Meg Lingard - September

My goal for September was to do our 72 hour kits. Well, I didn't even start. Isn't it hilarious that I came here to say that?!? I think so!

It was a busy month, and I did get a lot of good stuff done. Two big things that I accomplished were I painted our living room, and I finally finished the quilt that was my April goal.

I spent some long nights getting this quilt done. I'm super happy with how it turned out. I machine quilted it with my sewing machine and then did the binding by hand. I always feel so accomplished when I get a quilt done. We've been enjoying it in our living room now that the weather is getting colder.

Meg Lingard - August Camping

I decided to make good on my June goal (that went by the wayside when we moved) and go camping with my boys this month. I have a real love/hate relationship with camping. I really, really love camping. But I hate how much work it is, how much stuff you have to pack up, and it really is hard to camp with babies. The reason this was a goal for me is because I tend to not want to do things that I feel are much harder than I care to tackle. I'd rather just stay home where I am comfortable. But life isn't meant to just be spent sitting on ones comfy couch now is it? I knew that my husband and sons would LOVE going camping and that I was the one being the poor sport.

So I packed up our things and put on a big fake smile, and off we went!

The first two days we spent on our own. My husband likes to hop in the car and see where we end up. I like to be much more planned but I let him take the lead here (remember the fake smile). I'm learning in my old age that sometimes spontaneous really is much more fun. Way more adventure and needing to throw out ideals and expectations.

You know, it was hard to camp with a baby. He woke up at 4:30 the first morning and refused to go back to sleep. So we all got in the car and drove around, watching the sunrise as the boys fell back asleep in the car. Instead of monitoring his every move and being the helicopter parent I tend to be, I let my baby boy crawl around in the dirt and taste whatever rocks he wanted to. He preferred to push his stroller around.

And since we are throwing caution to the wind... how about let the six year old use an ax for the first time?!?! He did a great job and was really cautious about what he was doing. He even whittled a stick with a pocket knife and we didn't have to crack into the heavily stocked first aid kit I lugged with us.

We packed everything up and met up with my in laws for our family campout for the last two days. We did a Harry Potter theme this year and it was a blast! The highlight was this amazing Lord Voldemort pinata that my sister in law made. There were several crying children... it was pretty awesome.

And some proof that I was there... Me and the baby in our lumber jack shirts. This was the morning after it rained all. night. LONG! I think I slept for about 45 minutes. But we didn't pack up and leave (some did...). We bailed all the water out of the fire pit, got a fire going, and carried on.

Here are a few things that I learned through doing this goal...
:: It was very liberating and refreshing to not have access to my phone for FOUR DAYS! I've realized lately that I've become a little too addicted to my phone. I needed a break. I needed to remember what it was like to have some down time without checking instagram. Or dare I say to actually be productive. Ya, it was getting bad. As soon as I got reception on the drive home I un-installed facebook from my phone and deleted most of the people I was following on instagram.
:: As a mom I think it's hard to want to do things with your family that will take so much work. But this is where the good memories are made. Camping and vacations have not been necessarily fun and relaxing for me since becoming a mom... but it's time to change my attitude. I realize that even though it's hard work, it's a service to my family to help them have a good and fulfilling life and help them have new experiences.
:: I really love camping. Even with the dirty babies and the little sleep. I am a mountain girl in my heart and being there felt like home.

Meg Lingard - June - Move to a new house

Wouldn't you know it... I ran into Mrs. Nora Mair herself yesterday at the store. I was so happy to see her, but one of my first thoughts was, "Ah crap! I was supposed to post today!" And I still forgot to post yesterday! So here it is a day late, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

My goal was to go camping with my boys twice... but we moved instead. I seem to be pretty consistent with switching my goals and not doing the goal I had originally planned, but I'm totally okay with that!

We have been planning on moving up to a house in Perry, Utah, for several months. But things ended up not working out and we needed to find a place to rent pretty quickly. We had a frantic weekend searching all of Davis County, looking for a house that would work. We are pretty picky renters. We love to garden and we have chickens, so we needed to find a house that would fit our needs.

