2012 Goals update - April

1) Finish my house so it can be rented out - We are so close to this. I think with just a few more weeks, we could have the house finished!

2) Pay off Lowe's credit card - Paying off has been a slow process but we are certainly paying extra each month :)

3) See family in Pennsylvania - Saw them in March! It was a blast. Maybe I should right a post about that....

4) Pay off Jimmy's student loans - Still trucking a way at this. Money has been super tight lately.

5) Clean out the down stairs - I have been progressing with this as well! I gave away a lot of baby items to a friend in need. Donated a bunch of dishes to my mom's church who help people in need. And have been giving to Goodwill.

6) Save $2,000 emergency fund - We have officially got $1,000 in our emergency fund.

7) Develop 12 new habits - Um... well... about this....

8) Read 1 book each month - I haven't found my kindle as easy to access as I originally thought. Book from the library are slim picking. And that was going to be my main source of reading material.

9) Exercise increasingly - So up until now, exercise has been pretty on and off. However, I just joined my mom's gym and I am hoping to make the most of it! Today I did 2 miles!

10) Freezer meals once a month - Freezer meals? Not quite. But we did get a ton of carrots at the food truck and I shred those up and put them in the freezer.

11) Make cleaning the house more of a priority - I have been trying this. The living room has stayed pretty clean for the most part and I have been working on folding laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer.

12) Date night 1 time per month - We went to Chicago in April for a 30 hour date night! We had a great time and a much needed get away from reality. 

13) Record meal and times daily - Well My food lady will be here sometime soon. Although still not daily, I have been keeping up with this pretty well.

14) Plant and maintain garden during summer - Still waiting for it to warm up.

15) Devote 1 night to family game night - We strayed off track with this one. Glad to be looking at my goals today as a refresher for what needs to be done.

16) Get together with friends 1 time per month - While we were in Chicago, we were able to see an old friend!

17) Write down birthdays and send cards - Wow. What a complete fail this has been!

18) Blog increasingly more - Although this was originally one of my goals for this year, I have found this to be put on the back burner these last few months and I have been spending more family time. I think that was a wise trade off.

19) Read with kids at least 3 times per week - We read almost daily in the car before school!

20) Make and keep budget - Jimmy and I just talked about this again last night. We really need to get this going!

21) Learn to knit and FINISH a project - I made a dish cloth!

22) Lose some weight - I forgot to check my weight today. But I don't think I have lost any yet.

That's where I am for the month of April. How have you been doing on your 2012 goals so far? I would love to hear!

Cleaning mama! - Tub 10 min tidy up

Tub Before

Tub After

Although there is not a huge difference, our tub has been peeling each time some one has a bath or shower for the last 3 years. I finally got sick of it and scrapped it for 10 minutes. Ten minutes went by a lot quicker than I thought they would and I feel great about the little bit I accomplished.

I have been making the same excuse for the last 3 years as to why I didn't do it right then. Here it is, "The tub might be wet and I don't want to get my socks/butt wet from sitting in it." What a crock of crap that excuse was! My husband took a shower this morning and it was completely dry when I did my 10 minute tidy up at 10:15.

Along with scrapping the tub I also took 10 minutes and washed my shower doors. We have the see through glass doors and yes, they took me 10 minutes to clean. I really don't know the last time that I cleaned them. The look great! I am so glad I did it. I kinda cleaned the frames to them too. I am so glad I took that 20 minutes in my bathroom today and I certainly don't miss those 20 minutes at all. 

This ties in really nicely with my 2012 of making cleaning the house more of a priority.

Cleaning mama!

After starting my new meds the other day for my OCD and ADD, I feel like a new me. I am not sure if the meds are really working this fast or if it just my mind. What ever it is, I'll take it! I have gotten so much done this week. I plan to blog for the next few days about my cleaning accomplishments this week. I am certainly making headway on my 2012 goal of cleaning. Today I used money saving mom's 2 hour house cleaning checklist. And although I didn't get near all the way done (Joel woke up then I needed to get Caleb from school), I do feel like my house looks a million times better! Here's a peek at what I got done today:

This is the pile of dishes after my husband had already done a load in the dishwasher this morning. 

