Where Do I Stand - Part Tres -

Ok, so I have a friend who recently started following my blog. In fact, she sent me an email and said she was a little "irritated" with me because she spent too much time reading all my old posts and playing on Pinterest and didn't get her full sink of dishes washed (yes, Karyn, I am talking about you!). I told her, "a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do" and that is why I had children - for the domestic help! Back to subject, my friend did mention something that got me thinking, she wanted to know where I stood on my first blog post of this year, did I manage to stick with my "resolutions"?

So I had to check it out,  here's the post and the Cliffs Notes to decipher it:

Red is the original post.

Blue is the follow-up post posted a couple of weeks later. 
Black is today's thoughts!

Where Do I Stand?

Here's this week's goals"
1. Stop drinking Coke Zero (or any soda) and switch to green tea. It's like that old saying goes, "quitting smoking is so easy, I have done it dozens of times." That holds true for me and my beloved Coke Zero. It's a special time for each day, twice a day, when I pop one open. I love to hear the fizz! I am currently out of my beloveds so I am going to start today with the green tea.

Yeah, on this one I have held strong!! I haven't had a soda since last Saturday. I have been moody, crabby, and irritable (so basically the same as always!!). I have had some Green Tea from Panera (the best!), an energy-booster smoothie from Smoothie King (SCAM!!), some hot teas and drank a lot more water. I am still not satisfied and will continue to look for something that gives me that same happiness as popping open a soda but won't make me question if it is 5 o'clock somewhere!
This one I am good on. I have probably had 4-5 sodas over the entire 7 months. I don't really crave them anymore and really only drank them because they were the only option at the time. Check!

2. Plan our menu. One daughter has gone Vegetarian again so we will plan more veggie-based meals with meat only once or twice a week. We also plan to work more fish into the menu.

Did this. I made Panera Bread's Mac-n-Cheese. Really good but not as good as Panera's according to my little one. The rest of us loved it (much cheaper thanMartha's fabulous mac) and served roasted broccoli on the side. I mixed the two together and am literally drooling for it right now! Also made a Baked Potato Soup with homemade French bread. The soup was really good but not great. It tasted a little "sour" according to one of my girls but I used 2% milk and reduced fat sour cream so that might be a factor. Fat just tastes better!! The bread was a mix from Williams-Sonoma made in my new bread maker. We ate that dinner on the porch over looking the water. The temperature was perfect. So my girls decided we would have a hearty soup and homemade bread every Sunday. It lead to really nice conversation and we talked about where we want to go on vacation this year (more to come about that later!). Making a salad for dinner tonight with homemade croutons and Friday night is eating all the leftovers!

I was pretty good with menu planning during the school year. It got a little hairy at the end of the school year and for most of the summer, mostly because we are just not on a regular schedule. I do have my niece staying the week with us (also a vegetarian) so we are having taco salad tonight and they can just leave the meat off and use kidney beans instead. Already thinking about menus once school starts in 18 days!

3. Blog 3 times.

This is post number 2 for the week.
Not happening. Do I really have that many interesting things to say?? Will work on 1-2 a week for now until I get more creative!

4. Learn Excel for my on-line business, www.toochicgifts.com. Start to gather end of the year documents.

I have been working on this last night and all this morning. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. All the tutorials I watched were for more advanced needs so this is going slowly. Up to March for the year (UGH!) but once I nail it down, will update monthly from here on out!
Good on this! I learned VERY BASIC Excel and have been keeping monthly expenses updated (except last month's - oops!).

5. Finish organizing my closet. I will post about this but don't have Befores.

Bought perfect brown cloth containers from Target, nothing fancy, and have started the final organization. I need more of them, and a few more hooks for the necklaces I am hanging, but can't run to the store as my car is in the shop. Maybe can swing by after Girl Scout Leader meeting tonight so I can finish this tomorrow! Have made my way through all the clothes and have a pile to donate and a pile to throw away (yes, some of the clothes I have worn were that bad!!)
Considering I pulled my closet together with miscellaneous odds-and-ends and did not have a major reno, I think it turned out great! It's perfectly organized right now and I will post pixs of it very soon (maybe next post??).

6. Clean & organize the playroom-now-turned-craft room.

Not gonna happen! Unless, there is another day added to this week or I find another smoothie shop with a truly powerful ENERGY drink, move this to next week. I am excited to finish this room as I want to finish the curtains, fill frames, make some pillows and add a few more organizational items to the walls. Plus, I want to clean out the drawers and filing cabinets. Believe it or not, I am so excited about finishing this project but am sticking to my guns about finishing some others first!

50-50? Curtains are done and hanging but desperately need an ironing (Downy Wrinkle Release can't help me here!), cabinets have started to be organized and some frames are filled. Still needs a lot of help but getting there. Would really like to crank this out ASAP so I can start crafting for the Fall!

7. Register my daughter for high school!

Done! I had her sit down with me and make sure everything I keyed in was correct. I printed out the copy of the registration and stuck it on my bulletin board!

She is in, accepted, and even made the Devilettes dance team which is great for her, but will add a TON to our schedule. It's all good but need to really stay on top of this!

All-in-all, not too bad but I do have a few things to add -
8. Find tiles for my living room fireplace renovation.


9. Paint my living room (it's 18 feet in some places so on the fence of how much I want to try this myself, I had professionals the first time but not in my budget right now). 


10. Order new wine fridge.


11. Hang new travel photos.


12. Make First Day of School gifts for new teachers (no, it's not a bribe!).


13. Do something to the outside of my front door. Not happy with the entrance of my house so need want to redo that.


So there is it. As I am currently sitting in the local library waiting for the A/C in my car to get fixed, I am actually starting to hyperventilate at all my To Dos. Time to get going but that is for another post!