I just wanted to take a moment to invite you to hop on over to Debbie’s Digest to continue participating in Goal Planning Monday. Debbie, who has not missed a single Goal Planning Monday in the nearly 2 1/2 years I’ve been hosting the meme, has graciously offered to carry on for me. I look forward to linking up there when I have the time and will be checking in to see how all my goal planning friends are doing!
Thank you so much for all the weeks you’ve joined in. We’ve accomplished thousands of goals together!
I’m sad to be putting Goal Planning Monday on hiatus. I cannot seem to get my act together to post a linky in a timely manner and quite frankly, find myself struggling to come up with goals each week just so I have something to post. My main goal is to keep my head above water and keep my kids happy, healthy and cared for, anything else is extra. If anyone would like to post a link up for Goal Planning Monday so that you can still find encouragement from each other please feel free to contact me and I will give you my blessing. I do know that a few of you still check in here regularly and I don’t want to leave you without a place to link if you are still interested in participating.
Thank you for the last couple of years, it has been fun to see how much we have all been able to accomplish each week!
This week has been one of ups and downs. So much goodness happened, but at the same time I’ve been unwell with the same issues that have plagued me for the better part of the last year. It’s beginning to feel like I just got a little reprieve from the medication/hormones I took (a reset of the system), the the actual problem has not changed and it’s not something I’m terribly trilled to live with. It’s made me feel rather poorly at times and interferred a bit with plans earlier in the week, but as I said, there was a lot of good and today was really a perfect day so I wanted to take the time to share some of my Friday Fave Fives along with others at Living to Tell the Story. If you would like to take part in our (hopefully) weekly attempts to look at the brightness in out lives, I encourage you to check out this blog. Everyone’s posts always make me smile.
1. We’ve taken to the trails behind our house for the first time since moving here. It is awesomely amazing to be able to walk out the door and be in nature. This afternoon our neighbour, who owns the land, joined us and it was really lovely to just spend time together and chat while the kids got to be with nature. The little one was quite happy to be carried in the Ergo so everyone was content and we got to see a lot of things that the children have never seen before – bear tracks, moose track, a partridge, a wild rabbit just to name a few.
I didn’t take my camera today, but this is one from a couple days ago. Isn’t it like a piece of paradise? I can just open my door and walk for miles. Definitely taking my telephoto lens next time. The photo opportunities today were just amazing!
2. Word that steak is coming home with my husband tonight. It has been ages since I’ve had a good piece of red meat and I’ve been craving it. Yum. I cannot wait. Only about 45 more minutes!
3. Taking the time to organize my homeschooling area today. There will be a blog post coming about it soon, so I won’t share right now, but it is sooooooooo good and I am glad I came home and did it this afternoon.
4. The knowledge that my son is getting more confident around our dog again. He’s been a little bit nervous since he had an accident a couple of weeks ago. There been a couple freak outs over the dog (one day Mum told the dog to “go fly a kite” without thinking and that was not good).
Still best of friends (and the cutest pair I ever did see).
5. I’m going to leave you with this video from Walk off The Earth. This band, in general, make me feel amazingly cheery, but this song in particular has been playing and awful lot around here this week and everyone runs to hear it when it comes on. It’s our feel good song right now and I’ve got it on repeat this evening.
If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.
I’m sorry that I am a little late getting back to you this week. We had a little bit of an injury in the house over the weekend and I’ve found myself with less free hands for blogging or writing as the little one likes me close. He’ll be as good as new in a few weeks and I am sure that we will all have adjusted before then, but if not, just keep checking back. Goal Planning Monday will still make an appearance even if it is a little late.
Last week’s goals
Writing
1. Blog about the movie This is Our Time. Done.
2. Blog about Coursera.org, DIY.org, and KhanAcademy.org. Not done. I didn’t get much blogging done last week. Mike came earlier than expected and then the weekend did not go as planned.+
3. Participate in at least one meme/bloghop. Not Done.
Health goals
1. Avoid gluten and cut down on sugar. Done. I did have birthday cake and a small amount of pasta on Thursdays for Ruadhan’s birthday, though.
