A New Year. An Organized Life.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I need to organize my life. I am horrible at keeping our house clean, dishes done, floors swept or vacuumed, washing and folding the laundry... The list of every day tasks grows! Some days I feel so overwhelmed that I do not do ANYTHING I probably should do.

So last Monday, I had this brilliant idea to make a list of 5 things to do every day that week. The 5 things went into these categories:

dinner

laundry

cleaning task

craft/yarn project

something for me

Let me explain a bit. I don't think like most women, I have learned. I think it has to do with a) having and engineering degree b) learning how to think like all those guys in my engineering classes and c) growing up hating men. (I have problems I know, just talk to my high school friends, they have great stories!)

Dinner: I learned that if there was no plan for dinner, we don't eat. For most of B and I's marriage I have made a meal calendar, gone grocery shopping, and then decided we were going to eat other meals. Therefore spending more money and throwing away lots of food and money! So I am going to change the way I do our meal calendar, not sure but more on that in another post.

Laundry: I am very particular about how my clothes get washed. No sure where/why I developed this. I run enough loads of laundry that I figured out a plan for washing all our clothes, towels, and bedding on a 2 week rotation. With this plan of mine I only do laundry 3 days a week! It opens up time for other things, I like doing more.

Cleaning Task: Yes, laundry is not a cleaning task. This is not one of those every day things, like dishes. More of things you need to do once a week, like mopping, vacuuming, dusting, deep cleaning rooms (kitchen and bathroom), and changing bedding.

Craft/Yarn Project: I have a lists of 20+ projects I want to finish one day... I need to schedule time for myself to do them. With this little daily list do-dab I have finished 2 projects for Christmas!!

Something for Me: We always need down time for ourselves. This is my one thing I really want to get done thing for me. It varies, some days it is organize the closet other days it is go to project group. It is just something that I want done that I know will make me happy.

Since this little list do-dab work fairly well last week, I decided I am going to make being organized my New Year Resolution. It is the only one I have this time. No, list of 50 billion things I want to change. No, crazy goals that even know I can't keep. Something simple, and that is going to make my life and every one around me more pleasant.

No one ever says you have to wait until New Years to make those, so I decided to start now.

Goals, Goals, and Goals!

I wish this was a post about soccer, but sadly it is not.

Most of you readers know about my 25 by 25 list, and as January gets closer I start to wonder what really is going to be achieved on that list...

Right now, I have done 4 of 25 Now some of the goals are a year one thing so I am on track to have almost half of the list done!

I have been work hard this last week on actually sitting down and reading my scriptures! I am so proud of myself! This last week I started reading in Moroni and am now in the middle of Mormon (I like to the BoM backwards, so that way when I get to 2 Nephi I don't quit!) Goal here: Finish BoM by New Years!!

Another goal, of mine, which sounds totally selfish, is I want some more really close good friends in Pullman! Seriously, B has 4-5 years left of school and I don't feel like people want to be friends with us because they are leaving before us. OR they think that because B is from here we have local friends-- NOT TRUE!! We actually know more students than residents of Pullman, or the 'local' people we know are students who will one day leave just like us!

Lastly, I want to turn our very unorganized basement into a functional storage room/workout area/study area for B. Today I spent some time trying to find a space to put all of the apple stuff we canned and the food I got from the cannery on Saturday... I think the basement is a never ending pit of stuff... Slowly I will beat it!

Summer is over...

And it is a very sad fact for us. Brody took the summer off from school, which was wonderful for me during the summer, not it is not! School started a few weeks ago, and he is taking two classes again. Honors Calculus two and Honors English. He hates being the oldest person in his classes of mostly freshmen.

Other than School starting nothing new has happened in our lives. Although we have been doing a little bit of "home improvements"!

We recently sold our hideous floral couches we have had (we got them for free so convincing B to sell them and purchase new ones has taken some time). We had a full set; seven-foot couch, love seat, and a winged back chair. They did not fit in our living room, and I was done with them. I had dreams of covering them, but the thought of actually doing it, overwhelmed me!

Isn't that floral print lovey....

After selling our couches we got brand new black faux leather with a white detail stitching on it. Since I now spend more time at home, I couldn't stand that the curtains did not match the couches. So then began the redecorating. We got new curtains and curtain rods and rearranged a bit. I am working on the last few details and when I am done pictures will be up!

I haven't been the only one with a little 'home improvement' project. B has been working on a bike shed! He got all the lumber free from work, it was a GIANT pallet. He broke it down to make a floor, and three walls. He now has plans to make a roof and a door. I am excited because we really do not have room in our house for bikes!