Happy December! This month will be full of all kinds of special homemaking activities whether it’s related to the changing season, the Christmas holiday, or other events unique to your home.
Last week we did some rearranging of things in our family room and library when we put up the Christmas decorations. They were really good changes and I may try to write about them with some photos. It’s amazing how making a few little changes in where things are located in a room can make a big difference. We definitely took another step forward in creating a cozy home.
I’m going to try to keep my goals low-key and reasonable this month. There will be plenty of time for doing the deep dive into cleaning in January.
Goal 1 – Wipe out all the bathroom drawers. It’s been a while so it’s time to pull everything out and make sure they are clean.
Goal 2 – Spend fifteen minutes continuing to go through recipes and cleaning them out.
Goal 3 – Remove 20 things from the house either through donation or selling. We dropped off a box at Goodwill last week and I plan on doing another one this week.
What are your goals for this week? Feel free to share them in a comment and then come back on Friday to tell us how it went. If you need ideas, you could check out A Quiet Simple Life Planner and Guidebook.
Remember that our goal is progress and not perfection!
Artist: “The Singing Lesson” Painting by Delphin Enjolra
Creating a Simple and Peaceful Christ-Focused Christmas
1) Focus clean the kitchen. Wipe down cabinets, scrub the stovetop, tidy the flatware drawer
2) Create a new garden bed so it has all winter to rot and get ready for spring planting
3) Unpack and clean up from our Thanksgiving trip
Hi Sarah,
Oh, the stovetop. I should have put that on my list. LOL! I need to get that one done too.
Sallie
1. Sand the next cabinet door.
2. Catch up on regular housework; I’m behind by about two hours of work.
3. Do some rearranging in the family room.
Hi Peggy,
Are you painting or staining the cabinet doors when you get done? I can’t remember if you told us your long-term plan. (Not that you have to. I’m just curious.)
Sallie
Hi, Sallie!
I am going to stain them, just trying to match the original color as closely as I can.
If they don’t match exactly, it’s okay, because they don’t get direct light. 🙂
We have some events and concerts happening this week so I’m not going to focus on any extra cleaning but have some Christmas-related things I’m hoping to do Friday night.
1. Decide on Christmas baking recipes.
2. Buy the ingredients
3. Get my Christmas cards written
Hi Erin,
Those are definitely timely goals! I hope your week goes well.
Sallie
Happy Friday! How was your week? Mine flew by.
This comment is a little late because I made an impromptu trip to the grocery store this morning. I wasn’t planning on it, but Meijer had some exceptional prices in their three day sale so I went to take advantage of them.
So, the goals. I accomplished two of the three
Goal One – I was supposed to clean out the bathroom drawers. Done!
Goal Two – Spend fifteen minutes in my ongoing project of sorting and cleaning out recipes. Haven’t gotten to this one yet.
Goal Three – Remove twenty things from the house. I didn’t sell or donate anything, but we got rid of more than twenty things by cleaning out our bathrooms, sprucing up the linen closet a bit, and sorting through a few other little hot spots. So I’m counting it done since the goal was to get stuff out of the house.
Goal 1: Sanding another cabinet door. I didn’t get this one done, and now it’s on hold until a more pressing bathroom repair gets done.
Goal 2: Catching up on regular housework–done.
Goal 3: Rearranging in the family room. I moved some boxes that are temporarily in there to a place that is visually much more out of the way. There’s still more to be done.
Hi Peggy,
Those are words no one likes to hear – pressing bathroom repair. I hope it goes well!
Sallie
Hi Sallie,
Two out of three goals is great, especially when one involved cleaning out a drawer, lol – good for you.
Peggy, I always find that even when something’s moved temporarily, there’s still satisfaction to it not being in a place that I’m seeing it all the time.
I got Christmas cards written so that’s something! I didn’t get to my Christmas recipes or baking so I needed to take store-bought items to both my son’s youth group dinner last night and my daughter’s choir concert this evening but they were yummy (mini- cinnamon rolls and salted caramel brownies) so all good!
Hi Erin,
As long as food is good, most people don’t care where it came from. LOL!
Sallie
1) Kitchen not totally cleaned, but I did the stovetop and the fridge. They were the most in need of attention
2) Made up the garden bed
3) Put away gifts and suitcases from the trip. Still have laundry to catch up
Hi Sarah,
I put stovetop on my list for this week thanks to your reminder.
Glad you had safe travels on your trip!
Sallie