I have made progess

I promise I'm still progressing toward my goals, but our computer at home decided to catch on fire, so I haven't been able to post much. Hopefully, it will be replaced soon. :)

February Check In

Yes, I know it is March 7. February was a crazy month!!

The joy of LOVE fizzled. I would like to complete it, but it is obviously going to take some time. I still have the emails from the days I didn't do.

The good news is that, even though I've been slack on blogging, I haven't been slack on reaching my goals. I am not doing well with the budgeting. We really need to get on track. But we are saving and paying down our home equity line at a higher rate than before, so it's not all bad. Plus, we have two kids in day care, so I have to cut myself a little slack.

I have one more photography class left. I haven't learned as much as I had hoped to, but it was a decent investment of time. I definitely still have a lot to learn.

I have this fairly-cute picture of the kids from February. I have more on my camera still. I'll try to upload and organize some tonight.

I tried to get a picture of them together decked out in red/pink for Valentine's Day, but they were not cooperating that day.

Our garden is still on, but with some changes. As I suspected after doing further research, my seedlings didn't make it. We don't have enough natural light to start plants from seed. They were doing okay actually until one particularly sunny day I decided to move the seedlings outside. They died that day, probably because it was a little windy. We bought the lumber last night to build our raised beds, and my goal is to have them set up by the end of next weekend.

We have made great strides toward cleaning/organizing the garage and bonus room. My ILs are coming at the end of this month, and I hope that the bonus room is done (except for the closet) by then. The garage probably won't be touched any more this month.

We haven't started building E's bookshelf yet. I'm still working on the gallery ledges for the kitchen. I just bought a corded sander (we did have a battery-operated one that was a pain) last night, so hopefully that will help. The hardest part of that whole project will be sanding the boards. I hope to start her bookshelves by her birthday in June, so we have time.

I haven't started running yet, but I have been walking on a regular basis. I'm going to start running once I'm finished nursing (June-ish).

So...I'm still here and still making progress even though I have been pretty silent.

Budget buster

I'm really blowing goal #3. So far this week, I have purchased a new pair of pewter shoes, some expensive hair products and a dress.

What the heck? I don't wear pewter shoes! I wear black work shoes, brown work shoes and tennis shoes. I don't wear dresses. I have three hanging in my closet still with the tags on. I haven't worn a dress in at least a year and a half.

I do wash my hair though, so we're good on that.

I need to slow down a bit. I am a binge-spender. It's time to end that binge. I can treat myself, but I need to recognize when I'm being irresponsible and nip it in the bud.

And if the shoes or dress don't fit, I need to send them back!

willette's joy of love: day 8

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

So I got a day ahead, and then I fell a day behind. I will probably catch up over the weekend. Things are hectic here.

Day 8 assignment: gift from the heart



After my husband asked my mom for her permission to ask me to marry him, she gave him her engagement and wedding rings. My dad had passed away 8 years prior, and my mom had long stopped wearing her rings (not to mention the fact that she was remarried). He knew that having the rings meant a lot to me, but that I didn't want them as my engagement/wedding rings because I would always look at them and see my mom's hands. That's not a terrible thing, it's just not me.

We talked about having the diamonds reset into a different design, but that wasn't possible. Some of the diamonds have been in my family for generations. They are in bad shape. The center diamond had a huge crack in it, and our jeweler said that he expected it to fall apart if we took it out of the setting.

So he took the setting as-is (as-was?), had it mounted on a pendant and bought a chain to go with it. I wear it almost every day to remember the two most important men in my life. I don't have a lot of material things to remember my dad by. That's okay because I'm not a material person. This is one of the few material possessions that I have that has significant sentimental value to me.

I love it, and I love him for giving it to me.

Edited to add: the more I look at this picture, the more I hate it. The color is all wrong. My hand is not orange, I promise. I think it would be cool in black and white, but I don't have a photo editing program that can convert it. I wonder if the weird coloring is because I used spot metering. I'll have to look that up.

Edited again: okay, I "fixed" the orange hand.

willette's joy of love: day 7

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Yes, I am doing this a day early. Mostly because I already have the picture I want to use (yes, I am cheating again) and I figure this is more fun than attending to the laundry.

Day 7 assignment: generations

My husband doesn't have any other family nearby except for the the kids and me, but I took this one of him, his father and B in December.



I feel like I am learning a lot about photography. I don't know if that shows in the pictures that I take, but I am learning. I feel good about my progress.

willette's joy of love: day 6

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Day 6 assignment: the ones they love (this one is a twofer, mainly because both kids weren't awake at the same time much today...actually I cheated and the picture of E is from yesterday).





It was a pretty slow weekend around here. In a good way. :)

willette's joy of love: day 5

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Day 5 assignment: what you love to hate

I am a really slow eater. Growing up I was often harassed by my brother and sister because they weren't allowed to get up from the dinner table until we were all finished eating. Since I was always the last one eating, they used to try to get me to finish by all means necessary. I never met anyone who eats slower than I do...until I met my husband. Now I know the pain that my siblings felt growing up. His slow eating is especially annoying these days because we have an antsy three-year-old who isn't very good at waiting patiently for his father to finish eating.

