I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions, but I will plan to keep up the monthly goals lists in 2018.

Let’s see first how December went:

• Order and send Christmas cards.
• Find/buy/wrap all Christmas presents.  Mail if needed.

• Finish cleaning the master bedroom and garage.  With the holiday break, the other spaces are just going to have to wait for 2018.  I got the garage done and I got the stuff organized in the master bedroom.  It just needs an actual cleaning.
• A big recipe clean-out.  You know, all those magazine pages I’ve torn out or websites I’ve printed.  Are we really going to try them?  Also, going through my binder of tried recipes to weed out those we really don’t actually eat.  I’m aiming to try one new recipe each week this winter and I’m on track (minus Thanksgiving week) so far.

And, a few more things got done in the past few weeks:

• We visited with family.
• It snowed just before Christmas.  I’m sure this messed with many people’s plans, but it did give us a white Christmas.  (There was a fair amount of ice involved also, but thankfully no major power issues.)

• I redid the boys closets.  I moved clothes that were two small down, removed things that were ripped/stained/etc., got out the next size shirts for the twins, and sorted my various fall consignment sale finds by size so they’re ready when needed.
• I updated our Christmas card list with new addresses, etc.
• We attended our final swimming lessons of the year.  We’ll take a session off and be back at them towards the end of February.
• The twins attended their Before School Sports session; the youngest went to her gym class.  I registered her for the next session.
• We had a playdate for the preschooler.
• Our oldest had four baseball practices.
• I registered our first grader for winter baseball.
• We made Gingerbread cookies.  We also watched Die Hard and Home Alone as Christmas movies.

• The six oldest people saw the new Star Wars movie.

So, it’s on to January 2018.

• Finish the master bedroom clean.
• Start the office clean:
  • Put away items that shouldn’t be in there.
  • Shred the massive pile of bills/receipts/etc.
  • Put away important documents to keep and toss ones that are older than need keeping.
  • Fix one category of broken items: books, sewing, or plastic stuff.
  • Clean near the window wall and put the desk back where it belongs.
• Make a master cleaning document to track how often things should be/are getting cleaned.
• Set up the new meals/activities tracking white boards.

Well, things have been a bit hit or miss here over the last month.  With summer upon us the kids are home full time.  It’s basically swimming, baseball, and whatever else we come up with to do.

This year I’ve been trying to be a little less scheduled and go with the flow.  Unfortunately that means less blogging.  Fortunately, it means yes to other things.  We’ve spontaneously (i.e., ask and go essentially immediately):

• Gone to the pool.
• Gone for ice cream.
• Gone to McDonald’s.
• Played with our neighbors.
• Gone to the farmer’s market.
• Gotten the screen replaced on my phone (not the best, but we did it super promptly).
• Played some board games.
• Played some video games.
• Watched some movies.
• Read some books.
• Gone for a walk.

We’ve also, in a more planned way,

• Played at the park.  Many times.
• Gone strawberry picking.  This is about 8 lbs of strawberries, or what remains of them.

• Gone to the pool.
• Taken swimming lessons (Less often than I would have liked as we’ve had issues with temps in the 60s and/or rain/thunderstorms, none of which make for good swimming weather.)

• Played baseball games.
• Been to baseball tryouts.
• One attended multiple baseball camps.
• Two attended video game design camp.
• One attended soccer camp.
• I gave a pile of stuff that had been sitting in the basement to a neighbor for his yard sale.
• The builder replaced the siding on one side of the house, a result of a manufacturing issue so the vendor covered costs/supplying materials/etc.
• We went to the town carnival.
• Plus the standard grocery shopping, though including the farmer’s market because it’s summer.

In summary, I’ll try to post when I can for the next few weeks, but we’re trying to be out doing which is always the priority.

This week signaled the beginning of the end (of the school year).

• We began the transitional activities of swimming lessons, adventure class, and indoor baseball that tend to lie between the winter and warm weather sports.  We also got (one last we hope) dusting of snow.
• We had one doctor appointment.
• We had a date night (belated Valentine’s Day).
• Our oldest had a pitching clinic.
• I started signing up for summer camps.  On the one hand it seems early.  On the other had I didn’t want the 1-2 things they really want to fill up and they do eventually.  I’ll do more registrations as the week goes on to give us a base and then probably wait until summer and add camps if they’re still interested and space is available.
• I also got the summer pool membership paperwork so that needs to be filled in.
• In house news, once the snow melted we found a few things had moved outside.  So, they came by to replace a screw on the windowsill.  Actual touch-up paint and caulking will wait for warmer weather.