2. Make a grocery list full of yummy goodness to pick up next time we go. Done. I did not meal plan, though.
3. Drink water. Partially done. I did not drink a ton of pure water, but I had ample amounts of water kefir.
Homeschooling Goals/Education
1. Keep up with my two Coursera courses. Done. I will probably end up stopping one or both of them because I do not think I will be able to keep up now.
2. Work on my paper for one of the classes. Not done.
3. In addition, start my third Coursera course with Liam. Partially done. I’ve been watching the videos, but I made Liam his own account and he is doing the coursework and projects on his own.
4. Continue using Spanish for You. Done. Review will be coming this week.
5. Help Morgaine keep her very own kefir and plants for the garden alive. Partially done. One of Mike’s cats slept in my tomato plants and killed them, though. We have one sole survivor.
Household Chores
1. Clean walls in laundry room. Done.
2. Clean refrigerator. Not done.
3. Scrub floors in kitchen/living room area. Partially done. Only in the living room half/.
4. Make sure the counter is cleared off every evening. Done. Maybe not as cleared off as I’d hoped, but dishes were done most nights.
This week’s goals (are going to be few):
1. Keep wee boy as happy as possible. He is a trooper, but not as mobile as he is used to and that is hard for an active 3 year old.
2. Attend lego for homeschoolers this week. I haven’t really met anyone with kids since we moved so I am looking forward to this.
3. Cook a few big batch meals to freeze. I’m not sure how we’re going to do it when Mike leaves, but I’m hoping wee boy will be on the mend.
4. Keep up with my seedlings. I just planted a lot more (because I clearly don’t have enough to do!
5. Decide whether or not to continue with my coursera classes. I’d rather do them when I can dedicate the proper amount of time to them.
6. Write a whole bunch of reviews. It is an insanely busy week and I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to keep up and take care of my other writing obligations! I will do it to the best of my ability, though!
I hope that you’ll still drop by this wee even if I posted so late. What are you up to this lovely April week?
If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.
My mood was mostly better this week, so I did get some of my goals accomplished. That felt good, too. Hopefully, I can keep it up for a while. I’m hoping to make this big spring cleaning week so we’ll see what we can do.
1. Make a image introduction to this meme. Not done. Opps. It would have been pretty easy, too. Oh well.
2. Make a blog post about Penny, our newish boxer pup. Not done. I did make one other post that I was planning on writing about my experience with the company 23andMe. I’d actually thought that I put it as a goal, but I guess I didn’t.
3. Touch up the paint in the bathroom.Done! It looks much better. I also painted the entrance and the stairway to the second floor. It all looks so good. Those two areas were especially dirty. I think the person in that unit (the house we bought is/was a triplex) had a couple really young children that would run their hands along the wall. Our kids are too tall to leave a trail where these prints were (and I carry the littlest one or walk with him holding the railing).
4. Stay up to date in the two Coursera courses I am taking.Done! It’s pretty insane, though, and I am starting another today to do with Liam. One of the ones I’m taking is a graduate level medical neuroscience class and it’s nearly a full time job itself. I’m probably doing 20 hours a week on just that one!
5. Get outside every sunny opportunity. Done!It really wasn’t sunny at all this week. We had a freezing cold picnic outside one day early in the week and then we walked to the mail once. That’s about it, though. It was rainy/snowy or cold all week.
6. Organize my spice cupboard. Done! Looks good. I may have room for a few more spices.
7. Clean up the computer a bit.Partially done. Honestly, it has been very partially done. I expect this to take about a month to get done in it’s entirety. Last week I cleared up the desktop, but that was by far the shortest job on the list.
This week’s goals
Writing
1. Blog about the movie This is Our Time. I will be having a giveaway for it so I hope you will check back for a chance to win.
2. Blog about Coursera.org, DIY.org, and KhanAcademy.org. We’re all loving these learn online opportunities. There are so many free sites out there for education. What a wonderful step in the right direction.
3. Participate in at least one meme/bloghop.
Health goals
1. Avoid gluten and cut down on sugar (yep, I eat too much sugar).
2. Make a grocery list full of yummy goodness to pick up next time we go. Ideally I would meal plan ahead for the whole next month, but yeah, I’m not sure that is going to happen.