Umm.... The dishes on our stove.

The crock pot on our floor...

Yeah, we had a few dishes to do. Did I mention we were all sick this last week?

My new water glass counting system. I saw this on pinterest and thought I would give it a try.

It goes like this, for every glass of water you want to drink, you put a rubber band around your wrist. (I used those jelly bracelets and put them on my left wrist). Then each time you drink a glass, you take one off. Or in my case, so I don't loose them, I put them on my right wrist. Then each morning I put them back on my left. Well this was about 2:30pm when I realized that I still had all eight on my left wrist!

Here's my pile of dishes after I did another load. (And the ones on the stove and floor you ask? Still there)

And behind those formula cans and the pot... My microwave :)

Before I cleaned off my counter. Yep, that's a Christmas vase in the corner there...

And after. Yes, it's still a Christmas candle warmer but we don't have the money to buy a new one and I really like the smelly stuff.

So that's my clean up project for today! I decluttered my kitchen tons and it looks so much better.

daily report

I guess I wasn't quite as motivated as I thought I would be but I will still report that I did 11 min of hula hoop around my waist, and 2 min of hula hoop on each arm for a total of 15 min yesterday! I only drank 32oz of coke and about 64 oz of water.

I also wanted to address the 12 new habits for 2012. Yep... lets just be honest, I forgot about them. My January habit was a complete fail. We wasted SO much food in January. But I do feel like I am much more aware of the food in our house so I am hoping that will help us out as we continue to develop that habit through out the year.

On to February. Yep... lets just be honest about this one too. I forgot about it til, well, Now. So we are starting February's habit a little late but better late than never. My February's habit was to pray with my family every night. I am simply a forgetful gal. I am also a procrastinator. Like a really bad one! But this is a biggy not to forget so I am printing pages right as I type this that say, "Have you prayed today?" I am posting them on Caleb's bedroom door, which is in the middle of our house and you literally can not go into any other room with out passing his door. I am also posting in the bathroom above the toilet paper roll because it is a rule in our house for all family members to go potty before they go to bed. I am also going to color them red so they are not something we can miss. If you have any other ideas to help me remember please post them below. I could use any suggestions :)

I will be posting our success/forgetfulness on our praying as well.

Rental house

As I posted in our 2012 January update we have been rockin' away at our rental house. Yesterday I got to shine up some metal with steel wool and I got to paint the front door. They both looked great by the time I got done! We also had a lease managing company come over and check it out to tell us what they though and kinda give us the low down on what they would do. We were clueless and ended up learning a ton. They do all that crazy stuff that we frankly don't even want to deal with.


Including but not limited to:


* Place free advertisement on leasegr.com
* Advise you on the rental value of your property
* Screen phone calls and walk-in prospects
* Qualify applicants
* Verify employment
* Run (and pay for) credit checks
* Schedule and confirm showings
* Show your property to prospects
* Consult with you regarding applicants (the final decision is yours)
* Collect security deposit and first month’s rent
* Coordinate and conduct lease signing and move-in


They charge 85% of the first months rent and then $75 a month for management. I think this is what we are going to go with. She gave us some pointers on how to make the home appeal to better renters and told us that it could rent any where from $700-$800! Our mortgage right now is just under $500! So this is great news. I am excited to see what the future holds for us and this new adventure.

2012 January Update

1) Finish my house so it can be rented out

We have been rockin' out on this one! Many hours have been put into getting it done.My husband is really the one to thank for most everything. I am typically home with the kids.

2) Pay off Lowe's credit card

We have sent in a few payments but I don't think we got a bill this month so I think I will have to go in and check it out.

3) See family in Pennsylvania

We are planning on going to see Jimmy's family March 8th-13th. 

4) Pay off Jimmy's student loans

We are working on the Lowe's credit card first.

5) Clean out the down stairs

Yep, haven't touched a thing.

6) Save $2,000 emergency fund

We have got the $1,000 saved but haven't started working on the second $1,000.

7) Develop 12 new habits

My January goal was a big flop. I wasted a lot of food. But I did become more aware near the end of the month and I think we are doing a little better.