We ended up finding a house that is more than double the size than we've been living in for the past two years, only a mile away from our old house! So that was awesome! There is lots of land here for us to grow a garden and have our chickens. The house is a bit run down and needs some TLC, so even though we are renting I'm planning on painting and doing some work on the yard so that it's a nice home for my family.

It was hard saying goodbye to the Pioneer House (as I lovingly called it). This place has been so healing to me in these last few years. I spent so many hours working in my garden and sitting among the fruit trees here. It was harder than I expected to pack every thing up and move away.

Yep... this is the whole house from front to back. It was pretty tiny but I loved it!

 This kitchen was hard to work in ;). I will not miss not having a dishwasher or a pantry of any kind. Look how tiny those cupboards are!

We were able to get everything packed up and moved. Our biggest issue was moving the new chicken coop with our five hens inside. They did not enjoy the ride at all!!! They were squawking and flapping all over the place in there! It took five guys and two dollies to get it moved, and one of the support beams on the bottom broke. The guys were able to get it fixed though and all is well in the hen house.

Goal for July:: I'm going to go ahead and change my goal again right now because I know there is no way I'm running in a race this month (I've only run twice in the last two years). I'm going to try and wake up by 7 - 7:30 most days of the week so I can get some things done before my kids wake up. I need a much more consistent morning routine so that our days go smoother (yes, I know I'm lucky that my kids sleep in...).

Meg Lingard - May - Finish livingroom quilt (aka build a chicken coop)

My goal for May was to finish the quilt that I started in April and posted about here.

The truth is that I didn't touch the quilt OR my sewing machine for the whole month of May....

Womp womp.

Turns out we will be moving away from our little pioneer house within the next month and all projects have taken a back seat so we can prepare to move. Our landlord's wanted to sell this house and we didn't choose to buy it because it really is too small for our family. We are not in the position to build onto this house to make it more livable for us right now. So the house has been sold and the new owner has let us rent it from her for a few months while we get things arranged for a new place.

Part of preparing to move has been to build a chicken coop for our chickens. They have been living in an old root cellar in the back yard that unfortunately we can't take with us (love that root cellar...).

 

My sweet husband... bless his soul... agreed to build me the chicken coop of my dreams. Some people dream of fancy cars or dream homes, I dream of white chicken coops with wooden roofs.



 

We aren't completely done with it yet, so pardon the tape and spots that clearly need to be painted or stained still. But this is the basic idea. I was in charge of finishing the outside, so the roof and the painting were my projects. We have spend every spare second working on this coop for the past month!!! I will be so glad when it's done.



 

 

 

Just a view from most of the sides. We have the nesting boxes on one side and the feeder on the other side so we can put food in there and get eggs without having to walk into the coop and get chicken crap all over our shoes like we do now. 

 

 

We had it all painted and pretty and then I had to open my big mouth and say that we needed to trim the corners because I didn't like seeing the edges of the tongue and groove board there (petty details). So I still need to caulk and paint those this week. I'm not going to finish staining the bottom parts until we are moved and have it set up because I don't want to get stain on the driveway. Anyway, so no quilt, but we have a chicken coop!

 

I plan on doing a full post of the coop on my blog when it's all set up with the run and the chickens inside. But here is a sneak peek for you guys so you can see that I wasn't just completely avoiding my May project ;).

 

Goal for June: It's supposed to be camp with my boys two times... but I just don't know! I think packing, moving, deep cleaning this house are going to be pretty time consuming. Sorry Nora, but my June post will be a surprise to us all I guess!

 

*** I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who is doing this and who takes the time to leave positive feedback and comments on my posts! I really don't know most of you at all, but I have really enjoyed doing this this year and look forward to reading the posts everyday. What a great group of ladies you are and I'm grateful to be a part of something inspiring and positive like this. 

Meg Lingard - Make a quilt that matches my living room/ April

I bypassed my original April goal and moved onto May because I felt like I would need longer than one month to make a quilt. I'm so glad that I got started on this one early! I've been wanting to make a new quilt for our living room to cuddle with while we watch movies. The quilt that we have been using is super comfortable, but not really my style. It's a flannel quilt that my in laws tied for us when we got married 11 years ago. Though it is super comfy it's a little hard on the eyes when I want my living room to be all matchy/matchy...