3. Drink water. It still isn’t second nature and I think I spend way too much time walking around dehydrated.
2. Work on my paper for one of the classes. It makes me a little nervous as I haven’t written a paper in ages.
3. In addition, start my third Coursera course with Liam. He should probably have his own account. He will be doing the work and I think it will thrill him to get a certificate of completion from a university/college if he can get the work done.
4. Continue using Spanish for You. We have a review coming up soon and I’m not sure we’ve done quite enough to get a really good feel for it.
5. Help Morgaine keep her very own kefir and plants for the garden alive.
Household Chores
1. Clean walls in laundry room.
2. Clean refrigerator.
3. Scrub floors in kitchen/living room area.
4. Make sure the counter is cleared off every evening. I usually hop onto the computer to work on my courses after the kids are in bed, but it feels really good to come down to a clean kitchen in the morning. I think I’ll aim for 5 days out of 7 with a clean counter.
Please stop in and let us know what your plans for the week are. I’d love to stop by to say “hello!”
If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.
I’m sorry I missed out on posting last week. My husband was still in town so we spent the morning running errands and then he left that afternoon. It’s been a harder week for me just because I miss him and I miss our old community a lot. It is really isolating here and we really do not see anyone the whole time Mike is away. I spent more time crying last week than feeling like writing, but I am back now.
Since I didn’t have any goals last week, I’ll just post my goals for this coming week.
1. Make a image introduction to this meme. I’ve heard that google takes it as spam if you repeat the same things over and over in your blog and I’ve been going it for years. I’m not expecting to be ranked great on google, but I know that I can get more people directed to this blog than my old ones!
2. Make a blog post about Penny, our newish boxer pup.
3. Touch up the paint in the bathroom. I painted over the weekend, but it needs a little bit of extra work.
4. Stay up to date in the two Coursera courses I am taking. I also want to try to make a blog post about Coursera as well. It is a wonderful tool.
5. Get outside every sunny opportunity. I think the winter is getting me down and I need to soak up some sun! The temperature warms up enough to sit out on the deck with a book and a blanket while the kids play. Unfortunately, I think it is going to be a pretty wet week.
6. Organize my spice cupboard. I didn’t get it done last time and I am running low on certain things and would love to make an Epicure order by the end of the month.
7. Clean up the computer a bit. This will likely take place over a couple of weeks. I have so many resources that aren’t organized whatsoever. I also have a lot of stuff that is no good as is just taking up room. It would be nice to have an organized computer because I’m sure we’d find good things that I’ve downloaded years ago and have forgotten about.
Please stop in and let us know what your plans for the week are. Are you looking at organizing the next school year? Doing spring cleaning? We’d love to hear about it!
If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.
I did not get very much at all accomplishes last week because I had no idea how much time a new puppy would take up in my life. She’s a sweetie, but she’s a fair bit of work as well. I’ll get into a better schedule with her at some point, I’m sure, but we are still getting know each others routine.
Last week’s goals
Writing Goals.
1. Write article for Homeschool Horizons. Not done. Sadly, due to financial reasons Homeschool Horizons will no longer be publishing. You can read their goodbye here.
2. Participate in the two bloghop/memes I mention above.Not done. I just didn’t have time.
3. Write something else on my blog, even if it isn’t homeschool related.Not done.I made a preview post of an upcoming review, but that barely counts.
4. Write some just for fun. Not done.
Household/Homeschooling Duties.
1. Help Morgaine with subtraction.Not done. We are going back to basics AGAIN!
2. Do the next chapter of Nutrition 101 with Liam. Done.This is enjoyable.
3. Help Penny, our boxer, who is arriving in a couple hours, adjust to our family and home rules. Done. She is doing pretty well. We spend a lot of time outside as she doesn’t cue when she needs to pee, but we’re working on it. She’s a totally sweetie.
4. Clean/organize the spice cupboard.Not done.
Health goals
1. Drink water.Not done.
2. Exercise.Not done.
3. Research meat providers here in New Brunswick. Not done.
Other goals
1. Keep up with my Coursera course that starts at some point today. Done.
2. Continue to do my HTML/CSS book with exercise.Not done. Didn’t even try. It is fun, but my server is unreliable and sometimes slow so there have been a couple times when I was free that I wanted to work on it, but couldn’t.
