Here we are ready to start week three of our simple living this week already! I like this picture because it makes me think of us chatting while we take a brief break or run into each other while out taking care of something.
If you haven’t participated yet, this is really easy. First, I hope you have A Quiet Simple Life Planner and Guidebook. There are lots of ideas there. It explains quite a bit about my philosophy of creating a cozy home of peace, understanding, and joy. Each Monday we choose three homemaking goals for the week beyond our regular responsibilities. We share them and come back to share how we did on the Friday Follow-up post. They can be tiny goals or big goals. We’re all in different places with our homes and responsibilities so there is no right or wrong way to do this. The only objective is to help us finish a few things each week and celebrate with each other.
You can also check out the Prudent & Prepared Series for other ideas.
So my goals this week include:
Goal 1 – Select an updated life insurance policy. We’ve had life insurance for a long time, but we need to update our policies. We have put this off for months and months. This week we get it done.
Goal 2 – Find a mixer cover for my Kitchen Aid mixer. I either need to find an inexpensive one to buy on someplace like Etsy or find a super easy pattern I could try to sew myself at some point (not this week). My sewing skills are pretty basic, but I do have some pretty fabric that might work well so I’m kind of interested in finding a free pattern online.
Goal 3 – Spend one hour working through piles of recipes, printed ideas, etc. and begin organizing them. My recipe collection is really not up-to-date since my EoE completely changed our cooking and eating patterns. So I need to pitch a lot of things I printed off years ago that I will never try. Hopefully in the process I’ll find a few things David and Caroline might enjoy.
So those are my goals. I have a full week planned with other things so I tried to choose goals that were on the easier end of the spectrum.
What do you hope to accomplish this week by Friday? Please share in the comments!
Artwork: “Gossips” by Daniel Ridgway Knight
The Providence of Loss – Streams in the Desert
Goal 1: Get going again on sanding cabinet doors and getting them ready for refinishing, and at least finish the one that I’m in the middle of now. I ran out of energy and interest a few weeks ago.
Goal 2: Dispose of the dead rabbit in the back yard.
Goal 3: Cut and sew cloth diapers until I run out of flannel again.
Those sound like great goals!
Are you painting or staining the cabinet doors?
I just ordered my groceries for Thanksgiving. I intend to take time tomorrow and rake up some leaves.
Marilyn
We finally got out leaves up this weekend which was really late around here. I hope you were able to get yours done too!
Sallie
I got one goal met last week (cleaning my ceiling fans) so am carrying over the other two:
1. Painting the table (which will need to be a Saturday goal )
2. Cleaning out the baking cupboard
And adding a third:
3. Setting up a time for updating our will. Things like setting up appointments seem to be my weakness. Sometimes, I am much better at getting practical things done. I’m not sure why I drag my heels around making appointments. I was inspired by your goal to update your insurance policy.
Thanks Sallie!
Hi Erin!
Those are all great goals. That is a reminder to me that we should take another look at our will that was written when Caroline was a baby.
I find I drag my feet about big things because I dread making a decision that could have such big implications. So I procrastinate like any good perfectionist. LOL!
Sallie
I made progress on all of my goals. So although none can be marked completed or done, I’m still happy I broke the inertia and got moving on them.
Goal 1 was to select an updated life insurance policy. I’m emailing with the representative at the insurance company to get updated numbers and make a decision so hopefully this will be done soon. This is one of the more challenging decisions we’ve had to make because there are so many factors now – life expectancy, Social Security dates and amounts, pension, debt, Caroline’s needs, etc. Finding the right balance of amount versus length versus cost is complex at this point in our life. Being older parents and self-employed also complicates it in some ways. Anyway, still working on it.
Goal 2 was to research for a Kitchen Aid stand mixer cover. I looked at patterns online, but given the extra things I’ll have to buy to make it, I think it might be just as economical to purchase one from someone on Etsy and support their business.
Goal 3 was spend one hour working through piles of recipes, printed ideas, etc. and begin organizing them. I don’t think I did a full hour, but I made a lot of progress. I sorted through quite a bit and threw out a lot of things I will never use. This is probably going to be an on-going goal for the next few weeks because it is going to take some time to get through all of it.
Hello Sallie,
I’m in the same position as far as not being able to mark anything complete but beginning some movement.
I have supplies ready for tomorrow to paint the table, I have at least taken a quick inventory of my cupboard and hope to finish up tomorrow and I have begun some details/conversation around updating the will.
Getting there!
Erin
Hi Erin,
Hey, any progress is progress! What color are you painting your table?
Sallie
White. It’s the fourth colour for this table over the years, lol. It was a hand-me-down when we first got married from a really good friend of my parents’. It has been her childhood table so it’s quite old at this point – likely WW2 era, maybe older. I had a period of time a year ago when I questioned myself for keeping it and thought about replacing it but it’s kind of grown on me now and it’s been kind of fun to reinvent it every now and again.
Hi, Sallie! Here are mine:
Goal 1: Get restarted on sanding cabinet doors–I finished the one I was on, finally, and I started to get the screwdriver out to take off the next one.
Goal 2: Dead bunny disposal–This one I didn’t do, because it turned out to not be a dead rabbit, but just a corner of the landscaping cloth/soil stabilizer material? coming unburied again.
Goal 3: Sewing cloth diapers–I sewed up all the flannel that I knew I had, but then I found a bit more, which needs to be washed before I can use it.
Okay, I laughed at the bunny story. David does all dead animal disposal around here and we’ve had a bunny or two over the years.
Sounds like you made some good progress on things!
Sallie