Overwhelmed

I am doing some online research about seed starting, since it's time for me to start my onion seeds. I have been following the method in the All New Square Foot Gardening book, which makes it seem pretty simple. But now that I've started to read online, it seems that I am doing everything all wrong and that it will be a miracle if I ever get anything to grow. Okay, so I'm being dramatic, but I feel like I'm on information overload. I want a fun project to grow plants with my son. I am learning a lot though.

I did move the broccoli seedlings out of the vermiculite and into some potting soil. Of course, after I did that, I read that I did it all wrong. Here is a picture of our little seedlings in potting soil:


I was planning to start our onion seeds today, but I was reading the website for our local extension office, and apparently in my area, you can't grow onions from seed. What the heck?

willette's joy of love: day 4

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Day 4 assignment: what they wear

Almost every Friday during the winter, my husband wears a sweater with a collared shirt underneath. For some reason, the collared shirt never really matches the sweater.

willette's joy of love: day 3

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

I'm learning that it's really hard to take pictures on the weekdays. We're gone until dark and then it's a mad dash to get everything done before bedtime. However, it is nice to have the camera out and accessible at all times. I've taken a ton of pictures of the kids since the camera handy.

Day 3's assignment is then and now.

Then, January 1, 2006 outside the Rose Bowl:


Now, February 3, 2011 at the dinner table:


I don't typically prefer black and white photos, but B's face was really red and rashy.

I really feel like I'm kind of phoning it in on these pictures, but I think just doing this project will help me take better pictures. I have no aspirations to be a professional photographer. I just want to take more pictures and better pictures of my family. At least, it's helping me do the former. :)

Favorite January pictures of the kids

These are in reverse chronological order because that's the way that blogger uploaded them, and I don't feel like flipping them around. I really wanted a better one of them in the snow, but E did not want anything to do with the cold.

Here are my favorite pictures of the kids together during January 2011:

willette's joy of love: day 2

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Day 2: how they look





Yes, he is cuddled up in the Charmkins blanket that I have had since I was 6 years old.

willette's joy of love: day 1

Read about the joy of LOVE here.

Day one: take a picture of your loved one doing the thing they do.

Okay, so this was a dud. Nothing about February 1 was normal. I had something important to do in the morning, so there was no time for pictures. Then I worked late. Then my sister showed up when I got home. The only thing I really saw my husband do that day was do dishes, so I snapped a few photos. In my pictures you can't really tell what he's doing and the lighting is all wrong, but I figure it just leaves room for improvement.

Here's my day one photo:

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!

Seeds purchased, broccoli started

I ran to the local home improvement store to buy what I need to start my seeds. I purchased 11 seed packets, some peat trays and 8 quarts vermiculite. I spent $25.65.

Yesterday, B and I planted to broccoli seeds. He doesn't quite understand yet the time that it takes to grow plants. He was expecting the seeds to shoot right up.
I am only planning to transplant one plant, but I figured I ought to start four just in case we don't have great luck.

Still working on getting a good January picture of the kids. Got some cute ones of them individually, but it is very difficult to get them where I can see both of their faces at the same time. My photography class is going okay. I actually skipped it on Saturday to sell my car. I think I'll be able to make it up though. I was disappointed in the last class I attended. The information was very basic and not what I expected from the description.

This weekend we'll see how the next class goes. I also plan to clear out the space for the garden. It's been very cold here and the kids have been sick, so I haven't been motivated to get outside. I'm starting to get over that though. I'm ready for some vitamin D.

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.

Planned our garden!

I received the All New Square Foot Gardening book for Christmas, and this weekend I planned out our garden. We are going to be two 4'x4' beds, so 32 square feet. I am planning to start with these plants at first:

basil
beets
broccoli
carrots
cucumbers
lettuce
onion
oregano
pepper
potato
spinach
tomato
winter squash, probably butternut
zucchini

It sounds like a lot, huh? We'll see how it goes. I also created a calendar for when we need to start seeds, transplant into the garden, etc. When I saw the calendar, it didn't seem as daunting. I am really looking forward to it. I hope it works out for us.

Our next steps are to start our broccoli seeds indoors (mid-to-late January) and build the beds (will need to move the broccoli outside by mid-March). The area where the beds are going to go needs to be cleaned up a little as well. This is what it currently looks like:

The picnic table is moving over to the patio. It needs some love, but we can't decide if we're going to refinish it or get rid of it and buy something. We should probably do the former since 2011 is going to be all about saving money.

I can't wait to see the garden materialize. I also can't wait to eat some of that (hopefully) tasty, fresh produce. YUM.

Budget has been created!

So I finally sat down and created our 2011 budget today. I also balanced our checkbooks and updated all of our account balances. I had a certain number that I wanted our net worth to be by the end of 2010. It didn't happen. Partly because I realized that our house is worth much less than I had been figuring, but mostly because we've spend a lot of money this year and haven't saved much. We should be able to reach that milestone by the end for 2011. We'll see what happens.

The new budget includes a pretty aggressive savings plan. We didn't spend any money today, so we're under budget for the year. Woo hoo! However, we need to go to the grocery store, Costco and Lowe's tomorrow. All of these things are very dangerous for us, so hopefully we can stick closely to our lists.

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.