Doing It Ourselves: Oven Cleaning

 A few weeks ago, I ran the auto-clean cycle on my oven. It cleaned the oven but the oven window was still an icky, grease splattered mess. It was becoming a real pet peeve of mine but I wasn't sure what to do about it. So, I did what most women of my generation do. I logged onto Pinterest. LOL

I had an idea of what to try but wanted confirmation that someone else had tried it and their family was still alive. Ha.

I made up a paste of baking soda and water. Then I smeared it all over the inside of the window and let it sit for about 20-30 minutes. I then used a wash cloth to scrub it in a bit and clean it off. Most of it came off. There were still a few spots that were really baked on. So I carefully used my kitchen razor to scrape off the thick stuff and then scrubbed again with some more baking soda paste.


Viola! Crystal clean oven window. My kitchen was already pretty clean that day but this was the icing on the cake. I had to stare at it for awhile. Oh the things us adults get excited over. Hehe

Doing It Ourselves: Swiffer

I love my Swiffer. I just don't use it as often as I should. It is a great way to "mop" your floors
between really scrubbing, soaking mopping and is way easier than finding the mop and bucket out side (because you forgot once again to bring it in after it had dried the last time you used it), cleaned the bugs and dirt off of them (because they stayed outside for several days...ahem...weeks), fill the bucket with water and soap, mop all the floors, then wait 2 hrs for everything to dry (then still finding a puddle and nearly doing the splits in the kitchen).

I still feel like I have to do a good soaking mop every once in awhile, but if I could get into the habit of using the Swiffer every day, I would feel like I've really progressed.

I also love the presoaked pads for the Swiffer. What I don't like is the price. They typically cost about $0.33 per pad. I usually use about two-three pads just for my kitchen alone. So, just to clean the floor in my kitchen alone, that is around a dollar. If I do that every day that is about $30 a month and $365 a year; and that is if I don't end up making a mess and having to clean it more than once. That's pretty pricey just to mop a floor, in my opinion.

So, I took to Pinterst, the woman's encyclopedia for all things home, to see if any of those amazing DIYers out there had come up with an alternative.

I was not disappointed.

There are tons of great options. Here are a few I found:

Here is a great sewing option that looks really cute with the buttons from Berlin's Whimsy.

 This one from Sarah at POPSUGAR has a recipe for a cleanser for soaking the reusable pads. I'm not sure about using lemon juice, though, if it is going to sit out for a long period of time. A lemon essential oil might be a better alternative, in that case.

For the crafty person, here is a crochet pattern option from Jessica at Candle in the Night. I really like this one but I need to keep practicing my crochet skills. This may be a way for me to practice. :)

Here is a really nice sewing idea from Penny at SewTakeAHike.

This one from One Good Thing by Jillee uses a fuzzy sock. Talk about simple. I'm not sure how this one would be at being used as a wet alternative but it looks like it would be great as a dry alternative.

But, this is the one by Karrie at Happy Money Saver is the one I ended up going with. I liked the use of old rags/towels and her recipe for the cleanser better than some of the others I had seen.

We had recently been talking about how we needed to find a new use some of our towels and washcloths. Some of them are starting to look a bit ratty faded (or bleached on accident). We didn't want to throw them out because they still work they just don't look as nice anymore and we got so many towels and cloths when we got married we hardly have room in our bathroom closet for anything else (talk about a cabinet that needs organizational help).