8) Read 1 book each month

Does like 70 pages count?

9) Exercise increasingly

I did exercise increasingly til last week rolled around. I am hoping to be able to put Joel down a little bit more this week and get back on my bike. I sort of miss my bike time. It was just me, a book, and my bike.

10) Freezer meals once a month

I ended up doing a few freezer meals. I did BBQ shredded pork, BBQ meat balls, and some hamburger helper for my hubby to bring to work.

11) Make cleaning the house more of a priority

Not so sure this is totally happening. It's a work in progress.

12) Date night 1 time per month

Jimmy and did get a date night this month! We always fill up on our entree so this time we did it back words and had ice cream first. It was great and we really enjoyed it. Then we had dinner at Carrabba's and after that we went to a nice hot tub place. We were really tired and almost fell asleep while in the hot tub. He drove home and I got to sleep on the car ride to pick up our kiddos.

13) Record meal and times daily

My silly system has been down multiple times this month. It seems as though every time I want to get it going, it is down. I haven't been doing very good at this goal as a result.

14) Plant and maintain garden during summer

It finally started to snow around here. I have been looking a seed books though. Not sure what I am going to do.

15) Devote 1 night a week to family game night

We have actually done this more than 1 time a week! It's been a blast and it's a great time for us all to sit down and forget the busy life we have. We can just be together for that moment.

16) Get together with friends 1 time per month

We did this early on in the month. We went to dinner and got to chat for a while after that.

17) Write down birthdays and send cards

No where close to even thinking about this. I didn't even catch my sister-in-laws birthday til a few days later.

18) Blog increasingly more

I feel like I have been, with the exception of last week.

19) Read with kids at least 3 times per week

We read in the car almost every morning before school. I would like to get some more night time reading in.

20) Make and keep budget

Jimmy and I have made progress on this. We put away our debit cards! I am excited not to have those crazy things around any more. We were spending a ton of unnecessary money.

21) Learn to knit and FINISH a project

Done Done DONE!!! It's not very pretty but it's done. I finger knitted my first item. It was a scarf. Now I am on my second item which is a cowl. IT's going well.

22) Lose some weight

Well.... not really yet.

2012 goal - Read 1 book each month

I would love to do some reading. I have found that I absolutely love to read but if I don't set a time line for myself, it'll just never get done. So I have a goal to read 1 book a month! That gives me 30ish days read a book from start to finish.... Well sort of. This month I am actually still finishing up the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Yes, I know I should have been finished with this ages ago but, um, yeah that's why I made this 1 month thing a 2012 goal! lol So although I don't know all the books a plan to read in 2012, I do have one picked out for January. It's already rented and uploaded to my kindle. It's called Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting 


Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is about a family who moves from the city to the country and eats only locally grown or raised food for a whole year. There are recipes and tips through out the book as well. I have loved the book thus far. It has been inspiring to my plant and maintain a garden goal! I will post as I go along how the books are and also will post what my next book will be

2012 goal - Develop 12 new habits

It is said that when you try to make a chore into a habit, it takes 21 days of consistently doing that thing to develop that into a habit. Well, I am going to give myself some grace here and do 30 days worth. I will be trying to develop 1 new habit each month and I have come up with a plan of action as to what I would like to develop. I will be sharing my results on this as well to keep accountable. Here are my plans.

January - Don't waste any food (This is a HUGE problem at our house right now!)
February - Pray with my family every night
March - Drink 8 glasses of water daily
April - Keep sink shined night
May - Weekly meal planning and stick to it
June - 1 new recipe a week
July - Make bed every morning
August - Floss teeth Daily and brush teeth twice a day
September - 10 min daily dash house cleaning
October - Get dressed to shoes right away in the morning
November - Lay out next days clothes for family
December - Read magazines as they come in and pass them on

I already need to get busy on January. I went grocery shopping last week Wednesday and stocked up on some items but then Joel was in the hospital for 3 days so we have got quite a bit of stuff that needs to be chopped, cooked and frozen like today!! You all know what my plans are this afternoon. :)

