Goal Setting for August

Life has been really hard for over a decade - but the last 4 years have been extra difficult, and most months I just hope that we are still functioning at the end of the month.

Story tells me that I "plan with a VCR tape in my memory".  So that if something interrupts me, I hit stop or pause, and then try to pick up where I left off when I hit play again.  Except that the last time my VCR planner was running ... I only had 3 children, and my mom was still alive, and the Ref had a job, and lots of things that have wrinkled (no - shredded) my plans had not happened yet.  I was steadily loosing weight, organizing the house, and the girls were doing really well in school.  We were preschooling Scholar with a bunch of cousins - and having a blast doing so.  Life was finally looking up.  We were going to actually have enough money to fix the extra car again - and take a tiny vacation, and we had had a tiny budget for Christmas for a change.

Nothing has changed for the positive really ... Ref is not working anymore.  My mom died.  Temporary care of my very young niece.  New baby, car accident, heart attack,  and so much more has happened.  But I am finally ready to plug in my new VCR tape.  I've had others over the last 4 years, but none of them have played for very long either, two months max.

So ... I'm going to make some plans for August.  I'm actually going to write them down.   And at the end of August, we'll see how it went.  I have a friend that is a Time Management Coach, and this is something she does ... and she's been urging me to do the same.  She has hers all arranged in nice neat categories - so I will make an attempt at organization.  Maybe this will help me focus.

Keep in mind, I live in two fully furnished homes - my trailer, and then my Dad's house next door, which consists of 2 trailers, one lower than the other, hence a downstairs and upstairs level.  He no longer lives there after remarrying about a year ago.  A relative is moving into Dad's house this fall, and we have to make room for her.  We are really looking forward to her arrival!  She will live upstairs, and we will continue to use the downstairs.


Without further ado ... here is my "VCR style plan" for the month of August.  It's rather short and not much to it ... but some of these goals are going to be quite time consuming.

(Aug 3 update - after 9 days of working on these goals) 
(Aug 16 update)

Blogging -

1.  Eagle Nest - Write at least 25 Daily Kindle posts (that allows me to forgive myself if I miss a few).  (3 posts done) (15 of 15 days ... but I'll miss this weekend for family coming to town for in-law's anniversary)
2.  Eagle Nest - Write at least 25 Other Posts on Homeschooling, Crafts, and such.  (Haven't had time to do much, but managing around 4 posts each week)
3.  O 'Scarlett - Write at least 12 book reviews  (I'm not worried about setting a book reading goal - I already have 40 books that I need to write up!)  (read 5 books, and written 4 reviews)  (lost track of the books read - but I've done 2 more reviews)
4.  Wings - my personal scrapbooking blog - Write at least 8 posts and 1 Family News Update.  (I think I've managed 3 posts)
5.  At least once a week, visit other blogs and leave comments, and visit Blog Frog.  (30 minutes Aug 2)  (reading/ skimming Google Reader, barely had time to click through 2 or 3)


Project School Room - and Household Shuffle
1.  Story moved into the play room - collect everything that belongs to her and it goes into her room with her.  (We are almost finished with this ... at least, most of her stuff is in the room ... just needs her to sort and put it away.)  (Story is still finding homes for her stuff - needs a 5 shelf book shelf she says - but I think most of her belongings are in this room, other than 1 nick knack shelf of stuff in Song's room) 
2.  Finish sorting out Dad's office so the Ref can move into there  (finished as much as we can do on Monday ... the rest is up to the Ref)
3.  After the ref has moved and rehooked the internet to downstairs, get all of our computers moved downstairs  (this will not be easy, since for the last 8 months, every spare item has just been stacked into the unused schoolroom).
4.  Set up a "room" for Sunshine in our living room - where Story use to have her "office"  (decided to move Sunshine into Song's sewing area, and the TV into Story's Writing and Knitting Nook - pictures taken)  (Sunshine has her bed - not everything is in place, living room is super crowded.  But she is sleeping there every night since Sunday!)
5.  Paint the room where the Ref did have his office for Scholar - and move Scholar into his room.  (Assuming I can find enough yellow and green paint.)
Bonus:  6.  Get Song's room cleared out of her siblings things and all of her stuff into her own room - this includes her two sewing corners.   (Mostly this is done - except Scholar is still sleeping on the bottom bunk).