Result:

Price wise, this is way cheaper. A gallon of vinegar runs around

$2.50, a gallon of distilled water cost me $0.50, I already had the essential oils. Essential Oils can be quite expensive but (1) they aren't really necessary, (2) you can shop around for better priced ones or chose oils that aren't that pricey, and (3) you only use a few drops so it isn't like you are using an entire bottle. I modified the recipe just a little so mine came out to be less than $0.50 for an entire container. My container held about 6 wash cloths so that is about $0.08 per wash cloth. I ended up using three cloths to "mop" my kitchen/dining room, both bathrooms, the entryway, and hallway. So, what use to cost me around $2.00 to "mop" my whole house now costs me only $0.24. That's a pretty significant savings, if you ask me. :)

Vinegar is one of those "miracle" cleaners. It breaks down grease and grime, disinfects, deodorizes, and is much nicer to the environment than other household cleaners. After using these to clean my floors, I felt like they worked much better. I was able to really scrub some spots much easier than with the Swiffer pads and they seemed to come up much easier. My cloths also seemed to stay wet much longer than the Swiffer pads.

Before

After

Final Grade:

Works great. Happy budget, "naturally" safe, creation friendly, and convenient. Happy homemaker approved. :)

Doing It Ourselves: "Naturally"

Once upon a time, I was a tree-hugger. In fact, in college, I went to a Sierra club meeting with one of my friends. During the meeting, they talked about going to Little Rock and chaining themselves to the capital building or the court house. While they were talking, I was a little scared at first with what they were talking about but the longer I stayed that evening the more my brain was washed. However, God was protecting me from that kind of nonsense. As my friend and I walked back to the dorm we discussed the meeting and decided they were a little too radical for us at least at that moment in time, in other words, we were afraid we would get in trouble with our parents is we got up to the shenanigans this group was proposing. 

The "natural" movement in today's culture would have been right up my alley. I would have gone head long into that sea. 

Fast forward a few years and I moved from being liberal leaning, tree-hugger to far right, conservative, recycling is a political conspiracy. I definitely swung to the to the opposite end of the spectrum. I refused to recycle and scoffed at anything that people called "natural" or those who said stuff like, "That has so many chemicals it it." 

Today, however, I think I have mellowed a bit. Much to the credit of my wonderful and wise husband who tends to ground me and make me think of things with a cooler head. He and my Aunt Connee convinced (somewhat conspired) me to start recycling. I'm certainly not back to my "the world will end if we don't save the environment" days but the Creator did give man dominion over the land and I doubt He is pleased when we abuse His creation. I deny the whole climate-change/global warming movement, I'm not worried about the hole in the ozone, I am certain a world-wide flood isn't going to ever happen again. However, I also don't think it is being a good steward of what God has given us to not at least attempt to take some sort of care of the environment.

I still don't necessarily trust someone saying "it's natural." Poison ivy is natural but you don't see me wiping my counters down with it's leaves. "That has so many chemicals in it" still irritates me a bit. This entire world is made of chemicals. I understand what they are saying, it has many man-made chemicals, but in this culture today, we must be careful with the words we use.

Having said that, I am concerned with the amount of manufactured chemicals that are considered toxins and poisons that we use without thinking these days. I get the sentiment of "natural" and don't disagree that it's probably better to stay as close to the original product as God created it. However, we live in a Genesis 3 world and due to Adam's sin, the world suffers from the curse. Before The Fall, there was no death, no disease, no danger. But after Adam sinned, death was the sentence and the whole world suffers under that verdict. Therefore, what was safe and likely beneficial before, is now often harmful. Before using something touted as being "natural," it is wise to do some research and find out just how "safe" it really is. Also, there are some things that may be safe to use in certain ways and very dangerous in others. 

I became especially concerned about the ingredients in a cleaning product after using one of my favorite cleaning products. I love the Clorox wipes. They are easy to use, they work great, and I'm pretty confident that anything on my cabinet is dead by the time I finish using them. However, when I use them, my hands will start burning like crazy. No amount of washing will stop it either. I can use gloves and do when I'm cleaning for a long time, however, just wiping down the counter after dinner, I typically don't take the time to put gloves on. So, Anthony and I have done a little research and have found some supplies we are giving a try.

