September Update – New Year’s Resolutions

In January I published my New Year’s Resolutions, and every month I have been updating on my progress in order to keep myself motivated.

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 y Septiembre.

3) Move more – In September, I walked for six and a half hours, biked for three hours and forty-five minutes, kayaked for two hours and swam for an hour. Douglas and I went for a bike ride on Saturday, but towards the end of the month I started biking home from work a couple of days a week as well. I have kept that up and hope to be able to continue through the beginning of November when my season of coaching begins.

Here is a picture that my mother took of us on a family walk on the beach on Long Island and a picture of Menderes and I on our kayak paddle on the river.

4) Visit one of the last six states on my list – We went to Maine! It was a wonderful, last-minute trip at the end of the summer. Although we were not there for long, it provided us with some much needed rest before heading back to work.

 

5) “Finish” the kitchen – In the August update I promised to finish the backsplash that weekend. I am ashamed to say that I have not touched it in over a month. Don’t worry. It will get done someday.

Here is a look back at what has been done 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.

Overall, my garden did not do as well as I had hoped this year, but we spent September eating fresh green beans and tomatoes. The garden is looking a little bare this month, so in place of the photo of the garden, here is one of the melon we ate in September. Yes, melon, singular, we only got one.

7) Do more for Douglas – We had a nice bike ride, just the two of us at the end of August. We squeezed it in before he had to go to work. It was good to have a Saturday to spend time together without working on the house.

 

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. In September, I only managed to make a bit of a mess down there, but I aim to finish organizing by the end of the year.

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 did rearrange the furniture, as you read about on Wednesday.

 

10) “Finish” the dining room – The little black and white table sold on Craigslist. For now, we are using this table I found on the curb, but I plan to move my great-grandmother’s table up. I am starting to despair about the trim though.

 

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 59% through my resolutions, as opposed to 37% last month. I am pleased with my progress. Here is how I did my calculations.

1) Leave the country – 100% complete

2) Write one blog post a month in Spanish – 83% (My goal is to write 12 and I have written 10)

3) Move more – 75% (We are only through the eighth month of twelve.)

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

5) Finish the kitchen – 47% (There were eight items on the to do list for the kitchen, and we have finished 3.75 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 – 75% (Same reason as was given for #3.)

8) Finish cleaning out and organizing the basement – 80% (This is just a random number that I assigned myself give all that I want to accomplish down there. I actually lowered it a bit from the 90% I gave myself earlier in this post.)

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

10) Finish the dining room – 0%

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 690 of 1100 earning a 63%.

Happy Homemaking!