 



I've debated over the colors of my living room for quite some time but I think I've finally settled on a good color scheme. I love brown and green (I'm an earth tone kind of girl). I've also finally decided to fully embrace my love of teal, now that it has trickled it's way into every room in my house (I even have a teal broom and tea pot now... oh my). I've been holding back because teal is such a trendy color right now (it will be the forest green and peach of our day I'm sure) but I really do love it, so greens and teals it is!

I ordered this great Ikat fabric to make throw pillows with and decided to go with those colors plus brown for the quilt.

 

Not sure why I did this but I consulted with my husband on how to do the quilt (better to find out his opinion before I spent all the time and money putting it together) and his only request was that it didn't have a lot of white in it. What?!?! I love white in quilts! Seriously... however, he had a good reason which is we will be using this quilt to watch movies with and I'm sure buttery popcorn and cookies will be smeared on this from time to time. So I decided to try a quilt with minimal white. The method to this quilting madness was to get a solid fabric of each color and then two prints that went with that color. Most of the prints I just used from my fabric stash.

 



I wanted to try the pinwheel/half square quilt for fun and I followed this tutorial. Oh my... sort of tedious. I love sewing and crafting but I get bored easily (which is why I have put this off forever). But I just kept plugging away at it every day when I had some time. Once all my half squares were done I sewed four of them together randomly like this:

And this is where I was at by the end of April:

These are not sewn together, just laid out for a basic idea. I was a little nervous as to how it would look together... sort of busy for me, but I like it! I do think that I need one more row on top and on the side so I need to keep working on the top. But hopefully I will have it done by the end of May.

May goal: Finish quilt.

Meg Lingard - Read all October 2013 General Conference talks

My goal for March was to read all the talks from the last General Conference (Oct. 2013) before this next conference. I've never been a great "watch ALL of conference" Mormon. Ever. It's usually in the background of whatever else I'm doing. I always tell myself that I will just read the talks that I missed in the Ensign and so it's okay! However, I never really get around to that either. So this is something that I've always wanted to do but always seem to find other things to fill my time with instead.

Since becoming a mom I've really struggled with managing my time, and that was apparent to me with this months goal. March 15th came around and I still had not even read a single talk!

But I'm happy to report that I have spent some lovely, dedicated nights to reading through these talks and it has been a great experience for me. I tried to make it special... just me and a nice warm bath or a cup of hot dandelion greens (yes I've taken up drinking weeds... an okay replacement to hot chocolate). No distractions or obligations other than to just read.

I didn't finish them by the end of the month, but after I put the kids to bed tonight I decided that even though it's already April... to finish off the last five talks that I was missing. I'm so glad that I did! The last few talks were some of my favorites, and really what I needed to read and reflect on right now in my life.

I did have a neat experience this month while reading through the talks. I have a sister who is serving a mission right now, and she has been having a hard time. Depression runs in my family. Most of my siblings and my father have serious bouts of depression that come and go over the passing time. My sister had a time this last month where she almost came home from her mission due to this. The night before I found out about this I had read Elder Holland's beautiful talk, "Like a Broken Vessel." I sat down to write my sister an email the next morning and shared some quotes and insight that I had while reading that with her in mind. I try not to be a bossy, preachy sister but I felt like I was prepared to help give her some guidance and food for thought on this. But mostly that whatever happened I was here to support her and not judge her, but to love her. I hope that she could feel that through my letter.

Since the spring conference starts tomorrow and those of you who would like to watch are going to be filled with such spiritual advice I don't want to bombard you too much with quotes and words from last conference. But there were so many little nuggets of beautiful wisdom... I can't help it! Here are a few of my personal favorites that really spoke to me. I've made my very favorite ones nice and big if you don't want to read them all :).

"In this Church that honors personal agency so strongly.... we respect those who honestly search for truth. It may break our hearts when their journey takes them away from the Church we love and the truth we have found, but we honor their right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience, just as we claim that privilege for ourselves." - Elder Uchtdorf (my thoughts exactly!)

