Goals for the year

I'm new to the whole stay at home/homeschooling a preschooler thing. This time last year I was working full time with special needs kids and had a whole lot more disposable income and a whole lot less time on my hands. Right now I am with my five year old daughter and am a nanny to a ten month old boy. To be honest, if left to our own devices we would probably sit around snuggling and watching movies all day. I acknowledge that this lazy tendency of mine would without doubt result in my kid turning out lazy (and dumb and boring!) and would make my husband simmer with rage. I'm fighting this sloth-like tendency tooth and nail. Starting.... now!

Some goals include (but aren't limited to!):

Homeschool, like for real until my kiddo hits kindergarten in August. So my kid isn't the weirdo who doesn't know her ABC's. How's that for setting the bar low?

Cut out the processed junk food and cook more wholesome meals. I am so sick of seeing my kid eat that poison, and prefer it over some of the perfectly good, delicious homemade junk food I'm capable of making. No kid needs to eat pink slime chicken nuggets. Not this often anyway. And I really, really need to lose some weight. It's been five years. Blaming the baby is ridiculous.

Just a little somethin' from our garden.

Expand our gardens. We rebuilt all of our raised beds and used the old boards to expand our space. We have also turned our flower beds that line the house to accommodate our food garden. This spring we hope to dig up some old ugly bushes and plant blackberries in their place. My husband is thinking about starting meat rabbits this year (we'd both prefer chickens but don't have the space for it).

Building a temporary pea trellis on our old raised beds

More hand made, less store bought. I love a good DIY project. That and I'm broke.

Current knitting project - super warm wool socks.

I want to learn how to can our home grown produce this year. Up until now we have been relying on our deep freezer, which is packed to the gills. I'm not sure what my end goal is, but I'm eager to get started. Actually, this is part of a bigger goal to learn to be more self sufficient this year. I want to start paying attention when my husband and/or dad comes to my rescue.

All of this is crowding our freezer. It should have been in jars.

Become a list-maker and promise keeper. This involves my goals for keeping the house clean, repaying my student loans ahead of schedule, and taking care of routine grown-up things like writing thank you notes and actually paying attention to mail that comes for me. I bought one of those calendar journal things that grown-ups use to keep their schedule organized. It's my goal to pretend to be a grown up for a whole year. Fake it 'till you make it!