3. No yelling.Partially done. Better than previous weeks, but not to where I want to be – no yelling. I’m going to use this blog post as inspiration.
I’ll come back with goals for the week. My husband just arrived for the week so we are catching up!
I hope that you will drop in and let us know what your goals for the week are as we could all use a little accountability.
If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.
I made a lot of goals for this pass week and I didn’t really accomplish as much as I thought I would be able to do. I still did a fair bit, but feel that I should have been able to do more considering that I’ve been feeling well and besides a couple days where Morgaine decided it would be good to be very dramatic about EVERYTHING, the week was pretty smooth. Oh well, it’s a new week now, and I’ll work on getting the things done that I didn’t get finished.
Writing Goals:
1. Write guest post for Homeschool Mosaics. Partially done. There’s a little bit to add and some editing to do, but it will be finished today or tomorrow.
2. Write article for Homeschool Horizons.Not done. I think I have homeschool writing burnout. I don’t know. I’m feeling like I can’t add anything new or particularly interesting. I think I want to be writing fiction. I’ve been writing homeschooling stuff for years and it gets a little, I don’t know, repetitive after a while. I’ll continue to try to write something of quality.
4. Write at least one post here that isn’t a meme/bloghop.Not done. I’ve started several things, but haven’t really felt any of them. They are all homeschool related and like I said, homeschool burn out or something going on here.
Health Goals:
1. Drink water.Not done.Did horrible with this. I’ve hardly drunk anything beside coffee and only that in the morning so I just don’t drink most of the day. I do have a glass of kefir as well, but it’s not near enough fluids.
2. Avoid gluten at all costs.Done. Feel pretty good. Will keep it up.
3. Do something active with the kiddies.Done. I exercised with Ruadhan one evening (he’s a good partner because he wants to keep going and going and going.. We dances around some and played an active game of Real Life Angry Bird last night.
4. Keep up with my remedies.Not done. They don’t really seem necessary. They aren’t bad, though, and a part of good nutrition so I probably should.
5. Nourish my kefir babies.Done. They are still thriving.
Other goals:
1. Seal the bathtub.Done.
2. Establish a new routine for chores.Done. I’m getting much more help with little complaint. Thank goodness.
3. Make sure the kids roll their dice for school.Partially done.Liam have been keep up and going above and beyond. I spent more of the week dealing with Morgaine’s behaviour so besides reading and writing she did not get a lot of actual school done. It was, I hope, well worth it, because by the end of the week things were running much smoother with her.
4. Use my planner.Done. I don’t need it all that much right now that we really don’t have anything going on, but I still like it very much and could have used it last fall when every day was booked!
Actually looking at it, I think I had a pretty decent week after all!
This week’s goals
Writing Goals.
1. Write article for Homeschool Horizons. It shouldn’t be as hard as I am making it.
2. Participate in the two bloghop/memes I mention above. I quite like both.
3. Write something else on my blog, even if it isn’t homeschool related. I have an idea and it involves food, but it may have to wait until the weekend because we are low on certain foods that would be needed.
4. Write some just for fun. That’s probably what I need.
Household/Homeschooling Duties
1. Help Morgaine with subtraction. She’s caught the tricks for addition, but hasn’t been able to apply them to subtraction and I’ll admit that I find it a little frustration, because if Liam didn’t see the patterns on his own, he got them the first time you showed him. We’ve been looking at subtraction on and off for three weeks and she still doesn’t quite get it. I’m going to get her to do some drawing and see if having her make the examples will help.
2. Do the next chapter of Nutrition 101 with Liam.
3. Help Penny, our boxer, who is arriving in a couple hours, adjust to our family and home rules. I’ve been researching and talking to the kids about her and what I expect from them. Now, we just have to see what kind of personality she has.
4. Clean/organize the spice cupboard. Seems the children have spilled cinnamon in there and it could use a good organization anyways. It’s not terribly functional as it is.
Health goals
1. Drink water. Lots of water. I can tell I need it.
2. Exercise. I need to keep it up. My goal is to be able to run on the trails behind our house with Penny this summer. I’m not there, yet.
