2013 Goals - January Progress

At the beginning of this month I outlined a list of goals we've set for our family for the year, (you can read it here).  For accountability purposes, I thought it might be fun to track our progress throughout the year with posts at the end of each month.

In my original post, I went a little more in depth talking about all our goals, but I turned it into list form to make it easier to copy and paste into posts each month.  So here's a list of our goals for the year, all organized into handy dandy categories. ;)

House Goals

Dining Room

-paint walls

-paint wainscoting

-new light fixture/fan

-new window treatments

-build built-in cabinets/bookcases

Sunroom/Playroom

-final coat of paint on the walls

-new window treatments

-new rug

-move playroom back to the sunroom, (we temporarily relocated the playroom to the dining room for the winter)

Main Bathroom

-paint walls

-refinish cabinets in darker stain

-new cabinet hardware

-new light fixture

-new window treatment

Living Room

-paint trim

-final coat of paint on the mantel

-paint built-in bookcase

-paint the crown moulding

-paint the ceiling

-get new window treatments

-gallery wall around the tv

-replace baseboards

Outside

-clean up old deck remains

-start 2nd compost bin

-work on drainage issue

-build raised planter beds

-plant a vegetable garden

-plant grass

-buy real art and furniture, not cheap reproductions

Health Goals

-limit eating at restaurants

-plant a vegetable garden

-learn to can fruits/vegetables/jellies etc.

-make freezer meals

-use homemade cleaners

-diet changes (low carb, no fried foods)

Family Goals

-take Henry to the zoo

-go camping

-find a church home 

-do a family Bible study

Financial Goals

-ramp up savings

-buy local/support small business

So, how are we doing one month into the year?

Surprisingly well!  I'm actually kind of shocked at some of the progress we made this month!  I slashed through the goals that we've finished, and italicized the ones we've made good progress on, but are still works in progress.

Empty Dining Room

We haven't touched the dining room that we want to turn into our office, but I'm confident we'll get there.  For January we tried to work on projects that we already had all the supplies for, (i.e. wouldn't have to spend any money on!), and we have to buy a lot of things to redo the dining room, so it got pushed back some.

Sunroom as Playroom

A family member gave us a big rug that wasn't being using anymore that we're going to use in the playroom/sunroom.  I think it will fit a lot better in the space than the old green one we were using.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it on here, but in early December we moved all the playroom furniture and toys into the dining room.  The sunroom has vents connected to the central heat and air, but since the room is not original to the house, the vents don't put out a lot of heat/air.  Most mornings this winter it's been about 50 degrees in there.  It warms up really quickly with a space heater, but we had the dining room, (which is the first room off the foyer, so the first thing you see when you walk in the house!), full of half-unpacked boxes that stays nice and toasty, and at the back of the house had a completely set up playroom that was chilly.

Dining Room as Playroom 

Oh the paint swatches... I swear they're on every wall in our house, and they're driving me out of my mind!

So, we decided to switch them up for a little while, and have really enjoyed the playroom being at the front of the house this winter.  I'm getting ready for it to switch back so we can start on the dining room to office conversion, but we're waiting for it to get a little warmer still.

And then in two steps forward, one step back news, the sunroom sprouted a leak in the ceiling!  So it's probably a good thing we weren't using it as a playroom the last few weeks.  If we ever get a weekend without rain, we have to get up there and fix the roof leak.  Add that to our list of things to do! ha!

Last weekend we started in on the main bathroom remodel since we already had the paint for the walls, the stain to refinish the cabinets, and new pulls for all the cabinet doors.  I don't want to share any progress photos just yet, because it is a BIG change.  I'm probably going to wait until it's done to share the changes.  If it's all done, y'all can't talk me out of what we're doing to it, ha! I'll just say that it is not being painted white like every other room in the house! ;)

We got the living room trim painted the very first weekend of the month, and started removing the "teeth" from the crown moulding.  We'll come back around to working on it, and putting the final coat of paint on the mantel soon.  Thankfully, my husband understands and supports the fact that I do well working on multiple projects simultaneously, and bouncing all around the house.  I know it's a little chaotic unorthodox, but it makes sense in my brain. ;)

The pit and dirt pile that were our backyard, and what was left when the pit was filled in.  Oy...

We started cleaning up the remains of the old deck we tore out the week after we moved in to fix the plumbing issue.  We want to recycle the deck boards into raised bed planters for our garden this spring. Right now I just want to rid the back corner of our yard of the eyesore that the torn up deck is!  Plus, I want Henry to be able to start playing out there as soon as he can walk, and we can't have boards with nails sticking out of them just lying around with him toddling around.

This picture from last week shows H standing in GRASS!

Clearly I'm way too excited about the grass..

We planted rye grass seed months ago because the yard was nothing but dirt after the plumbers finished with it.  Just in the past few days it's really started to grow!  I looked out this morning and was so excited to see grass!  It actually looks like a yard, (albeit a still rough looking one), now! YAY!  I can't wait for it to be a useable space for us instead of a giant mud pit!  Rye grass is supposed to be a winter grass, so from what I understand we're also going to have to seed it with grass to grow throughout the rest of the year.

We started our second compost bin, (just like our first one, which you can read about here), so we could stop adding to our first bin and let it cure for a while.  Hopefully we'll be able to use some of the compost from the first bin when we plant our garden in a couple months!  We also added some worms to the first bin this month, so we are now officially vermicomposting, (big fancy word for compost with earthworms).

We bought a real painting!  It should be here later this week and I'm really excited about it!  It's going to go in the gallery wall around our tv in the living room.  I've been working on the gallery wall, but it is so hard for me to make it look random!  I'm way too much of a perfectionist!  I'll share a picture when it's all finished.

Camembert, sauteed mushroom, and green onion omelette with fresh blueberries and strawberries for breakfast one morning

Surprisingly, we've done really well at not eating out this month, and eating relatively healthy!  I've been trying to focus on the whole low carb eating, and I feel SO much better!  If you follow along on Facebook, you can see some of the things we are eating.

And finally, we took our first family trip to the zoo!  We really didn't expect to get this marked off so soon, but we had an opportunity and ran with it.  I'm happy we did, Henry had a blast, and we can't wait to go again!

So that's where we are at the end of January!

More progress than we expected to make, but still lots to do!  That's fine with me, I like having goals to work towards.  My favorite thing is getting to scratch through items on the list when we finish them.

Since February is a short month with a lot going on, we're hoping to just get a few house things done: finish painting the main bathroom, stain the cabinets, and change out the hardware, and then put the final coat of paint on the sunroom walls and move the playroom back in to there so we can hopefully start on the dining room to office conversion in March.

If you set goals/resolutions at the beginning of the year, how are they going?  Do you have any new goals for February?

Jennifer