2012 goal - Cleaning goals

Goal #5 and goal #11 are both cleaning goals that I hope to accomplish in 2012. Cleaning out the down stairs will have to come in stages for sure! It is stuffed full with boxes upon boxes of stuff from my house. Because Jimmy and I both owned a home before we got married, we both had all appliances, dishes, silver ware, towels, pots, pans, nick nacks, ect. So in moving over here, all my stuff got put into boxes.... and has stayed right there. Until now!! Also in the basement is pretty much everything from Jimmy's house. We got the carpets cleaned in November (Yes, you read that right NOVEMBER) and still don't have even half of our stuff put back together. Our dressers, entertainment center, free standing shelves, toys, ect are still down stairs. So you can see why this is a problem. We just need to get stuff put back upstairs or brought to a local donation center.

As for Goal #11 making cleaning the house more of a priority, I have printed out a few cleaning schedules and I am going to give those a try. I am also getting daily fly lady e-mails however these e-mails go directly into my fly lady e-mail folder and I have a few hundred in there that I still haven't looked at. So I am hoping that I can get into the groove of using those. Laundry and Dishes are my biggest struggle. I am great at really doing them both but putting them away is another story. And then if I don't put the dishes away, I can't put another load in and that's how they pile up. Our clean laundry ends up getting thrown at the end of our bed and we dig through each morning. I am hoping to get into the habit of cleaning more and get this house in shape!

2012 goal - See family in Pennsylvania

Goal #3, Seeing family in Pennsylvania. PA for short. Jimmy was raised in PA til 9th grade when his mom moved him and his siblings here to Michigan and where met me *Grins Really Big* But in coming here he left behind some very important people. His dad, grandparents, and some great friends.

I am happy to tell you that in Jan or Feb of 2010 Jimmy, Caleb, and I were able to travel over to PA for 5 days to see and meet everyone. And what a grand time we had! Caleb and I met as many of Jimmy's friends and family members as we could in our short 5 day trip and we were welcomed with loving arms into their homes and their lives.

Another happy story to tell of is when we had several people fly from PA to Michigan for our wedding! Jimmy's dad and his wife came and brought along grandma and auntie. Along with that, we had a very special long time friend and his parents drive all the way over. What a joyous time we had seeing them during our crazy some times stressful week before our wedding.

Because Christmas and New Years Day both landed on Sundays this year, and Jimmy would typically have a paid holiday those days, Jimmy's work granted him an extra 2 days paid vacation that he can take anytime before April. What a blessing those two days are! So now it's our turn to go to PA again and boy, are we ready or what!

Here's what we need to do to get going to see everyone:

-We still need to find a date but have to consider a few things when doing so. Joel's 1st Birthday party, and Caleb's school and field trip schedule. We would like also like to go either either late Feb or early Mar in a sort of Birthday Celebration! Jimmy, his dad, Joel, and I all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other and what better way to celebrate than to see family.

- Jimmy needs to request the time off from work and I need to let my day care parents know what days I will be gone.

- We also need to get the A-OK from Joel's Doctors to travel that far with him. He sees some specialists and we need to make sure that he is healthy enough to travel.

2012 goal - Pay off and savings goals

My #2 (Pay off Lowe's credit card), #4 (Pay off Jimmy's student loan), and #6 (Save $2,000 emergency fund) goals are all financial goals that I would like to accomplish in 2012.

As I mentioned in goal #1, we need to finish my house and get it rented out. Well... we don't have any money because we are paying for the mortgage on the house right now and we can't fix it up with no money! That's how we got the Lowe's credit card. Part of fixing up the house meant buying and having new windows installed. With the old windows, we were not able to legally rent out the house. They were in such bad shape. We didn't have $4,000 dollars hanging around and we needed the windows in order to get it rented out so we got a Lowe's credit card. If you know anything about me, you would know that I HATE credit cards. I am very Dave Ramsey in that respect. Jimmy had 7 credit cards when we started dating and we had them all paid off a year and a half later! I swore we would never have one again but here we are with one. I am super bummed about it but we did get a no interest for the first 18 months card. Since we got the card in October, we should have til April 2013 to pay it off with out interest. That is why my goal is to pay it off in 2012. Then we will be no where close to April 2013 and no where close to all that CRAZY interest!

