New Year, New Look!

Today marks the 365th day for my goals!! Which means I am more than a third of the way through my time to complete all these goals, and I am definitely not one-third of the way through the goals. I need to get to work!

In the past few months I have been posting, which has really made me focus on completing my goals more.  That is the primary intention of this blog. However, another intention of the blog was also so that I could communicate the going's-on of my life with friends and family that do not live close enough to actually see what we are doing. One thing I have realized is that since I never post on any type of schedule it would be frustrating to try to follow this blog. So... I have a new plan! Each week I am going to post on Thursday nights the round-up of all goals I have completed that week. This way people can read the posts as they like and don't have to waste time checking to see if a new post is up. Let's see how it goes!

In other news, we made progress on a goal!
Goal 7. Visit 10 Victoria/Edmonton Attractions + Goal 89. Visit Belle every month
This past weekend we visited the Edmonton Corn Maze with Belle and her brand-new husband Cogsworth! We had tons of fun, pretending we were kids, running around, getting hopelessly lost and finding our way again! They had these really funny signs, which were not helpful at all, but did have picture riddles on them that we had to figure out. We never figured out what a pig with wings and a halo was though...... Speaking of pigs, they had a really cute petting zoo, and all the animals seemed to be quite young and small. We loved feeding the pigs, donkeys and goats, even though the donkey bit Belle. Of course Prince Charming and Cogsworth were much too cool to feed animals, so they just stood off to the side and supervised. Hopefully we will have more good times in the future!

Here are some pictures:

It really was a Corn Maze. And sunflowers!

This is the donkey that bit Belle. 

Goal 88. Call Mulan every month
We made significant progress on this goal since we have added Mulan to Skype! Since we are trying to reduce our utilities we have decided not to hook up a home phone and instead are using Skype to make all long distance calls. Now we just need to add Tarzan and we will have all our immediate family! So far it is working reasonably well, but is definitely a low-cost option, not a "better" option.

Goal 48. Cut your laundry chore in half
Ok, so the real purpose of this goal is to learn to not wash everything unless its actually dirty. And to just have less stuff to wash. However, we just moved into an area that has what we think are pretty darn high laundry prices ($2.00 per wash!) and now they have actually raised the prices depending on what water temperature you use! So, while we didn't actually cut the chore in half, we cut our price in half. We got a laundry rack!! It is pretty fun to hang everything out there, and things end up smelling really nice. So far I am liking it!

Goal 49. Simplify menu plan/groceries
I have always found blog posts trying to convince people to menu plan somewhat confusing and funny. I once went to the store without a list, and we basically left without buying anything because I couldn't remember what I needed. I made a choice a long time ago that shopping lists would not clutter up my brain space, so I just need a list. So while I am good at menu planning I do have one problem with it.... it takes me about 3 hours. And this isn't including the actual time in the store! So I have known for awhile that this is really silly and a total waste of time. Enter my new diet plan! I found in the January edition of SELF magazine an article that included an eating plan by Jillian Micheals. It had something like 75 different meals, and each meal category (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack) had roughly the same amount of calories while following a low-carb, low-fat approach! Plus the food is really good and simple to make! Then I took all the other similar meal plans I had on my computer and added them together. Now I have like 200 options! And THEN I made a grocery list based on these meals, so that if I had everything on the list, I could make every meal on the list. WOW! This has made things much simpler as we have moved and I don't have to worry about "stocking up". I simply buy what is on sale that week, and use it with what I already have to make a bunch of great meals. This has been working out really well, and Prince Charming is getting to used to eating great meals and hearing "it's a diet meal."

Goal 30. Get permanent full-time work
Soo... this has been a frustrating front. We have been here for 3 weeks and no bites. But some progress has been made! I learned how to use the online system at the library (which also means I got a library card!) and so now instead of doing faxes I can use the Health Authorities preferred method of applying online. Hopefully this means there is less chance of my application lying in a forgotten pile somewhere (or being sent blank like I did one week.......). I am also in the process of applying for Employment Insurance, so at least we will have a little money coming in. I am still only applying for jobs that are about .7 and full-time. So I will eventually have to get less picky. But as Ariel says "getting a job is like winning the lottery, you just can't predict it". So this has made me feel better.

So that is all that has happened in our life this past week! Next week I am sure there will be some fun pictures of me attempting....sewing!!