We have been making our own laundry detergent for over a year now and are very happy with it. I have an all-purpose cleaner and a shower spray that I mixed up myself that works pretty well and I love the cleaning power of baking soda and vinegar. We also recently also bought a couple of Mrs. Meyer's products to try...Anthony found a good deal. ;) 

I have lots of friends who have jumped on the essential oils bandwagon. I have some mixed feelings about them but I don't deride anyone for trying them. I have a few myself that I do use occasionally for making the house smell nice or adding to my homemade cleaning supplies so they smell nice. However, I'm not quite convinced of them yet. I tend to be the type of person that is easily lured into things like this (see first paragraph), so I have learned over the years to slow down before jumping into something (not that I'm always that great at it in practice). I will say, I have seen a friend's condition improve amazingly and it certainly has me wanting to so some serious research.

One thing with EOs is, that again, you have to do a lot of research before using them because many of them can be quite dangerous. I'm not going to talk any more today about EO's because I may make a separate post one day about them. The only thing I'll say is if it doesn't harm you, you feel better using it over popping a pill, and you can afford it, great! But, please do research and don't just trust what the EO company is claiming.

Another reason for trying to make our own products is that they tend to be significantly cheaper than what you find in stores. Sometimes there may be a little more up front cost but it ends up saving you a lot down the road...seeing that you continue using them. 

So, I'm going to try to experiment with a few DIY supplies and products from time-to-time and write about them here and tag them "Doing It Ourselves." For me to use something on a regular basis it has to meet certain qualifications and I'll be judging all of the products and methods I try based on essentially four criteria: Is it safe? Does it make my budget happy? Is it creation-friendly? Is it convenient?

May 2015

Easter Sunday

I'm more than a little late this month. :) Oh well.

April was a busy month for us.

Easter was very nice. Anthony was a little disappointed because he was unable to sing in the Easter choir at church due to a throat infection. He is much better now but it had the potential to turn serious at one point. 

It was both of our birthdays, so we celebrated pretty big this year. In honor of both our birthdays, Valentines Day, & our anniversary, we took a short trip to Disney World. We only stayed three days but we were more exhausted from those three days than we were when we went for eight. We tracked our steps while we were there as well and found out we were averaging between 12-14 miles per day. For someone who gets in probably less than two miles (maybe three if I go for a walk), that is quite a workout. 

Anthony trying Beijing Strawberries

Spring is when Epcot hosts it's Flower and Garden Festival. They have started adding food booths at this festival as well, now. So we got the best of both worlds this year: the beautiful flowers and the tasty food. :) The best thing we had, by far, were what they called Beijing Strawberries. Man, they were good! It was three gigantic strawberries on a skewer, encapsulated in a hardened sugar/syrup shell, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. I didn't really think it sounded good but it was AMAZING! We sat down to eat it and we were getting several stares and a few people asked us where we got them. We should have gotten paid a commission fee for as many people as we sent to the booth. Ha!

It rained two of the three days we were there. Hard, torrential rains.

Waiting in the rain to ride Splash Mountain

But, it kept everything fairly cool, so we didn't complain. The first day we got to Florida, we check in at our hotel and then headed to the park. We had a fast pass to ride Splash Mountain. We were about to step into the next boat when they shut the ride down due to the storm passing over. Luckily, I had insisted on bringing our ponchos that day so we stayed much dryer than most of the rest of the people in line. We waited there for over an hour and then just decided to leave our ponchos on for the ride. Ha. 

We love Disney but we made some decisions on this trip:

1. We will only visit Disney every five years or so. That way there are a decent amount of changes between visits and we will really appreciate the trips more.
2. We will save up in order to pay extra to stay at Coronado Springs. Pop Century is fine, its a bed & that's really all you need. But, it is still pretty expensive and if you are going to stay on property and pay that much money, it feels like more of a vacation staying at a place where you will always get a seat on the bus and will never have to wait for a second bus to show up. Coronado Springs just has such fewer people at it. Granted, it is the only conference center at Disney World (that I know of) so you may want to make sure you go when there isn't a major conference going on because I'm sure it really gets crowded.
3. Unless we have grandparents or other help, we will never take children under eight. Our minds may actually change once we have kids but for now, they would have to be some very mature kids to convince me to take them. ;)

I may make a few posts about Disney, tips, and recommendations later but for now, here are a few more pics from our trip. Enjoy. :)

Leaving the Haunted Mansion 

Magic Kingdom's Wishes firework show

Outside Be Our Guest restaurant. You can see
Beast's castle in the upper left hand corner of the pic. 