"Make scripture reading a part of your regular routine, and the blessings will follow. There is in the scriptures a voice of warning, but there is also great nourishment."
"Children taught an understanding of the scriptures early in life will come to know the path they should walk and will be more inclined to remain on that path." - President Packard

"Though we may feel we are "like a broken vessel" as the Psalmist says, we must remember, that the vessel is in the hands of the divine potter. Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed. While God is at work making those repairs, the rest of us can help by being merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind." - Elder Holland

"Remember that all men have their fears, but those who face their fears with dignity have courage as well." - Elder Oaks

"Heavenly Father has organized our journey through life to be a test of our character." - Elder Maynes

"A testimony, like your body, needs to be in shape if you want it to endure." - Elder Maynes

"There is a common theme: fill your life with service to others. As you lose your life in the service of Father in Heaven's children, Satan's temptations lose power in your life." - Elder Scott

"My brothers and sisters, may we have a commitment to our Heavenly Father that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. We should not need to experience difficulties for us to remember Him, and we should not be driven to humility before giving Him our faith and trust." - President Monson

"...I am thrilled with the educational and other opportunities that are available to women. I treasure the fact that the backbreaking work and domestic drudgery required of women has been reduced in much of the world because of modern conveniences and that women are making such magnificent contributions in every field of endeavor. But if we allow our culture to reduce the special relationship that children have with mothers and grandmothers and others who nurture them, we will come to regret it." - Elder Cook

"A man may open the drapes so the warm sunlight comes into the room, but the man does not own the sun or the light or the warmth it brings. The blessings of the priesthood are infinitely greater than the one who is asked to administer the gift." - Elder Andersen (yes!!)

"After you have prepared yourself and your lesson to the very best of your ability, you must be willing to let go. When the quiet promptings of the Holy Ghost come, you must have the courage to set aside your outlines and your notes and go where those promptings take you. When you do this, the lesson you deliver is no longer your lesson, but it becomes the Savior's lesson." - David McConkie

"The companionship of the Holy Ghost is not just a pleasant convenience - it is essential to  your spiritual survival." - Elder Ochoa

"That's exactly how I feel about the Savior. He is always near, especially in sacred places and in times of need; and sometimes, when I least expect, I feel almost like He taps me on the shoulder to let me know He loves me. I can return that love in my own imperfect way by giving Him my heart." - Elder Vinson

"Scripture teaches that the body and the spirit are the soul of man. As a dual being, each of you can thank God for His priceless gifts of your body and your spirit."

"Stellar spirits are often housed in imperfect bodies."

"You were chosen not for your bodily characteristics but for your spiritual attributes, such as bravery, courage, integrity of heart, a thirst for truth, a hunger for wisdom, and a desire to serve others.

"When we master our appetites within the bounds of God's laws, we can enjoy longer life, greater love, and consummate joy." - Elder Nelson (this was one of my favorites... thus all the quotes).

"Another mother I know of has sat alone at church for a number of years with her four young children. Seldom able to concentrate on the Savior during the sacrament, she formed a plan. Now she tries to spend time each Saturday reviewing her week and thinking about her covenants and what she needs to  repent of. "Then, " she says, "No matter what kind of an experience I have with my children on Sunday, I am prepared to partake of the sacrament, renew my covenants, and feel of the cleansing power of the Atonement." - Linda Reeves

"We sometimes as women have a tendency to be very critical of ourselves. During these times we need to seek the Spirit and ask, "Is this what the Lord wants me to think about myself, or is Satan trying to beat me down?: Remember the nature of our Heavenly Father, whose love is perfect and infinite. He wants to build us up, not tear us down." - Linda Reeves

"My dear sisters, your Heavenly Father loves you - each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, o by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God's love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there." - President Monson


What I learned this month from doing this project is that I really would like to do this every time there is a conference. I need to be better at getting the conference Ensign when it first comes out and spend the next six months reading through the talks, not try to squeeze it all in the last month. This is a great way to put into practice what Elder Maynes said-  "A testimony, like your body, needs to be in shape if you want it to endure." As someone who was raised in this religion and has made the choice to raise my own family in this way I need to continue to fill my spiritual bucket if I want my testimony to endure and become stronger. This is a great way to do that!

Goal for April: Catch up with my family blog and get at least two years worth of books printed. I can tell you right now this isn't going to happen! How ambitious I was when writing my list ;). Now that the sun is finally shinning I can't imagine sitting in front of the computer all month! Maybe get my family blog caught up and get started on May's project early because I think it will take me longer than a month to make a quilt.

