If there is one thing I have learned from my corporate career, it isn’t enough to just make goals or objectives…you must check in on them frequently. Earlier this year I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the Nester’s home goals linky. I shared my 2012 Home Goals. Now that the first quarter of 2012 has passed, I want to check in and see how well I am meeting my home goals. This kind of periodic check in will allow me to celebrate goals I have met and remind me of goals I still need to work on.
Here is a recap of each of my goals and progress to date:
Have more company! I have not met this goal yet. We kept the guest list for the Bug Party limited to family. I am planning a larger event with my sister to host my SILs baby shower later this month. I am excited and I think the house is almost ready. I just had a planning session with my mom and sister tonight, where we finished up the adorable balloon party invites.
Reclaim the family room! Despite removing a bunch of toys from the family room, we are not doing so well with this goal. The toys seem to just fill right back in. However, we did make some headway by moving the kids library to the office.
Commit to the big projects! We just made a huge commitment to finishing the basement announced yesterday. The contractor started on Monday. We are so excited. The hubby and I have been talking non-stop about how to finish and design the space. We have even started some serious in-person and online window shopping for the new space. The playroom area in the basement may help us do better on the reclaim the family room goal.
Raise the comfort level! They still need a makeover, but we did add two occasional chairs to the family room. The extra seating is wonderful whenever we have guests over.
Organize, organize, organize! I don’t know if I will ever feel successful enough here. It seems like the need to organize never goes away. We just had to clean out everything in the basement. We moved most of it into the garage with plans to have a big garage sale this spring.
Grow our collection! There has not been much furniture growth, but we are looking forward to some furniture shopping for the basement. We did add an amazing rug to the collection. Another recent purchase was an outdoor table and for the deck, which I will share as soon as it arrives. I don’t expect meeting this goal to equal buying a lot of furniture. Rather I think meeting this goal equals strategically buying quality pieces we love and will love for years to come.
Create a budget! We have not created a formal budget, but have been saving a significant amount of money with our eyes on the prize of finishing the basement. Now that the project has started we are in savings overdrive, because we want to fill our list of wants for finishing the space.
Bring it Home! We got a new iron and I am happy to report we are no longer using a regular dry-cleaning service. My husband launders and irons all his own shirts. This saves us a couple hundred dollars a month. For my sweaters and blouses I have always been a huge fan of Dryel. Thankfully we can wear jeans to work to further cut down on dry-cleaning needs.
Overall, I am pleased with the progress on our 2012 home goals so far. We certainly have made home a strong focus of the year. We are looking forward to the huge basement project and all the fun that will follow to finish the space and make it ours. We’ll check in with another goal update in July.
What a great idea! Life can get so busy, it’s easy to forget where you’ve been and where you still need to go.
Jackie, I can’t believe I actually read all that uninterrupted. It was great, I must confess I had a few moments alone, so I could actually read. We gave up on dry cleaning except we do occasionally have to take my husband’s pants in b/c he has to wear business attire. I iron and wash all of his other clothes daily. It’s something to get use to but when you see the savings it’s totally worth it. I just realized you work full-time and blog and now I am really in awe of you. Girl, how do you do it all? Congrats on breaking ground on the basement, that is sure to be a fun space. And I too never feel organized, enough. Thanks for a great read. Lesley
Love that area rug! Where did you find that? Adds a fun/modern statement!
Oh, and might be moving back to MN! If so we will need to plan a little BYW meet-up :)