This Week's Goals and Accomplishments

When I sub, I've made a habit of carrying card stock with me.  If I find I'm left with more day than lessons, I pull out the cards and hand them to the kids.  I let them use markers, and assign them the job of making welcome home and thank you cards for our service members.  It's a win-win for everyone.  The soldiers get thank you cards from home, the kids are thrilled because they get to use markers to color something, and I am overjoyed because the kids are not bouncing around a classroom with nothing to do.

I've taken these cards to the USO at the airport, and I've given to friends who have children serving in the military overseas. 

This morning I met up with an old friend who has a son serving in Afghanistan.  I handed over a bag of 100 welcome home cards, and we spent time catching up with each other.  It's been entirely too long since I've seen her and it was wonderful to catch up with her again!

By the way, whenever card stock goes on sale, or I find some amazing coupons for a large amount of money off of a purchase at a craft store, I pick it up.  The most I've ever paid for the cardstock is $5 for a pack of 100 blank cards.

Electricity Usage:

Since the weather is cooler, the a/c has been off all week.  It's also not yet cold enough to turn on the heat, so we are keeping the electricity expenses down, down, down.

Supplies:
Daughter is working on her Gold Award Project.  She is offering a series on Intergenerational Art projects at the library.  She needed a few more supplies, but I didn't want to spend any money on anything.  As luck would have it, I had reward points from an office supply store, and a prepaid Visa card that we received after the purchase of middle child's computer for college.  I was able to use the reward points and a portion of the pre-paid Visa card to buy the last of the supplies that she needed for the October classes.

These were my goals for last week:
1) Sub at least 2 days this week.
I lucked out and found one extra job this week, so I subbed for a total of 3 days.

2) Exercise 3 days this week.
Done.  It's been a great week for exercising!

3) Salsa.  I will can salsa.
Done!  10 pints canned and ready to go.

4) Work on middle child's t-shirt quilt.  Share pictures of progress on the quilt.
I finished 2 1/2 more squares.  I shared the pictures of the t-shirt squares, but have yet to share the pictures of the black on black squares.  (What can I say?  They're black, and they're hard to see!)

5) Salvage the strawberry patch.
Still not done...

6) Bake bread 3 times this week.
Only made bread twice.  But, since there are only 3 of us at home now, each batch lasted longer.

7) Spend 15 minutes a day in the messy room in the basement.
I made it down there twice.  I got a lot of stuff thrown out, and I collected a box of paper that was recycled.

8) Begin work on my niece's graduation present.
I am going to make her a prayer shawl for graduation.  I found out that her favorite color is red.  Once I find a good yarn sale, I'm going to head out and pick up what I need for her project.

9) Finish the second page of the memory books for my girl scouts.
I didn't get to this. 

10) Can spaghetti sauce.
No spaghetti sauce, but I did make a huge batch of home-made sauce.  The tricky part of canning is that you have to watch the balance of acidity in sauce if you are water bath canning.  I don't have a pressure canner, so all of my canning is done in a water bath.  If you can something incorrectly, you can kill your family.  So, I made our favorite sauce, which can't be water bath canned, and broke it down into one quart containers and froze them all.  Not exactly the solution I wanted, but it is a solution!

Goals for this coming week:
1) Finish another two blocks on the t-shirt quilt.

2) Clean out the carport.  Make certain that all of the leaves are swept out and the window well is cleared out and ready for winter.

3) Spend at least 15 minutes a day at least twice this week cleaning the messy room in the basement.

4) Put all of our AP Review Books from last year up on E-Bay.

5) Work on the albums for the Girls.

6) Get this year's badges sewn onto daughter's Girl Scout vest.

7) Make a batch of apple butter.

8) Finish reading the YA Book I'm currently reading and post a review on my young adult literature blog.

9) Exercise at least 3 days this week.

10) Clean out the trunk of my car.