I'm Sad to See January Go

When I was a child, January and February were my least favorite months of the year. The build-up to Christmas was over and the winter doldrums had set it. I guess is didn't help that I spent 99% of my childhood in Alaska and Washington.

As an adult, I have come to love January. For the last few years, I start getting excited about the new projects and goals that I want to do. Life also slows down a little in January, the boys aren't involved in sports and we spend more nights at home. My new projects/goals included: Organization, meal planning, couponing, working on our food storage, and expanding my doll clothes business.

This is what I did this month:

Organization- Last year I worked on organizing and purging my whole house. Many boxes of stuff left this house, but for some reason I need to do it again. I started by tackling the biggest challenge I have, The paper tiger. I am still working on finding a system that works for me, but this is a job that needs to be done every time paper is let into the house.

I discovered several wonderful blogs and websites on organizing. One of the coolest ideas that I have adopted is the Household Notebook. I have a thing for 3-ring binders, and page protectors. I already use them to organize recipes, decorating ideas, scrapbooking ideas, fashion inspirations and other things. I bought a cool binder at Office Max and some specialized page protectors. It has a calendar, to do lists, medical information, addresses and phone numbers and many other categories. I am very excited about this project.


Meal Planning- I am in the process of organizing my recipes and trying new recipes. We had a lot of meals made in the slow cooker this month. Most of them got two thumbs up from the family.

We finished off a #10 can of wheat. We ate wheat berry casserole, blender pancakes, and I baked bread twice using my new Bosch mixer and the grain grinder that I bought two years ago and had never used.

I make hot cereal at least once a week. Nathan loves oatmeal and vanilla ice cream in the morning.

I used up a few things in the freezer that needed to get used, crab cakes, slow cooked ribs and strawberry rhubarb pie in the winter were a hit.

Couponing- I decided to try to shop the sales at the local grocery stores and use coupons with them. That lasted a whole two weeks because when I compared the sale prices at Safeway with the commissary's prices, the commissary won. I'm clipping more coupons though and found some great coupons online for things that I buy all the time, but never see coupons for. I am also expecting a $25.00 rebate check in the mail. Sweet!

My Doll Business- I finished 24 of these and sold 18 of them in two days. I kept 4 for myself. I also finished two patterns. I started working on my long list of commissions and hope to be done with them soon.

We also threw an awesome, disco rollerskating birthday party for Travis and Marcus. Never mind that their birthdays were in November. I am calling it a late/early birthday party. Shhhh don't tell them that it counts for this year too!

I didn't lose much weight this month unless I count the stuff I got rid of in the house. My house may be even messier than usual, since I started Spring cleaning the entry way of the house, but I feel good about what I got done in January.