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| Our library finally got an outdoor book drop! It's cute, isn't it? |
I spent a day earlier this week helping to install a book drop outside of the library. I got to help pull that top part - with the chute off, so that we could have the door opening on the right onto the sidewalk by the library door, and the chute facing out towards the parking lot. Funny story - the chute didn't separate as easily as we thought it would. I pulled up on the chute and pulled the entire book drop up with me! After much discussion, we finally eased the chute off and then we bolted the book drop down to the concrete, and put the chute back on top. The day we installed the drop was gorgeous - and we're in between semesters right now, so I think we might have taken more time working on this than we needed to. I guess you could ask "How many librarians does it take to install a book drop?" The answer is 2, and a really good maintenance man who shook his head at us an awful lot.
I had an interesting set of resolutions for this year. I'm doing a decent job of keeping up with most of them this year! It's time to check back in on them and see how I'm doing!
1) Remodel the Hall Bathroom
The money is piling up in the savings account. Waiting now for something to break and wipe it out again....
So, I wrote the first part of this on Weds. It's Friday night now, and guess what? The van died in the parking lot at the grocery store. It's been towed to the mechanic, and we are awaiting the final verdict on the cost. It died, and there was no electricity AT ALL in the car. AAA came out and tried to jump start it, all to no avail. So, we wait...
2) Improve My Health
I'm no longer looking at just the number on the scale. I'm looking at the big picture numbers that reflect more of my overall health.
a) Lose inches off of my waist.
My goal was to lose 3 inches this year.
I'm down 2 1/2 inches. ONE MORE HALF INCH TO GO!!! I would love to hit this marker before June 1.
b) Get my blood pressure down into the normal range.
Check up is on Monday, at 2:30. Really, really curious to see what it is!
This is a pretty phenomenal accomplishment. I've spent a lot of time working this off! I'm very proud of myself!
3) Re-start my vegetable garden.
After a serious re-evaluation of the site formerly known as my garden, I have decided to tuck vegetable plants into my flower gardens by the house. Bonus, it's close to water, so I don't have to haul water across the back yard. Second Bonus- since the flowers get so many pollinators, they'll hopefully be drawn to my vegetables to work their magic.
4) Learn to pressure can.
I've since discovered that a pressure canner will not work on my glass top stove. It's back to the drawing board while I try to figure out how to work around this problem. I'm not sure what I can do that's on the affordable scale on this. I've seen some pretty "out there" suggestions, but I haven't yet gotten to the point where I'll take them seriously. Buy a second propane stove and a propane tank and keep it outside? Not in our budget for this year.
5) Daughter's Quilt
The pressure is on with this one! She's in the Community College now, but will be heading off to a 4 year school in the fall of 2017. The quilt needs to be finished by then! I've tracked down all of the fabrics I plan to use, but I really need to finish another project I have started before I begin on this one. Too many projects going at one time. Bad, bad, idea. I need to stop doing that.
6) Clean Out and Organize the Carport
I keep saying I'm going to do this, and then the day I set aside to do so, it's cold, wet, and rainy. No more excuses. Have to get this done in May. I must stop procrastinating.
HOORAY! I am meeting this goal! I have lost inches, I have lost a clothing size! I am exercising at least 5 days a week. HOORAY!! Keep it up! Keep it up!
Originally, the goal was to clean out 23 things a month. Then I changed it to 23 things a week. For the entire 52 weeks of the year, that would have required me to get rid of 1196 things for the year. I met that this month, hands down. Do you have a cabinet full of plastic food storage containers? I do, and it is loaded with junk. I do mean LOADED. Anyway, I went through that cabinet this month and donated a very large portion of the junk to the thrift store. I no longer have to worry about plastic parts falling down on my head every time I open that cabinet up. I gave up counting the number of items in the three boxes I got rid of this month after I hit 123. If I had to guess, I'd say there was close to 200, but I'll go conservative on my estimate and say I got rid of 125 things.
Holy cow, do you realize how much stuff I've gotten rid of this year?
Items out of the house this month: 125
Items so far this year: 1,273
WOW! This didn't even take me half a year! I thought I'd never get this far along, and yet here we are, 4 months and 1200+ things out of my house!
Big Black Trash Bags (total):7
I originally found this on the Frugal, Debt Free Life Blog.
10) Visit One Place on my Bucket List
Phase One- completed (We know where we're going.)
Phase Two- finished
Phase Three - making reservations - put on hold because oldest child might have a conflict with that week...
I worked to hard to get those certifications to just let them lapse! It's never fun to take classes, but it's even LESS fun to have to retake all of the classes for a certificate you let lapse. (Or worse - to retake a mandatory test. I'm thinking of the Praxis exams. I took the NTE's back in the 80's. I'm not sure how well I'd do on the Praxis exams if I were to have to take them now. Especially since it's been more years than I want to admit since I've sat in on college classes.)
12) Scrapbooking
I need to catch up. I know I had years that I didn't do this. I went through all of the albums this and found the years that I have not yet finished. These are the years I am in search of:
2006
2009
2010
I'm halfway there! Last month's revelation was that I need to back up my photos more frequently. This month, it's more of the same. I found that a photo card from the first three months of 2011 had a fatal flaw and could not be opened. At least the pictures from oldest child's high school graduation and daughter's Confirmation pictures were saved. Lesson learned: frequently back up the photos to a 2nd and 3rd source, and make sure one of those sources is a third party entity.
13) Walk or Bike a portion of at least 6 Rail Trails
The challenge has begun! The first trail has been explored.
Note to self: take more water next time - twice the amount you'll think you need, carry one bottle with you, keep extra in the car for when you get back. Those trails are not as shaded as the woodland trails in the State Parks.
The NCR Trail
14) Pay off
The big debt is gone. It's nice to have one monkey off my back! Before I go to work on the smaller debt, I desperately need to rebuild the emergency savings account. If you remember, it was depleted over the course of a dental emergency and a car repair. We have wisdom teeth coming up this month so building up that emergency savings now is crucial. It would be nice to have the wisdom teeth paid for and still have emergency savings left over!
I nicely fixed up the recipe tab so that it is easy to find recipes that I've posted on here before. For me, this is my online recipe book. Some of the recipes are my own. Some, I posted direct links to other sites. You might or might not choose to use it, but I use it on a pretty regular basis, and I've found out that one of the boys does, too. He likes the fact that most of what I've listed is food he already loves and that everything is fairly easy to make and budget conscious.
How are you doing with your resolutions and goals?
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