Riding Expedition Everest

Anthony in front of Spaceship Earth. Goofy & Pluto topiaries gardening. 

These crazy ladies were driving around handing out maps & talking to people.

Anthony trying a cronut

Captain Hook

"Never smile at a crocodile..."

Macaron Guimauve a la Fraise
(Strawberry Marshmallow Macaron)

Frushi

Beijing Strawberries

Mater

Lightening McQueen

Sunset outside our hotel room.

Exhausted but happy to be back home.

Being inspired by all the flowers & gardens, I turned my awesome
Spaceship Earth mug into a succulent garden.

Slow Leak

A few weeks ago, I had printed off some recipes and had separated them into categories on the carpet in our living room. The next day, I picked them up and noticed they felt like they had been in a damp environment. Not wet, just kind of soft feeling. I felt the carpet where they had been sitting & it felt damp. I moved a book case and the carpet under it was soaked and mold had starting growing. I knew instantly we had a big problem. 

We called a plumber who had to cut into our wall to find the leak. He originally thought it was a leak in the slab which would have been very expensive to fix. Luckily, the leak was higher up and he was able to fix it. It was still pretty expensive but better than he originally thought. He said we had a fairly decent amount of water damage and suggested we call a water restoration company. Thankfully, God was protecting us once again and the man from the company told us "I am not in the business of robbing people. My fees start at $800 and you don't have $800 worth of damage here." He then instructed us how to clean up the mess ourselves.

We ended up having to purchase a new book shelf, patch the wall, and we will have to replace a section of the carpet pad and shampoo the carpet when we are done with everything. All in all, a little hole in a small pipe that has been slowly dripping for at least a year is going to end up costing us quite a bit of money and effort that we would have preferred spending in other ways.

That concept had me thinking today. Here we have a house, with lots of pipes, wires, wood, brick, concrete, etc and our whole life was turned upside down for a tiny little hole in one small pipe. This small, drip over the span of at least a year, ended up causing so much damage. 

I've been relistening to the Strange Fire Conference hosted by Grace Community Church in California in 2013. This conference addressed some of the false teachings that have slipped into the church, have been tolerated, accepted, and finally practiced by much of the church today. It had me thinking about how a small leak of bad theology has grown into a full movement and has infiltrated most of what claims to be "Christianity."

Galatians 5:9 says, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." A little false teaching can bring down an entire church and even a whole denomination and eventually taint the reputation of the universal church to where what most "Christians" claim to be the Gospel is actually no gospel at all. 

Justin Peters says that many false teachers today do teach quite a bit of truth, but there is just enough false teaching that it becomes deadly. He compares it to putting a tiny drop of strychnine in a glass of water. The contents of the glass may be 99% healthy, beneficial water but that tiny fraction of poison will kill whoever drinks from it. 

We must address false teachings when we hear them. Even if they don't seem like a big deal or like something most Christians would fall for. We cannot let even one small drip, one small grain of yeast to exist in the church. We must root it all out. 

The best way to do this is to not neglect daily reading the Word of God.

This was part of Jesus' prayer to the Father for all those whom would become Children of God:

"I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." (John 17:14-19)

This leak also got me to thinking of the Christian life. How much "damage" can a small leak of good theology, of Truth, do to the enemy, to the false religions of the world. The small, constant, dripping of one voice can begin to eat away at a big conglomeration. A small leak is typically silent and can go on unnoticed for a long time, it usually isn't noticed until substantial damage has taken place.

