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.

Resolution

As the new year creeps closer, I have been thinking more about my goals and New Year's Resolutions in general. I also traveled across the country with my family last week. I noticed something while on that trip. Sometimes my son will do something not exactly the way I want him to (I know this is a huge shock to anyone who has met a 3-year-old). Sometimes my husband does something a different way than I will do it. You know what though? It's okay. I can deal with these situations without freaking out. I just haven't been. I've been Queen Freak Out, and my subjects are starting to get tired of it.

Thus, my resolution for 2011 is to take a chill pill. Instead of freaking out over the little things, just relaxing and enjoying my life and my family. I've done a good job of this over the past couple days, but we'll see how things go once I go back to work next week. Speaking of work, there are a lot of instances at work where I need to dial back the anxiety. Hopefully, this will not just affect my family life, but my professional life also.

It may sound easy, but it is not going to be.

Money on My Mind: Goal 3

Creating a budget. Blah. This is the goal that I am least excited about, and most unsure that I will accomplish. Many of my other goals are fun. Gardening: YAY! Taking pictures of my cute kids: adorable! Creating something all by myself with just some boards and screws: awesome! Reclaiming our storage space: Yippee (okay maybe that is a stretch). Budgeting: Blah. Actually, I enjoy creating budgets. That's no problem. The problem is with the second part of the goad - sticking to the budget. This is also the hardest goal to blog about because financial situations are delicate, and people get all judgey when you talk about how you spend your money.

Don't get me wrong. I am (mostly) good with money. We save some. We contribute a large percentage of our income to retirement. We have minimal debt (mostly student loan debt for our graduate degrees). We save for college. We live within our means, for the most part.

We also waste a lot of money. We don't buy a lot of stuff, but it feels some some of our money just flutters away in the wind. I track our spending on using online tools, but when I see how much money we spend on food it makes me a little sick to my stomach. We could be smarter with our money, and that is why I have set goal #3. There are some big ticket purchases that I would like to make (new dining room furniture, new living room furniture, new bedroom furniture - seeing a theme?), but with so much of our money fluttering off in the wind (or into my belly), it's not going to happen any time soon.

To prepare for this goal, I have set up electronic transfers to increase the amount we are saving starting in January. I also have set up our electronic bill pay to increase the amount that we pay toward our HELOC. A few weeks ago, I had the following conversation with my husband:

Me: We really need to set up a budget and try to stick to it.
Him: Yeah, we do.
Me: We should talk about that some time.
Him: Yeah, we should.
Me: I'm hungry. I think I'm going to bake some cookies.

Next steps: Set time aside to work with my husband to create that budget. Start tracking spending on January 1.