May Goal Report

This is so overdue! I made a goal list in May of everything I wanted to accomplish before leaving for Maryland at the beginning of June. I knew once I left, it would be some time before I could get back to projects. And as you can see it's nearing the end of July and I'm just getting this post up! 

My goals are in bold:

- Prep & paint back room: This was a multi-step process and kinda intimidating! The whole room; walls, trim, closet, radiator cover; was painted peach.

First I painted the trim white. I taped the floor but didn't worry about the walls since I've be painting over them anyway.

Then I removed the wall paper border. I tried to this using hot water and vinegar but this glue was too old or something so I bought Chomp wall paper remover from Home Depot. It worked like a charm!

Next, I primed and painted the walls Mindful Gray from Sherwin Williams.  

Finally, I mixed up some chalk paint with the same white color I painted the trim, and painted the radiator cover. 

The room looks much better now and is ready for Ben to trim out the windows.

  

 - Rejuvenate back room floor using the wood floor refinisher I got on clearance: This is the one thing we did not do. I was reading the instructions for it and it was waaaay more involved than I realized. Not something I could finish quickly before leaving for two weeks and then having family in town for two weeks. No problem though. It'll just be an upcoming project and review.

- Paint basketball wall hanging for boy's room: The blue piece of wood was in one of the sheds when we moved into our house. It looked like it used to be a backboard, but on closer examination, I think it was a counter top. The other side has a laminate covering. I mixed up some chalk paint and viola! Basketball wall hanging! 

-Find basketball hoop for the wall hanging: I found a mini basketball hoop at JC Penney and used a $10 off $10 coupon to get it for $4.67. We're going to disassemble the hoop and attach it to the backboard I painted. Ben's going to figure out some genius way to then hang it in their room.

- Finish painting bathroom trim & shelves downstairs: Done. The only thing left to do in this bathroom is paint the ceiling.

 - Discuss garden plans with Ben: We agreed to do so much less than last year. We're only going to do the pumpkin, watermelon, and then the fruit trees and bushes which are already in our yard. Gardening took up a lot of time last year and we've come to the conclusion that where we are in life right now it's not being economical with our time or money to have a garden. Instead I'm going to buy produce in bulk at it lowest price and preserve by canning or freezing.

- Buy pumpkin & melon plants as we didn't get seeds started: Bought on sale and planted!

We also found raspberry plants in our yard that weren't here the last two years! Weird, but awesome! I put some trellises in to help support the canes. The trellises were found in the back field.

- Finish spreading mulch: This got done. No, really, it did. I had an awesome panoramic picture of it and now I can't find it! Here's my lesson learned though. Remove all the grass/weeds before mulching. I thought that covering them with mulch would kill them and I would effectively save myself the time and work. Not so! The grass and weeds just grew though it! ☹ Now we have harder work to remove the grass and weeds and re-spread the mulch.

- Plant daylily bulbs: Ben bought bulbs last year at Costco. I think we had a total of 110 bulbs! We didn't get around to planting them last year. I pulled them out of the root cellar and only 20 were okay to be planted. And even those are a maybe it'll grow/maybe not. Lesson learned; don't buy plants until you're ready to put them in the ground!

- Sign up kids for classes at Marshall White, our local community center: We signed Mikaela up for archery and Tafton and Mikaela up for karate. These classes only cost $10 for 8 sessions. Great value and if they end up not liking the activity, I don't feel like they have to finish because we spent so much on it. Case in point, they didn't enjoy the karate class and we haven't gone back after the first class.

- Plan one family activity/trip: We did several! We went to Idaho Falls and visited the temple which had been renovated. We celebrated Tafton and Jackson's Birthdays. We went to Lagoon on Homeschool Day. We went to the Seaquest Aquarium with our cousin's family. It was fun & busy month!

- Organize shop/garage: This is an ongoing project. We organized them and while family was in town we had a multi-family yard sale where we used the garage so it got unorganized and we also had to store a lot in the shop room because of sleeping arrangements during the family visit. I have since reorganized the garage but all the tools & bags Ben still needs to go through and do a final arranging.

- Go through the kids toys, with the kids, to determine what can be put in the yard sale:Done. We did so much work for this yard sale. I read all the blogs that tell you what to do to make it the most successful yard sale ever. We ended up making about $180. Not terrible but we had a ton of stuff still at the end of it. If we do a yard sale again I wouldn't put as much work into it and I would do more batch pricing. i.e. fill a bag for $5. Move that stuff out!

- Organize kid's clothes, figure out better storage system: I did this and then we got some clothes given to us as I guess other families were also going through their clothes before Summer! These new-to-us clothes haven't made it into the storage boxes yet, but it's on my list for July!

- Discuss yard sale plans with family: We figured out our plans and it took a lot of prep work. After the sale, having all the family there to clean up, load the truck, put the garage back together, etc. it went really fast! We were done in 20 minutes with the truck driving to the donation center. That was nice!

- Purge older medical documents: I love organizing and decluttering. Probably too much if you ask Ben! After reading The Art of Decluttering, better known as the Konmari method, I've realized that we have too much paper clutter. We've especially held onto medical documents because we've had issues with insurance companies in the past and needed all the documents for proof!  It's recommended that medical documents be kept for 3 years. Anything older than that, shred it! Our credit union holds a shred day every month or so. I brought all the old documents and had them shredded.

- Call Mortgage company to release escrow to our management: Taxes and Insurance are now paid by us rather than through our mortgage company. This results in our mortgage payment being about $250 less a month! We have to put aside money each paycheck to make sure when the bills come due we have the money to pay, but overall it saves us money every month, which is more for the debt snowball. 

We also completed projects that weren't on our list. Ben finished building the dining room table, I made a welcome sign for our front porch out of found items and chalk paint, & we purchased and planted flowers for our patio pots!

I think I'm going to continue making lists and sharing them with you guys. We accomplished several projects and were able to spend time together as a family having fun and working hard.