Yes, the loud voices, "the burst main lines," are needed in the church today. Those who make dramatic differences in the world today. Missionaries, preachers, debaters, authors, speakers, etc. But it is the sheep within the church, the ordinary man, the layman, the "silent slow leak" that really causes a whole change in trajectory of a group, church, city, state, country, world. 

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 says we should "aspire to live quietly" in order that we will "walk properly before outsiders." Teaching a correct view of God and worldview leads to people being saved and equipping them to go out and do the same. A group of a thousand protesters usually does little than just upset those who are on the other side of whatever movement the protesters are upset about. I'm not saying their isn't a place for protesting but much more is done by the changing of the worldview of the masses. 

We must pray for our leaders, political and spiritual. We must pray for each other as well. Not merely prayers of addressing felt needs (health, family, finances, etc) but prayers for wisdom, discernment, to be protected from falling into sin, to remain faithful to God, and, above all else, to bring glory to God's name. 

If you need help knowing what and how to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ, check out the openings and closings of the epistles. These are letters from the Apostles to the churches. They often open with how they thank God for them in certain ways and then close telling the church how they will pray for them in specific ways and then tell the church how they can pray for writers in specific ways.

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now." (Philippines 1:3-5)

"We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you," (Colossians 1:3)

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

"We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing." (2 Thessalonians 1:3)

"Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one...May the Lord direct your heads to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." (2 Thessalonians 3:1-3, 5)

"Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all." (2 Thessalonians 3:16)

We must also pray for a real revival in the church, not a manufactured, emotional high type revive, but a true drawing close to God.

"We cannot organize revival, but we can set ourselves to catch the wind of heaven." ~ G Campbell Morgan

"We must set our hearts to treasure the God who describes Himself in Scripture, never again be satisfied with His absence. It is His name which is at stake. It is also our everlasting joy to have Him near." ~ John Snyder (Behold Your God, p. 263)

"Regardless of the spiritual and moral decline, it is never so dark that God, the Eternal Light, cannot expel the darkness." ~ John Snyder (Behold Your God, p. 262)

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." (James 4:7-10)

March 2015

Well, February wasn't that busy. The last weekend, I went to a conference with my friend Tara. It is called The Art of Homemaking and is presented by the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. We had a great time. Next year, I hope to get a fairly decent size group to go. I have been to several very bad women's retreats, so I wanted to check this one out before inviting a bunch of people. I wouldn't say it was the best conference I've ever been to but it was the best women's conference I've ever been to. I dream of hosting a women's conference one of these days & I would do a lot of things differently but this one is still one I would highly recommend. Next year it will be in the fall, so we have to wait almost 18 months for the next one but it will be worth it. :)

On Valentine Day, Anthony got up early and made me breakfast in bed. It was so wonderful. Red roses, heart shaped biscuits, man, I am one blessed woman!

I said in my last two posts that I was going to talk about my goals for 2015. I am going to be really general because I have a very, very long list that speaks of the specifics of each goal so there is no need to address that here. So, here I go.

I have categorized all of my goals into nine main groups: spiritual, physical, mental/educational, entertainment, emotional, family, social, home, and work. Because I'm a little bit crazy when it comes to making lists and outlines and organizing (despite my home not exactly evidencing that), I have subcategories & subsubcategories. Hehe. So, I'll only share a few of them with you and tell you how I'm doing on them so far, being that we are almost 1/4 of the way into 2015. :)

I. Spiritual

     A. Prayer

          1. Prayer journal - I am no where near consistent in setting aside time to pray. However, when I write my prayers out, I can concentrate better. I have also seen how my prayers often start out me-centered but end more God-centered. My husband and my mother-in-law both got me journals for Christmas that I am using as my prayer journal.