3. Research meat providers here in New Brunswick. It would be nice to be able to get pastured pigs/chicken/eggs. Look at Sobeys to see if I can get my organic lamb (I miss it!) and liver (which I am craving).
Other goals
1. Keep up with my Coursera course that starts at some point today.
2. Continue to do my HTML/CSS book with exercise. It is fun, but my server is unreliable and sometimes slow so there have been a couple times when I was free that I wanted to work on it, but couldn’t.
3. No yelling. I try, and do okay, but I do yell (and there’s really no need besides my frustration) and am sometimes more critical than I should be. *sigh* This parenting thing is not easy.
That’s about it for the week. I hope that you will drop in and let us know what your goals for the week are as we could all use a little accountability.
I’m linking up to the Friday Fave Five meme over at Living to Tell the Story. If you have five blessings to share from your week I encourage you to link up, too. It always makes me feel better at the end of a more challenging (in a non horrible, just chaotic, kind of way) to look back at the little things that brought moments of peace or happiness that were much needed.
1. A couple days of warmth and sunshine. We’d had nearly two weeks of overcast skies so the sun was very, very welcome. We spent a better part of yesterday afternoon outside and I think it did us all some good. The skies are bright and clear this morning as well. I am looking forward to spring and opening up windows, but we aren’t quite there, yet. It won’t be very long, though!
2. Pi Day. Yes. I let my nerd side show and we made a Pi pie to celebrate the day.
It was gluten free and everything so I could enjoy it with the family! Morgaine also did some crafty Pi art and Liam pointed out that we were having leftover shepherd’s pie for lunch (totally unintentional).
3. Sharing photos of our various projects together on Skype. Mike and I have talked more on Skype chat this week than we do when we are together (okay, not really, but I am thankful for Skype), because we can share in little bits through the day and not not just in the evening when Mike gets home and we are all tired and just end up sitting in front of Netflix. I’ve been sharing photos of my cooking and he’s been sharing websites that he is working on.
4. My cauliflower pizza crust that turned out beautifully. Ruadhán and I quite enjoyed sharing it and I am inspired to use the recipe to make cauliflower lasagna noodles when Mike comes. He’s been warned.
5. Kefir. I enjoy a wine glass or two of my kefir everyday and for some reason, these ones are even better than the ones I had at the old house. Such a nice bubbly little drink with awesome health benefits as well.
Cheers. I hope you have a great week, filled with abundance little blessings and moments of happiness.
I haven’t participated on the Think Back Thursday meme for a couple of months, what with the move. Last month Debbie the meme host did a feature on photo editing and I’ve never learned how to do that (or had any real desire) so I sat out as well. I’m back this week, though, and I certainly have pictures to share because the theme of this week is: Signs of Spring. I grab my camera at the first sign of spring every year so there won’t be any trouble finding pictures that fit the theme!
Here goes!
You may see an additional theme to these first few.
First picnic of, I’m guessing, 2008 – The girlie looks to be about 2 1/2 here.
First picnic of 2010 – “Scruffy Dog” always came to beg when we were out that year and this picnic ended with a huge me chasing her to her house because she took Morgaine’s teddy. Just days before we went to the cottage to give birth to the beautiful little fellow below.
Aww, I love a spring baby.
First picnic 2011 – see how babies make you busy? Nothing fancy here. Lacking the colour of out normal platters.
First picnic 2012 – I could use a day that warm right about now.
The children are begging, begging for our first picnic of the year here but we have a little ways to go before that happens, but there were some signs of spring out there today (this afternoon is the past, right?)
What’s that? Bare ground and mud? Until yesterday there was no dirt to be found and then we had a major thaw and now, I think, we have spring.
Puddles and more (almost) bare ground!
Morgaine and Ruadhán had a wonderful mud fight last spring when Liam was away at spring camp. This may be a later spring picture and not a first sign of spring but there are no leaves on the trees and mud only seems to have this appeal the first few times of the year so I’m going with a sign of spring anyways!
I was going to post a bunch of photos of our trees/flowers in various stages of popping up, but I’m actually getting a wee bit tired from the two and a half hours we spent outside enjoying the first signs of spring.
I’ll leave you with this quote that describes today well:
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”