Goals for the week of March 3-9
4) Get fabric & make Minecraft Steve pillow for Dannon's birthday
6) Yoga x2, Just Dance x1
My biggest feat was following along with the daily tasks associated with the 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home challenge. Its kind of a no brainer that household chores are easier when you stay on top of things, but I have a habit of NOT staying on top of things which results in a massive house cleaning attempt when the motivation does hit. I'm slowly becoming the type of person who does a little bit every day in order to keep things manageable, and to avoid the hit-by-a-tornado style of "decorating!" The tasks for the week included a 15 minute quick pick up of living areas, cleaning out the purse/diaper bag and getting rid of 7 things on Monday, a 15 minute quick clean of the kitchen, cleaning out the refrigerator and finding another 7 things to get rid of on Tuesday, a 15 minute quick clean of the master bedroom, ANOTHER 7 things and cleaning out the freezer (the one task I didn't feel was necessary to our home this week) on Wednesday, a 15 minute quick clean of the master bath, cleaning underneath beds and furniture, and yes, you guessed it... 7 more things on Thursday and finally cleaning the couch (vacuuming under cushions, spot cleaning and washing all the covers) on Friday.
I was able to do each of these special cleaning tasks in addition to the other 5-7 things on my daily to do list. There were a few days that I procrastinated the things on the list, but at the end of the day, it felt great to follow through! I love knowing that if I devote 15 minutes to a quick clean I can get most of the needed things done in one specific room (NOT including our bedroom which will require more than one 15 minute interval!)
The next goal for the week that I was able to cross off was selling $50-100 worth of items! Between the local facebook buy/sell group that I am part of and one item sold on ebay I was able to make about $72 this week. Its not close to closing the income deficit we're experiencing since my ex husband stopped paying his court ordered child support, but every little bit helps. I applied $40 of my sales to our natural gas bill and spent the rest on a few things we needed to pick up at the grocery store and Target.
Lets talk about Family Night at Dannon's school! It was totally worth sitting through a presentation that was mostly done in Spanish, to see how happy Dannon was to have us all there. They fed us all an amazing meal of tostadas and all three of the kiddos got to play in the classroom. It was a nice way to break up the sometimes monotonous feel of our weeknights without spending a dime. We'll definitely plan on attending next month too!
The last weekly goal I was able to cross of the list was getting up each morning with the alarm. I guess if I'm being TECHNICAL I should admit that I hit snooze once or twice... but each morning I was out of bed before 7am and it just feels better to get a start on the day, instead of the day starting without me.
Now for the weekly goals I didn't complete:
Exercising and making a Minecraft pillow for Dannon's birthday.
I've got no real, valid excuses for not exercising a minimum of 3 times. I just didn't do it.
As for the pillow... I ended up ordering about $25 worth of Minecraft miniatures to use as decorations on Dannon's birthday "cake." I am crossing my fingers that he will love the idea I came up with (thank you, Pinterest!) and we're sure the little figures will provide hours and hours of play. There just wasn't anything left in the birthday budget to buy fabric for the pillow project. It will go on the back burner though and definitely will be completed sometime. Maybe he'll get a Minecraft quilt and pillow for Christmas if he is still obsessed in a few months.
The last thing I wanted to touch on for this post was our success at unplugging for 24 (turned 36) hours this weekend. We are a family that has a habit of being entirely too wrapped up in our gadgets (ahem, boys...) and social media (guilty as charged.) Bob shared with me an article he read on cnn.com about the National Day of Unplugging and we decided to participate. I'm happy to report that it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be and in fact, its something I want to incorporate on a regular basis! There were a few times that Dannon asked about his iPad, and a few times I though "oh, I should post this on facebook" or "I need to remember to look this up..." but I discovered that a lot of the time I spend online is just wasted time and it takes my focus away from my family and my home commitments. I wish the weather would have cooperated so we could have gone outside to play catch or another fun family activity outdoors, but in true pacific northwest fashion it was rainy. We used our time to get a few things done around the house, rest and recharge and watch movies together. We questioned at the beginning of our unplugged time what that really meant for us and how we would apply it, and we decided that tv and movies were acceptable, individual usage was not. It was a nice break, but I was definitely happy to hop on Facebook and check my email this morning while I was drinking my cup of coffee :)
The next goal for the week that I was able to cross off was selling $50-100 worth of items! Between the local facebook buy/sell group that I am part of and one item sold on ebay I was able to make about $72 this week. Its not close to closing the income deficit we're experiencing since my ex husband stopped paying his court ordered child support, but every little bit helps. I applied $40 of my sales to our natural gas bill and spent the rest on a few things we needed to pick up at the grocery store and Target.
Lets talk about Family Night at Dannon's school! It was totally worth sitting through a presentation that was mostly done in Spanish, to see how happy Dannon was to have us all there. They fed us all an amazing meal of tostadas and all three of the kiddos got to play in the classroom. It was a nice way to break up the sometimes monotonous feel of our weeknights without spending a dime. We'll definitely plan on attending next month too!
The last weekly goal I was able to cross of the list was getting up each morning with the alarm. I guess if I'm being TECHNICAL I should admit that I hit snooze once or twice... but each morning I was out of bed before 7am and it just feels better to get a start on the day, instead of the day starting without me.
Now for the weekly goals I didn't complete:
Exercising and making a Minecraft pillow for Dannon's birthday.
I've got no real, valid excuses for not exercising a minimum of 3 times. I just didn't do it.
As for the pillow... I ended up ordering about $25 worth of Minecraft miniatures to use as decorations on Dannon's birthday "cake." I am crossing my fingers that he will love the idea I came up with (thank you, Pinterest!) and we're sure the little figures will provide hours and hours of play. There just wasn't anything left in the birthday budget to buy fabric for the pillow project. It will go on the back burner though and definitely will be completed sometime. Maybe he'll get a Minecraft quilt and pillow for Christmas if he is still obsessed in a few months.
The last thing I wanted to touch on for this post was our success at unplugging for 24 (turned 36) hours this weekend. We are a family that has a habit of being entirely too wrapped up in our gadgets (ahem, boys...) and social media (guilty as charged.) Bob shared with me an article he read on cnn.com about the National Day of Unplugging and we decided to participate. I'm happy to report that it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be and in fact, its something I want to incorporate on a regular basis! There were a few times that Dannon asked about his iPad, and a few times I though "oh, I should post this on facebook" or "I need to remember to look this up..." but I discovered that a lot of the time I spend online is just wasted time and it takes my focus away from my family and my home commitments. I wish the weather would have cooperated so we could have gone outside to play catch or another fun family activity outdoors, but in true pacific northwest fashion it was rainy. We used our time to get a few things done around the house, rest and recharge and watch movies together. We questioned at the beginning of our unplugged time what that really meant for us and how we would apply it, and we decided that tv and movies were acceptable, individual usage was not. It was a nice break, but I was definitely happy to hop on Facebook and check my email this morning while I was drinking my cup of coffee :)
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