          2. Read a prayer from Valley of Vision each night together before we go to bed - I was doing this for a little while and then I stopped. I need to get back into this again. 

     B. Bible reading

          1. BSF - I am almost through my first BSF session. I'm looking forward to studying Revelation. I have different thoughts on eschatology than I did even four years ago so I'll be interested in seeing how they deal with the different viewpoints and it will be good for me to read through Revelation slowly now that my presuppositions have altered somewhat.

          2. Daily Bible reading with Anthony - We have been doing this since we got married. We miss days/weeks every so often but it is a definitely a habit we want to always be a part of our marriage.

          3. Behold Your God study - I am almost finished going through this with my friends. Wow! What an amazing study! It will reprogram your mind to think of God differently, more Biblically. It is by far the best book study I have ever participated in.

          4. Keep a list of what God says about Himself - This was an idea I got from one of the pastors interviewed in the Behold Your God study. 

          5. After reading a passage, always ask, "What does this passage tell me about God?" - The Bible is not all about me, I need to remember that. Asking this question will help me to remember who the Bible really is about.

          6. Practice homiletics - No, I don't want to preach. However, I did take a one hour BSF seminar on homiletics and I can see how it really helps you in studying a passage. I haven't practiced this much but I really want to work on it this year. Plus, I one day want to write Bible studies for women and this will help me practice in doing that.

     C. Scripture memory - I've posted a verse to memorize by our door but I really don't see it that often so I think I'm going to put the same verse in our bathrooms as well so we see it more often. ;)

     D. Church

          1. Get involved - I have joined the audio visual team and Anthony is the hospitality person for our new church, The Church at Pecan Creek. What is great is that we can actually help each other out. Anthony is so gifted at understanding technology and has been helping me & the whole team get some things set up. The other night he was sick so I and another friend of ours took care of the hospitality stuff. I will say that this audio visual stuff is daunting but I'm learning a lot. We have the ability to control both the projector and the sound system from our iPads, allowing us to sit in the audience rather than in a sound booth. 

               a. Audio Visual team

               b. Hospitality

               c. Women's ministry - I want to get a women's ministry going eventually at our new church. We aren't quite there yet but I definitely want to be involved with it.

II. Physical

     A. Exercise

          1. Wii Fit - I got a Wii Fit for Christmas and I love it. I need to be more consistent about doing 20-30 mins every morning, which means I need to get up earlier (another goal further on).

          2. Work up to 10,000 steps a day - I got a pedometer that connects to the Wii Fit so I'm keeping track of this. I didn't realize how sedentary I really am. Very depressing. The other day I walked almost three miles and still didn't even get close to 10,000 steps. I never realized how much walking that actually means. :)

          3. Thirty min move after every meal - Last week I came up with the idea to try to take a 30 min exercise of some sort (gardening, walking, wii) after every meal. I haven't done this yet but I think it is doable and healthy.

     B. Food

          1. Monthly menues - I've been consistent with this for a year; I just want to keep doing so and hopefully be better at sticking to it this year. :)

          2. Try more healthy recipes - I've researched a few new recipes I want to try including cooking with spring rolls, quinoa, and cauliflower, all things I've never experimented or even tasted. 

          3. Keep a food journal - I'm a member of SparkPeople and keep up with my nutrition through their app. I just started back at this last week and I've been pretty good at keeping up with it, with a few meals missed.

          4. Water - I am an avid water drinker however, over the last couple of years, I've gotten into a bad habit of not drinking as much as I use to. I need to be better at getting my water in each day.

     C. Checkups - working on these

III. Mental/Educational

     A. Reading

          1. Read 10 books this year (not including the Bible) - I am currently reading two books. So, I'm already behind but as long as I'm consistently working toward this goal, I'm happy.

              a. Women's Ministry in the Local Church by Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt - I'm 65% (according to the Kindle app) of the way done with this and I can say it is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it to all women and all leaders (including the men) in a church to read this book.

              b. Everyone's A Theologian by RC Sproul - I'm only a couple of chapters in but this book is so great. It is an intro to systematic theology and is a book that every Christian should read.

               c. 