Meg Lingard - February 2014 - Eat a low glycemic diet all month

My February goal was to eat a low glycemic diet all month.

I made it to February 14th. Darn Valentines Day... and those delicious chocolate covered strawberries! I felt so good having sugar out of my system for those first few weeks, but once it was back in I had a hard time not craving sugar and treats for the rest of the month.

This is a goal that is pretty personal to me. It's something that I feel very strongly that I really need to do in my life but it has been so hard for me to really do it. Thus a goal... and it will continue to be a goal until I get this figured out and it has become a part of my lifestyle. I've sort of been dreading this post because 1- I feel like I failed myself this month and 2- I don't know how to even write this down without making it a little personal, but I think that writing it out might help me to really reaffirm my conviction to do this.

So a little Meg history: I learned early on in my marriage that I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which means a lot of things, but for me it boils down to having a very hard time getting pregnant, staying pregnant, and having babies. I've also learned that it's really quite easy to gain weight and really tough to get it off.

I realize that I am very fortunate to have the children that I have because so many women I know who have PCOS have not been able to have children at all. I'm very, very grateful for that. I've had five pregnancies in the last seven years that have resulted in my amazing 6 year old son, a sweet little baby boy who died when he was born at 21 weeks (this was almost 5 years ago) and my miracle baby who just turned 7 months old. I should probably throw in there that during these precious years where I've been trying to grow my family and deal with this, I was also diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and took a baby making "break" to do chemotherapy and play the waiting game to see if my cancer came back or not.

Phew... is it hot in here to anyone else?

I've felt very betrayed by my body over the past few years. I always thought that I was pretty healthy and took good care of myself... but maybe I was wrong. Surely someone who is taking good care of their body doesn't get cancer in their twenties and is able to get/stay pregnant when they would like to right?

I hit a turning point a little over a year ago when I met an amazing midwife who knows a lot about PCOS. It was through following her advice to eat a low glycemic diet, take a diabetic medication, as well as a fertility drug called Femara that we were able to bring our little sweet baby boy into our family. I will be forever grateful for this midwife and her amazing wisdom that helped me. I have had a hard time sticking to this diet though since that time and really feel like I need to be proactive with my health and stop giving my body things that are clearly hurting it. Easier said than done.

They have linked PCOS with insulin resistance which is were eating a low glycemic diet comes into play. Basically, any foods that raise your blood sugar will cause you to produce more insulin. When you have problems with insulin resistance, eating this way will help stabilize your insulin and hormone levels. I'm not sure what it was that caused me to have cancer, but studies have shown that cancer cells feed on sugar. I feel like with my history it would be in my best interest to limit these things in my body.

So what foods raise your blood sugar? Anything with sugar (including honey) and most carbs like bread, tortillas, rice, potatoes, etc.  I bought two books to help me figure out what I should be eating and hopefully find some good recipes.

I used The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies back when I was trying to get pregnant and really liked this book. I decided to get Trim Healthy Mama because one of my friends has done this diet and has been raving about it on Facebook. I looked into it and saw that it was a low glycemic diet and decided to try it out. Basically they have you eat a low glycemic diet and take it a step further by separating your meals into meals with fats and meals with carbs, and you are not to eat those two together.

This is where my problem this last month came in. These books TOTALLY contradict each other! Foods that have been tested and show to have little impact on blood sugar in The Glycemic Index Diet are not allowed with Trim Healthy Mama (such as corn tortillas, maple syrup, agave, bananas...). This really sort of tripped me up. I found myself spending lots of time doing research on low glycemic foods, trying to figure out what to do. I also have had a hard time with the whole sweets thing. I like that they use natural sweeteners but I have to say, I'm having a really hard time enjoying stevia. The after taste is so bad... maybe I need a different brand. I found this article about sweeteners that has helped me feel like maybe not all hope is lost. Maybe I could occasionally make a treat with natural cane sugar or raw honey and still indulge once in a while without having to eat stevia.

