Sunday, December 26, 2010

Staring down the 2011 goals

Last night we went for a nice walk around the neighborhood and up on the ridge above town. The kids and dogs ran ahead playing, giving AB and me a change to talk about the upcoming monthly goals.

The past few years, instead of annual New Year's resolutions I have undertaken monthly goals. It is easy for me to see changes by focusing one thing or set of things each month and then at the end of the month - regardless of doneness levels - I try to move on to something else. I like progress and doing goals this way enables me to see progress easily. AB used to give me a hard time about my monthly goals, but he has jumped on board recently. Most of the time lately we discuss the goals and work on them together. Except when it involves the garage and then I make myself scarce...

I haven't spent much time thinking about specifics of my 2011 goals until now. And I was actually looking for AB's input.

He announced straight away that he had a goal in mind - starting a boat. He has wanted to build a boat for awhile... ok, years. And he is thinking that January is the perfect time to do this.

He went on to suggest that going along with this it would be nice to get the garage cleaned out so that we can both park on one side and have the third bay to devote to the boat.

I reminded him that cleaning and organizing the garage - a non-heated garage - in January wasn't exactly my idea of a fun goal. But that he could have at it.

During 2011, we would like to tackle our dining room floor, the office floor and paint the walls. I would like to paint our half bath on the first floor. And we would like to renovate the back yard/porch area so that we have an outdoor living area like we did at the other house. However, I am feeling a bit miserly right now after a big vacation, Christmas and AB's last employer screwing up his last paycheck - which we have yet to receive.

AB suggested that it will probably be awhile before we get to the floors and that if I would like to paint either the dining room or half bath... I can.

This is where my mental block comes in. I am still not sold on a color scheme. And I want to be sure. Entirely sure. Way sure. 100% sold. And excited about a new color scheme too. And I am not at this point.

January 2011... seems that January according to the home magazines is all about organization. And I have spots in my house that could use some organization.

I have a list started so far:

Recycling Bins - right now our recycling gets stacked on the counter until one of us head towards the big bin - and remembers to take recycling with. We intend to continue to recycle now that the program is in full force in our region. Why not make this permanent and get some recycling bins?

Dog Food - the dog's food is presently in a trash can that is missing a lid and is ugly. We need a new dog food holder.

Stairs - I toss stuff on the stairs that needs to go up. Then when *I* go up, *I* take the items with me and sort to the rooms at the top of the stairs. I am going to get some bins of some sort to put on the stairs with handles. Something I can put each of our names on. Stuff goes in the bins and here is the really novel concept... the KIDS can take their own bins up!

The Wii stuff - I need some organization method for all the Wii accessories. Seriously need this.

The desk in the office - it is a nice big open flat space with stacks of stuff. Seriously in need of some pen holders and desk organizers and the like.

Shelves for Leif's room - he has so many trophies from participating in sports and I haven't even unpacked a few boxes in his closet that contain breakable things because he doesn't have a good, safe place to put stuff. Shelves for his room would help with that.

And the last task for January that AB has encouraged. Let's decide once and for all on a color scheme for the dining room, office and half bath.

February (provided we have time - February may be a month off since I have a big client visit and then we are going to Palm Springs for a number of days) or March will be for painting.

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