January down!

2011 is 1/12 of the way over, so I wanted to update my progress (or lack thereof).

1) Take a photography class: I'm about 2/3 of the way through my photography class. I am learning a lot. I need to put what I learn into practice more. I have also signed up for willete's joy of love online class, which runs the month of February. More on that tonight, hopefully.

2) Take pictures of the kids every month: well, I'm doing this, but still struggling to get the kids to cooperate. I have some great shots of them individually, but not a fantastic one of them together. Since E started crawling at the beginning of January, it has been so hard to get her to sit still or even stay anywhere near her brother. She is off and into everything! I plan to upload some pics tonight from home

3) Create - and actually stick to - a budget: I created a budget, and then blew it out of the water. It's not tragic because we also sold a car that we don't need to replace. The main cause of us going over budget was both of the kids outgrowing their clothes at the same time. I feel like I am doing better at keeping spending down though.

4) Plant a vegetable garden in the spring: Have the broccoli started, but I may have screwed something up. The Square Foot Gardening book that I am using said that you could plant 5 or so seeds per cup when you start the seeds. I tried that, but I put 5 seeds all in the same little hole in the cup, so I think they are too close together. I am going to try to salvage at least one of that plants this weekend by moving it into another cup. I am not too hopeful since I am a first-timer, but we'll see how it goes. I am also going to start my onion seeds this weekend. Hopefully they will fare better.

5) Build a bookshelf for E's room: I haven't started this yet. Still haven't finished the ledges I am building for the kitchen. We have all the supplies needed for that project, but our garage is too messy.

6) Organize the garage and bonus room. My sweet husband is working on these two tasks. I really wish I had taken before pictures of each. Sunday he tore down a huge, not-functional-for us shelving unit in the garage. Our hope is to put in shallower shelves and a work bench in another part of the garage. Right now we don't really have any work space, so it's difficult to do some projects. The bonus room looks a lot better since we move all the Christmas decorations and boxes into the attic, but it still needs much improvement.

7) Run a 5K. This is off the table until June. I don't run while nursing.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with our progress. The kids were sick for a couple weeks and my husband worked non-stop for the first couple weeks of the month, so I'm happy we accomplished what we did. Heck, I'm just happy to have survived this month.

Bring on February!

11 days in

I am doing really well with my goals!!

1) Take photography classes
2) Take pictures of the kids every month

I had my first photography class this weekend, and I learned a couple great tricks. I also have been taking a lot of pictures, mostly of B playing in the snow. I haven't gotten a great picture of both kids together for this month, so I need to keep working on that.

3) Create - and actually attempt to stick to - a budget

I have been doing really well sticking to our new budget. I haven't bought hardly anything except food, and I have even dialed my food spending way back. Hopefully we can keep this up.

6) Organize the garage and bonus room

My husband's Christmas present was a work bench for the garage. Well, it was supposed to be, but we decided to wait until it warms up a bit and we clear out some space for it in the garage. This is moving way up the priority list. The bonus room is a wreck. Christmas decorations need to be put away, as does our luggage from our trip to the west coast over Christmas. My sister is coming to visit on Friday, and that's where she sleeps, so maybe I'll be motivated to work on it later this week.

Building: Goal 4

About 6 months ago, I discovered Ana White's blog. This fall, my husband and I build a farmhouse bench from her blog. We had a lot of fun with it, and we currently have the supplies to build some Gallery Ledges for our kitchen and the kids' rooms. After we finish those ledges, my next project is a bookshelf for E's room. I am leaning toward the Cara Console. It's a little more complicated than the other things we have built because of the cuts on the sides, but we have inherited a saw recently that should allow us to make those cuts.

I actually have a ton of projects from that site that I want to accomplish. I may do some before the bookcase. I'll be sure to keep you updated with our progress.