October Update – New Year’s Resolutions

It has been a long time since I created my New Year’s Resolutions in January. I am having trouble accepting that November is already here, but it is

Here is where I am on my list.

1) Leave the country – We went to China!!! We were there from Sunday, March 16 until Thursday, March 27. You can read the announcement of our trip, our arrival in China, our trip to the Great Wall, Beijing and the 798 Art District, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven Park, Nanluogu Xiang and the Hutong and the Lama Temple and Natooke. After writing those posts, I decided to fit all of the events in one day per blog post. The posts from our time in Shanghai are by date: March 20, March 21, March 22, March 23 and March 25. There are two posts on the day we spent in Hangzhou here and here.

2) Write at least one post a month in Spanish -I am still one post ahead of my goal in this category, with one new post last month. If you can read Spanish, check out my project list, Lista de proyectos, and a recap of what we accomplished last year in enero,  febrero,  marzo,  abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre y octubre.

3) Move more – In October I swam for half an hour, raked leaves for two hours, biked for five and a half hours and walked for two and a half hours. Exercise is a great reason to eschew leaf blowers and other machines for lawn care.

4) Visit one of the last six states on my list – We went to Maine in August. I wish we could go back this month!

5) “Finish” the kitchen – In October we hung a new cabinet in the kitchen, and I rearranged the objects on the wine crate shelves.

Here is the rest of the progress we have made so far this year. Before we ran into a problem with the electrical, we had removed the old countertops and had templates made for the new ones. We had a new countertop installed, and I refinished the cabinets and hardware,  organized the cupboards, and installed under sink tip-out drawers. Then, in June we had the outlets rewired. When July rolled around, we made the final decisions on tile, prepped the walls for the tiles, tiled the backsplash and then grouted. There are still things to do in the kitchen, but another large item is nearly checked off our project list.

6) Take better care of the garden – The first steps were taken in April to prepare the garden for summer.  Then, I planted the garden when my mother came to visit for Mother’s Day. While I was in Oklahoma in June, my loving husband built me a trellis for the green beans and sweet peas. By July, we were eating the garden goodness, and that trend continued in August when we were harvesting more green beans than we could possibly eat ourselves. There are two bags of beans frozen for Thanksgiving and we continue to eat them nearly every day.

I made quince jam from the fruit on our bush!

7) Do more for Douglas – We have had several date nights this month, which has been really nice. We went to storytelling in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. We went to the third movie that we have ever been to as a couple, and we carved pumpkins.

8) Finish cleaning out and organizing the basement – I made some progress down there in early May, and nothing was done in June. I worked down there a lot in July and August and posted an update a couple of weeks ago. Then, we had a yard sale on the weekend of the 23-24. The basement is about 90% cleaned out and organized.

We have done some more work down there, but I have not posted about it yet. You are going to have to wait to see the whole thing, but here is one really bad, blurry picture as a preview. Sorry I do not have a better one.

9) Paint all of the trim in the living room and dining room – This still has not happened. At least the coat rack is now hanging on the wall. And I rearranged the furniture.

10) “Finish” the dining room – I started redoing my great grandmother’s chairs, but technically that is a November project since I did it on Sunday. I hope to get more work done in there this month.

11) Regrout the tile in the bathroom – We scraped and grouted one and a third of the walls. That is probably as far as we are going to get this year, but that was the worst section. I am relieved to have that much done.

Several months ago I started calculating percentages as to the amount of work I estimated myself to have accomplished. With these calculations, I figure that I am now 66% through my resolutions. Here is how I did my calculations.

1) Leave the country – 100% complete

2) Write one blog post a month in Spanish – 92% (My goal is to write 12 and I have written 11)

3) Move more – 83% (We are only through the tenth month of twelve.)

4) Visit at least one of the remaining six states – 100% – We went to Maine!

5) Finish the kitchen – 59% (There were eight items on the to do list for the kitchen, and we have finished 4.75 of them.)

6) Take better care of the garden – 100% (There is not much more that we can do for the garden, other than to keep eating the produce until the frost finishes it off.)

7) Do more for Douglas – 83% (Same reason as was given for #3.)

8) Finish cleaning out and organizing the basement – 80%

9) Paint all of the trim in the living and dining room – 0%

10) Finish the dining room – 0% (I will count the chairs in November’s update.)

11) Regrout the tile in the bathroom – 30% (There are four walls, and we only regrouted one and a half of them so far and we have not even finished.)

If each item on the list is out of 100% there are 1100 points total, and I have completed 727 of 1100 earning a 66%.

Happy Homemaking!