     B. Sewing - I haven't done these yet.

          1. Learn to make a skirt

          2. Learn to make PJ pants with pockets for Anthony

          3. Learn to make toys

          4. Learn to make window treatments (cornice, drapes)

IV. Entertainment

     A. TV time

          1. Limit TV time to two hours a day (except when sick and doing laundry) - We are actually pretty good at doing this right now. Many nights we don't even turn on the TV. The problem is that when we do, it is very difficult to turn it off.

     B. iPhone/iPad games 

          1. Delete the time wasting games - Done. I had some games on my iPad that I realized one day I was spending hours on and wasting much of my day. They are now gone. I feel so free now; I didn't realize what a slave I had become to them. I still have a couple of games that only take a min to make a move before waiting for the next person to move so those don't suck my time away. I also still have Sudoku but I usually only play that while watching TV.

V. Emotional

     A. Time management

          1. Get up by 6 am - I am so not good at this. I have got to get better at this. If this is the only thing I get in the habit of doing this year, I will cut it a good year. :)

          2. Create and stick to a daily schedule - I have done this several times but I finally think I have created one that works for me. I have been pretty consistent at sticking to it as well...at least most of it...still need to work on getting that exercise in as one of the first things in the morning...hence needing to get up at 6 am. 

          3. Prep dinner in the morning - When I don't do this, I can sometimes dread having to stop what I'm doing to spend the next two or more hours cooking & then cleaning up from cooking. When I get most of the prep work done in the morning, I know if I need anything in time to go to the store, I can know the meat is thawed/marinated, and I usually end up saving myself a lot of frustration and time. Another reason for needing to be out of bed by 6 am.

VI. Family

     A. Family archival - I'm still working on this. I was really consistent of doing this for a while but there was a few weeks that I couldn't and just never got back in the habit. I cleaned off my desk on Sunday so that I would have room to get back at this again.

VII. Social

     A. Game group - We want to create a gaming group that meets fairly consistently. Right now there are four of us but we would like to invite a few other people to join in with us. We are working on this one. :)

     B. Have people over at least once a month - We do this fairly often already but I want to start inviting people who we don't have over that often.

VIII. Home

     A. Major projects

          1. New garage door opener - done

          2. New roof & gutters - I need to call the insurance company to see if they can come take a look at the roof.

     B. Minor projects

          1. New tires - done

          2. Fix door panels - done

          3. Fix fence - not done yet...the weather & our busy weekends had been impeding this. 

IX. Work

     A. Kapp's Kitchen

          1. Make one batch of cookies a day - I'm not doing this consistently yet.

          2. Work the Denton County Community Market - We are trying to get our application in for this but we have a question that hasn't been answered yet, so we are kind of in limbo at this point.

     B. A Narrow-Minded Woman

          1. Research/write 1-2 hrs a day - I am not consistent in this, yet.

          2. Publicly publish the site - Not quite ready yet. I have all the pages up and ready but I want to get at least 10 articles written before I start posting.

          3. Post 2-3 articles a week

     C. COO of the Kapp Family

          1. Create a home management binder - I have created several printables and I am working on more. I have been enjoying a few of the ones I have created so far. One of these days I may put them online for purchase. 

          2. Organize & clean office - I cleaned part of my desk off on Sunday, does that count? ;) Granted, much of this is directly proportional to how far along in the family archiving I am. 

So that is part of what I'm working on this year. Ha. Like I said, I like making lists. It makes me feel calmer and less overwhelmed. Some of these are already complete, some are just habits I want to maintain, others may take many years or a lifetime to complete, and it is highly likely I'll add more to this list as the year goes along. There are a few other things that I didn't list either because they were a little more private or I just didn't want this list to get crazy. Ha. Fail there. ;)