In progress goals

This week has been very busy.

We have learned that nothing in Alberta makes sense to us or them. We have learned that Alberta is all about rules, but rarely has the infrastructure to support these rules. Right now I am not a huge fan of Alberta. Our week has been about trying to finish up final moving items and me doing a lot towards the employment situation. No goals got actually accomplished, but we are making progress on some of our larger goals. This is still pretty great and Alberta has a pretty autumn.

Source.

This weekend is also Thanksgiving! I will be doing a big turkey dinner, which is going to be my big fancy dinner! Hopefully there will be lots of great pictures in my post about that.

So until then, remember to give yourself time off between accomplishing your goals. Maybe you can spend some time finding more goals by reading other blogs!

The Nester over at Nesting Place has been doing a 31 Days Series challenge on her blog. I think around 700 different blogs are participating in this with many different topics. Click here if you want to check out all the topics. Here are the ones that I am reading and enjoying. 

My Life as Prose: 31 Days to make your rental a home. So applicable!

The Complete Guide to Imperfect Housemaking: 31 Days to Organized. This one is my favourite so far!

Thinking about Home: 31 Days to make a House a Home. I loved today's post about Sound. All too often my house is full of cold silence or a blaring TV. Time for some nice music. 

Green Willow Pond: 31 days to Slash Your Budget Painlessly. So far a round-up of easy and interesting tips to help save money. I already do one! But I would love to make my own laundry soap.....

Everday Ordinary Dawnings: 31 days to Build a Better marriage. Very wise words. 

And of course Nesting Place: 31 days of Lovely Limitations. The blog that started it all. Also check out her past 2 years of 31 days. They are really fantastic. 

I hope you enjoy!

Goal 53. Get securities to meet current needs

Let's talk about...... money!

So far on One Neurotic Egghead I haven't talked about money at all. Which is interesting since an entire section of my goals is based on money and I really really like playing with my budget! Oh yeah, you heard me, I actually enjoy it (most of the time). I think playing with a budget is the poor man's way to play in piles of money like Uncle Scrooge. 

One of the reasons I think money is fun is because I really hate shopping and to me when you are deciding where you get to spend your money it's like shopping in your mind. You know where you go into one store, find the perfect item, it happens to be on sale and you buy it? Yeah.... fantasy. So some parts of budgeting is fantasy based. But this post is supposed to be about reality. The reality of some non-"fun" parts of the budget....... Insurance.

Goal 74. Walk somewhere you would normally drive

Source

Since I clearly have lots of time to spend, I decided that Tuesday was a great day for a walk. It was a lovely day, and very warm. In fact, I dressed far too warmly, thinking it was a warm Fall day, when it was actually a warm Indian Summer day. As I walked I thought about the last book I took out of the library, Organized Simplicity, and the main thing that struck me is how complicated simplicity can be.

Goal 80. Streamline cleaners

The best part of moving house means that you also get to do a huge junk removal process. Before moving we got rid of tons of stuff (boxes of books, huge bags of clothes, furniture and kitchen gadgets) and we are still continuing this process. I have already taken a box to Value Village and have started a second!

While simplifying and minimalism are great ideas it is important not to just focus on reducing but the reasons why we simplify. It is not enough just to get rid of things, but a lot goes into deciding what to keep and what to toss. It's like editing a paper. (Prince Charming has gone back to school so academia is on my mind!)

One of my goals has been to streamline my cleaning products for a long time. I also wanted to keep the most effective and green products I could. Here's how I decided to finish up this goal.

Goal 35. Design a Grown-up, Cozy Living Room

The goal that has been overtaking my life! taking my time this week has been sewing curtains. Since I am still fun-employed I have been working on getting my house set-up and gorgeous during this time.

As part of my goals I had written down the feelings I wanted in each of my rooms, and then to further this intentional decorating I wrote down the functions I wanted each room to play. In my living room I wanted it to be a room to share with others, so I decided to move some things out of it (read: ugly textbooks), and move other things in, such as the board games and DVD's that we would want to share with others. I also am going to be using this room as my "office" space. I haven't figured out how to do this yet, so right now I am just stashing my stuff on a shelf behind doors. Right now it would also be a guest room, as we wait for me to find a job! It is doing a great job of holding all these functions.

Last week I found a great series of posts on the Nesting Place called 31 Days to a Better Dressed Nest. I have been devouring these posts, and trying to use them in my own house. In particular, 2 of her suggestions: Incorporate fabric, and Group it. I decided to hang my curtains and made a grouping of pictures as my focal point. You can see both in the video below and see how I made these curtains.