When Jimmy went to college, he didn't get any financial aid. I mean NONE. Not a penny. But Sallie Mae helped him out. Over $20,000 worth too. Since Jimmy was a young college kid with no credit, he was only aloud a few grand so his mom had to step in a put a loan under her name. Right now between the two we owe roughly $17,000. Our goal this year is to pay off the student loans that are under Jimmy's name. Which is the lesser of the two. We are hoping to get some forward momentum with paying these things off and get our debt snowball rolling! We have roughly $3,700 left to go on this one.

By this point you all should know that we have 2 houses :) With that, we need two emergency funds. That is why we are going to build up to a $2,000 emergency fund. $1,000 for my house, $1,000 for Jimmy's house. God forbid the water heater goes out at the same time in both houses, or something happens with ours (Jimmy's) and we don't have time to build it back up before something happens to the rental (mine). We are hoping to get it rented out and put the difference between what the renters pay and what we pay for the mortgage into this emergency fund along with other stuff.

For these three goals, getting the finances is our obvious first problem. And budgeting is our second. I have started a new job at McDonalds that we are hoping will help out a little, I am also trying to get in contact with DHS to get payments for my child care kids going (I still haven't gotten paid for most of my kids and DHS is roughly $1,000 behind!) As for the rest of the year, we will have to see what God has in store for us. My husbands bonuses will also go towards these goals along with any money made on craigslist from cleaning out the basement. I am hoping that goal #20 (make and keep budget) will assist with this also.

2012 goal - Finishing my house so it can be rented out

These last few days have been busy for us, Joel was in the hospital. So I haven't been able to blog. But I have had some time to think and reflect over my goals and figure out how I am going to achieve these goals in 2012! So here goes.

My husband and I each had a house before we got married in June 2011. We moved into his house and had some friends stay in mine. We gave them a good deal on rent and in return they would help fix up the house. Well, we all know how renting to a friend is going to turn out. We thought our friends were different though.... Yeah, not so much. They half did some stuff and ended up moving out on bad terms. Now I hope we have learned our lessens. No renting to friends, family, or just plain any one we know!

Now we are left with a house that is in worse shape than before. So our plan in 2012 is to fix-er-up. Nothing fancy. We just want to make it livable and clean so we can get it rented out. We are hoping to get it fixed and rented out sooner than later because this is a $500 a month burden in our budget. If we ever want to even think about accomplish our other goals, this needs to get rented!

We need to get the upstairs finished up, outlet covers on, the roof finished, baseboards. window coverings, some walls painted, and a good heavy cleaning done. Along with those things, we need to do the legal stuff too. It has to be inspected, filed as a rental house, insurance changes, and we still need to find a good contract.

Right now our main problem is not the motivation to get everything done, it is the time with out the kids and the money to buy the things we need to fix. I am going to be asking my parents to take the kids a little more on Sundays so that we can have a few hours then. And I am hoping that goal #20 (make and keep budget) will help with the financial side of our problem.

2012 Goals

Even though it doesn't seem as though my weekly goals go as planned and most of the time I don't get them done, I do feel as though they are helping me tons! I am no over achiever by any standards. So that is why I made some 2012 goals. I am hoping this will help me keep on track with everything. These goals are in no particular order as I type them out but they are certainly things I feel as though we need to get accomplished. Here goes:

1) Finish my house so it can be rented out

2) Pay off Lowe's credit card

3) See family in Pennsylvania

4) Pay off Jimmy's student loans

5) Clean out the down stairs

6) Save $2,000 emergency fund

7) Develop 12 new habits

8) Read 1 book each month

9) Exercise increasingly

10) Freezer meals once a month

11) Make cleaning the house more of a priority

12) Date night 1 time per month

13) Record meal and times daily

14) Plant and maintain garden during summer

15) Devote 1 night to family game night

16) Get together with friends 1 time per month

17) Write down birthdays and send cards

18) Blog increasingly more

19) Read with kids at least 3 times per week

20) Make and keep budget

21) Learn to knit and FINISH a project

22) Lose some weight

I will be breaking these goals down in the next few weeks and sharing my plans