My Accomplishments This Week

I picked up the oldest child from school this past week for a dentist appointment.  When he got in the car, I did a double take, "Holy cow, son,  you really need a haircut."

"That's what my physics professor said"

"Whoah, if a physics professor noticed you need a haircut, you know it's bad!"


That aside, it was a productive week.  I made dinner from scratch every night.  I stopped by my favorite local orchard this week.  The family owns a restaurant/produce stand on the edge of their property.  I checked the 50 cent rack and found a huge bag of veggies that were no longer fit to be sold on their "First" racks.  Everything in the bag looked fresher than what is in my grocery store, so I bought a bag.  We've had a roasted sweet potato mash, vegetable soup, and roasted eggplants from that bag.  I'll be using the last of the veggies from that bag tonight in a chili pot!

I made two huge batches of muffins with bananas that were on the clearance rack at the grocery store because they were on the "edge" of being thrown out.  I froze the extra muffins so we can pull them out for breakfast when we get hungry.  (3 pounds of bananas for 30 cents!)

We still haven't turned on our heat yet.  We've been relying on the wood stove to keep the chill out of the house.  However, with snow expected this week, and much colder temperatures to go along with it, I am expecting that we will have to turn on the heat in the back bedrooms.  One of the bedrooms has a programmable thermostat.  (Baseboard heat).  We need to get an electrician in to install a programmable thermostat in the other bedroom.

My gift to the family this year is to organize all of our digital photos, and back them up.  I've begun transferring the photos to CD's, and I'm also organizing them into files in an online storage system.  Realistically, I need an external hard drive, but I don't have one of those.  I do however, have a lot of RWCD's to put them on in the meantime.  It's one more fail safe to lessen the chance of losing everything.  Most of our photos are in albums, but I want to make sure that I have a back up of our photos, somewhere!

I did write an actual list of goals for last week!
1) Continue working on daughter's cross stitch.
This is very close to being finished.  I had originally begun this project 3 years ago, and then laid it aside for a while.  I picked it back up over the summer, and then stopped working on it while I worked on youngest child's quilt.  I hope to have it all finished by Thanksgiving so that I can have it framed for her.

2) Caulk the windows.
DH is doing this today.

3) Clean out the window wells.
DH is also doing this today.  The thought of a snake lurking in one of the window wells doesn't bother him as much as it bothers me!

4) Continue piling up the load to take to Goodwill.
The pile is getting bigger.  I should have it out of the house in time for Thanksgiving!

5) Move stuff over to the tall freezer, defrost the chest freezer and clean it out.
The chest freezer is quietly defrosting as I write this.

6) Begin work on quilt for oldest child.
I moved the pile of fabric from one side of the table to the other!  Does that count?

7) Get out and exercise 3 days this week.
I didn't manage this over the week. 

8) Start layering the lasagna gardens in the front yard.
DH objected to the spot I had chosen for the strawberry beds.  Back to the drawing board, again. 

9) Cut up and steam the pumpkins for pies and breads.
Still not done, but the pumpkins look very pretty sitting in the window!

10) Spend 15 minutes a day, twice in the basement cleaning up and sorting.
Done.  I still feel like no progress is being made, unless if I look back at the picture that I took in September.  Then I realize that I have made a LOT of progress!

Goals for this coming week:
1) Continue moving photos to CD's and backing them up online.
2) Continue working on daughter's cross stitch.
3) Begin cleaning and moving stuff around in the living room so that the tree will have a clean place to go over Thanksgiving.
4) Move things from the upright freezer back to the chest freezer.
5) Make muffins and apple cake for the church bazaar.
6) Sort the photos for the girl scout albums by girl. 
7) Put away all of the overtly Halloween decorations, but leave the fun Thanksgiving ones out for a little while longer!
8) Finish writing the review for my YA Book blog.
9) Get the Honda in for an oil change, have the fluids checked, tires rotated.
10) Spend some time hanging out with my hubby!