We are actually gaining a room in all of this shuffling - so I am hoping that some of the "homeless" items will actually find a home!  Plus eventually, I do have a storage spot that I've been trying to empty for the last 8 years so my sister can use it as she needs to.


Project Aunt V.
1.  Empty Dad's office (sames as #2 above)
2.  Empty the bunk house - R3 comes and gets the bunk bed.  Sell the baby bed.  (Bunk bed is gone ... sisters decided to try to sell items, so all of that has hit this room and I'm taking pictures and posting for sis to sell.  Things are not moving very fast.)
3.  Empty the Master Bedroom.  (moved out 1 dresser to Story's room, emptied a shelf to move later)  (Dad and sisters spent 6 or so hours a few Saturday's ago.  Progress.)
4.  Help Dad do the repair work on bathrooms and bedrooms whenever he is here.  (Dad got downstairs bathroom working- happy dance!)
5.  Sort pictures and papers so they can be easily stored to go through at a later date.  (have spent a good 10 - 15 hours on 5 and 6 - dusty work)  (Lots of time spent here - but I have a LONG way to go!)
6.  Toss old catalogs and papers that do not need to be kept.  (A lot has been done here - but still finding things to throw away!  Have emptied 6 large trash  cans of stuff so far.)
7.  Decide between sibs where things can be relocated or stored, and who can best use things.  (R4 came and got one of the dressers)  (Not much sorting or leaving or relocating happened the past 2 weeks.)
8.  Get with sibs at least 4 times to go through things that need to leave the house.
9.  Help R4 get stuff together for Children's sale for Dad.


Food
1.  Go through and organize and itemize the small freezer.   (My BF helped with this and the top freezer at our house.  I have a list and we are doing our best to work as much off as possible.)
2.  Clean the 2 frig top freezers, and itemize what needs to be used up. (One freezer down)  (second freezer organized)
3.  Itemize the Chest freezer - Goal is to have Empty by September.  (And the 2nd refrigerator and the upstairs pantries must be empty by October).  (using stuff with nearly every meal.  But there is a lot of mystery packages in there!)
4.  Make meal plans to use up as much odds and ends of stored food as possible.  (Still haven't made plans ... we just plan to use the stuff.)


Cleaning
1.  Deep clean as each room is cleared or emptied.  (Two bathrooms that had become "catch all" over the past 2 years are now clean and functional.)  (Office partially deep cleaned, as well as the corner Sunshine is in for her bedroom)
2.  Get the main kitchen under control - easier said than done - the table takes up most of the room.  Must decided on new floorplan for kitchen/dining/living rooms - it's all one BIG room.  (Ref has been chasing bugs - mild winter, country life, hot summer, means lots of bugs)
3.  Find a board to put under the foot of my bed - so it doesn't go through the floorboard anymore.   (Somebody tell me why they put particle board in trailer homes - it gets wet, turns to flaky sawdust, and disintegrates!)


School
1.  Find the schoolroom  (Actually have done a LOT ... but then we bury it again.  Currently pulled the toys out of the pile and we're sorting those. Song's project.)
2.  Organize the desks and stuff in the room  (Story's desk and Scholar's desk


Facebook and Email -
Goal is to check no more than 3 times a day.  (Better, but still a long way to go.)


Personal
1.  Be in bed before Midnight - WITH the lights off.
2.  Have all of the kids in bed by 10pm - and asleep.
3.  More consistent devotional times.
4.  Loose 10 lbs.
5.  No eating after 7pm.
6.  Walk a mile or so at least 4 times each week.  Goal is to work  up to 2 miles by Sept 1. (Not getting in a whole mile with the heat, but getting faster!)
(Been more aware of these goals, and times are getting better!)