Happy Monday evening! Yes, it’s an evening edition of this week’s post. Today is It’s a Girl Day, the day we celebrate each year discovering via ultrasound that God was giving us the desire of our hearts – a daughter –  after many years of asking. Caroline gets to choose a small gift and a special take-out lunch on her day. We’re so very thankful for her and the gift she is.

I’ve been doing some pantry building the past few weeks. There were a few things I couldn’t find locally so I decided to try ordering online from Walmart. Oh my. I cannot begin to describe what a truly horrible experience we’ve had with this. Contrast it with Amazon which is nearly always perfect and it’s hard to fathom a company like Walmart being so bad at something so important. I also ordered a few things from Target and that went well.

But more than anything I have been busy working on this site for the past week like a crazy lady. LOL! I’ve always been honest about the behind-the-scenes aspect of this site that is part of my business so part of my motivation is the desire to move to a better ad network that pays much much better. Ads, in part, make it possible for me to do this site. I would like to spend a LOT more time writing quality content. Increasing my ad revenue will allow me to do that. So I need to greatly increase my monthly page views in order to make that goal. I’ve actually set myself a ridiculously ambitious goal, but we’ll see if I can do it.

How ridiculously ambitious? I actually seriously contemplated going back on Facebook after two years in order to drive traffic to my site. Fortunately a group of blogger friends did a mini-intervention and reminded me that God can provide in ways that don’t require me to compromise in areas in which I have strong convictions. (I may or may not have used the term “prostituting myself” when discussing returning to Facebook. Ahem.) So I didn’t go back on Facebook. Crisis averted.

So here’s a bit of what I’ve done in the past week if you want to take a peek.

• Completely cleaned out and reorganized My Shop. It seriously looks gorgeous now. I reorganized it in anticipation of the updated and new products coming in the next few months. We are either deleting or updating every product in there. I’m hoping to have this project done in another six weeks or so (depending on David’s availability).
• Updated the free 290+ Stocking Stuffers Ideas printable and the Stocking Stuffers post that goes with it.
• Updated lots of post images such as my Back to School Prep Series (in my tiny Practical Tips From My Teaching Career) which is still really popular seven years after I wrote it.
• Continued the massive work of organizing all my post tags and categories. This included deleting posts that didn’t fit any longer.
• Added the A Cozy Christmas Planner in the shop. If you purchased it last year, you can download the new version in your account.
• Continuing to add all of the new clip art and digital papers I’ve created to My Shop, including moveable clip art for digital products. I’m almost caught up. I have about 14 more to go.

I think I’m forgetting things, but that’s what comes to mind.

So my homemaking goals this week?

Goal 1 – Continue to expand my pantry.

Goal 2 – Finish cleaning out the master closet and switching out the seasonal clothes.

That will be enough for me this week. What do you have planned? It can be big or small. I hope you’ll share in the comments. I always enjoy hearing what other women are working on in their homes!

Artwork: “Washing Line” by Helen Allingham