Frugal Wife » misc

Project Get It Done: Days 6 to 12

frugalwife — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:59:36 +0000

I have to admit Days 6 to 10 (Mon to Fri last week) were pretty much a complete failure. I didn’t manage to get anything done. I didn’t even manage to Scooba the kitchen on Wednesday like I want to.

I felt pretty guilty about not accomplishing anything during the week, so I made sure to vacuum on Saturday. That’s 2 weekends in a row! I think it’s a record for me. I also tackled a large chunk of one of my ‘big’ projects. There’s this 20 gallon tub sitting in our basement filled with papers that needed to be filed. As I was going through it I came across bills and statements from as far back as Oct 2007. That’s pretty sad. Needless to say, I got 3/4 of it filed away before my legs went numb from sitting on the ground and sorting. I was pretty proud of myself. This coming weekend’s goal is to finish up the filing.

Project Get It Done: Days 2 thru 5

frugalwife — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:27:55 +0000

So I like to think the first weekend of the project was pretty successful. The past few Saturday’s I’ve been pretty lazy. I’ve basically just sat and watched TV and movies all day. This weekend was completely different. Friday night I went to bed at a decent time which meant that I was awake at 7am when my husband was getting ready for school.

So what did I accomplish? First, I dusted and vacuumed the entire upstairs. I had enough energy that I could probably have tackled the main floor too but I didn’t want to over do it so I only dusted. Then, I decided that I should probably pick one of the projects on my list.

It was super tempting to do a couple of the small projects that would only take me a few minutes but I resisted the urge. Instead, I ended up touching up the paint in my kitchen. My parents came from Michigan to visit one weekend in November and we painted my kitchen. It went from a sallow yellow to a calming sage green. (My complexion looks so much better with green and a girls gotta look good in her kitchen!) Needless to say, there were a few spots where the yellow paint still showed through. Being the perfectionist that I am, I needed those spots to go away. I took a little touch up brush and in an hour or so had all the yellow painted over.

I will admit that on Sunday (day 4) and Monday (day 5) I slacked a little. I ended up only ironing and gathering up some of my tax documents. I still have to do a bit of searching for some business receipts (which I’m avoiding because my receipts/paperwork is piled in a 15 gal tub which is full).

All in all, it was a pretty successful weekend. I’m pretty happy about the fact that I’m actually getting stuff done around the house. Here’s to hoping I can keep it up!

Project Get It Done: Day 1

frugalwife — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:07:40 +0000

So it turns out that the big project I had planned to accomplish on day 1 barely needed my help. I assumed more of a supervisory role last night. We replaced the blinds in our Master Bedroom. I forgot to take a before shot and can’t find any pictures of the room with the blinds closed but here it is after we were done.

I’m so extremely happy with them. It’s finally starting to feel like a house and not just a really expensive apartment.

I also put up my list of projects. I sorted by small, medium, and big. It turns out there are 55 projects that I’d like to see accomplished. That’s a lot! Here’s the Project List!

Project Get It Done: Getting Started

frugalwife — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:14:41 +0000

After being in our townhouse for almost 3 years, I’m starting to find that there are lots of little “things” that need to be done that I haven’t gotten to. Every time I walk in to a room, I think “Oh yeah, I need to remember to do that.” I’m starting to feel extremely overwhelmed by it all. I feel frozen to the point of immobility. I read a post earlier this week about not over-thinking things and just doing it and it inspired me a little. I’ve been working on a list for the past couple of days trying to get it all down on paper. I think I’ve got 40 things on my list so far. Now some of these things are big projects. It’s stuff I didn’t get a chance to do last Summer and regret that I didn’t (like washing the windows and screens). The majority, however, are small projects. It’s stuff that will probably only take me 30 minutes at most to finish (like hanging brackets for curtains).

I’m also finding as I’m putting together this list, that I probably won’t have to spend much money to do any of these projects. In fact, my goal is to spend less than $25 to complete everything on my list. Everything else I need has to be found already at our house or gotten for free.

I’ve also decided that in the midst of doing these projects, I need to get my cleaning schedule going. I never really developed one when we moved into the house and it’s about time I do so. I also don’t want to overwhelm myself trying to keep up with my own schedule. If I push myself too hard, that’ll just make me not want to do anything at all. So here’s my little schedule so far.

Sunday/Monday – Ironing (depends on when I get the laundry done on the weekend)
Tuesday – Project Day!
Wednesday – Scooba the Kitchen (who needs a mop when you’ve got a robot!)
Thursday – Project Day!
Friday – Project Day! (or date night, depending on the Husband’s desires)
Saturday – Dust and Vacuum 1 floor (basement, main floor or upstairs so they’re done every 3 weeks)

Now I’m expecting you people to help keep me honest. If I’m not posting updates, post a comment and light a fire under me!

Neglect and New Hosting

frugalwife — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:25:37 +0000

I’ve been horribly neglectful of my blog over the past few months. Hopefully that will change for a bit now (at least until the holidays approach ).

My husband and I have also been looking for ways to cut back on some of our expenses so we’ve re-evaluated our hosting situation. I’m moving from colo hosting shared with friends to free hosting at wordpress.com. We’ll see how it goes. If it ends up not working out, we may look for something low cost that I can use and maintain myself.

Over the next little bit, you’ll probably start to see some of the recipes pop up that I promised about our CSA. I collected the info and even took some pictures. I just never got a chance to post about it. I’ll also try to post a little bit about some holiday things.