 'to-do's', so hopefully next month I will manage to make even more progress :)

I'd love to proclaim a 'no-new-things-added' policy in regards to my to-do list, so that I get all those almost-done projects finished before starting (and not finishing!) new ones, but maybe for next month I'll stick with trying to limit new things as much as possible, or at least not adding 2 new things for every one old thing crossed off! :)  I may even put up a monthly goal list, like one I've been admiring by Kim of NewlyWoodwards.