I decided to give the THM diet a go and ate according to their plan for a few days and I was so so so hungry! I had a hard time wrapping my brain around what sort of meals I could eat without combining carbs and fats. I only stuck to that for a few days and decided to abandon that for a while.  I don't love feeling like I'm starving all the time while I'm breast feeding as well, that makes me a really grumpy mom ;). I will keep reading it and see what I learn, and maybe when I'll revisit it in a few months... not sure. But I did learn a lot from that book and from reading lots of blogs from women who have followed that eating plan.

So no, I did not eat low glycemic all month. I would say I did about 60% which is better than not at all! I started the month out strong and then ended it by attending a baby blessing where I ate donuts, chips, and soda pop... sheesh!

My goal for eating a low glycemic diet all month turned into: figure out what foods you should eat, try different recipes, learn to forgive yourself when you mess up and not totally abandon the plan because of a few mistakes. I seem to be an all or nothing person so I had a hard time with not eating "perfectly" this month, which made me want to eat all the naughty comfort foods that I am all too familiar with.

But here is what I did gain and learn this month. Here are a few recipes that helped me and will be a part of my healthier lifestyle:

 - I love German pancakes. I made them with oatmeal instead of flour, coconut oil instead of butter, almond milk, and eggs. They were delish! I topped them with strawberries and greek yogurt mixed with stevia.
 - I love me some In N Out. Instead of a bun I had it protein style, wrapped in lettuce (the ones with the buns are my husbands).

 

 - I found this awesome recipe to make homemade peanut butter cups! They were amazing! I used Truvia instead of honey.
 - I love sandwiches... so the bread thing has been hard. But apparently if you get bread where the grains have been sprouted it lowers the sugars and carb content and they become low glycemic! Trader Joe's has a good sprouted grain bread that doesn't taste like cardboard.
 - This is the trick I learned that has totally rocked my world!!! Making break dough and then letting it ferment in the fridge for 5-7 days. I had never heard of this before, but by having a long fermenting time it breaks down the carbs and lowers it's glycemic index. Keeping it in the fridge keeps it from tasting sour like a sourdough. I found the recipe here and tried it this week. I used spelt flour because it is a lower glycemic flour. I must say... it was the best pizza dough I've ever made.

 - Last but not least, my favorite treat to indulge in is strawberries and cream. Instead of shaking a little powdered sugar on it I used stevia, and I actually don't mind the stevia with this.

I did make progress, and have a better idea of what I need to work on to be successful with this. So even though I didn't eat perfectly all month, I learned a lot and feel good with the progress that I made. I read a quote the other day that said, "Looking back, finding out what doesn't work is more valuable then hitting it out of the park first try." Very, very true.

**Goal for March - Read all the talks from the last general conference before the next conference.

Meg Lingard - Organize my filing cabinet and shred old files

Hi everyone!  My name is Meg. I live in Utah (Davis County) with my husband of 11 years and our two boys (6 years and 6 months). I love nature and making things with my hands. Whether it be sewing, knitting, painting (furniture mostly), woodworking... I'm happiest when I'm creating something. We live in a 130 year old pioneer house right now, under 1000 square feet which keeps life interesting. The home is tiny but the yard is nice and roomy and that is where we like to spend our time gardening, raising chickens, and just enjoying this place.

I met Nora a few years ago through her sister Sharon, who is a high school friend of mine. I was going through a rather rough patch in life and Sharon introduced me to her sister (through her blog) because she had been though a very similar experience. What can I say, I believe it's through the hard times in life that some of our greatest blessings unfold. I'm very grateful to Nora for the support and friendship she gave me at that time. However, Nora and I are not just blog friends! I've met Nora a couple of times in person, once when she showed up on my doorstep with yummy eggs from her chickens! I'm really glad that Nora invited me to be part of this and I look forward to getting to know you all throughout the year, because I'm pretty sure it's just Nora and Sharon that are familiar to me.

Now onto the project! My January project isn't a rather exciting one, but super necessary for my sanity. Before I had kids I worked as an administrative assistant at a university and man did I run a mean filing system! I like keep my family files the same way, so we have a filing cabinet for such things. We moved to Utah from Nevada two years ago and honestly... I haven't done much with the files since then. The top of the filing cabinet is supposed to be where my husband can put his work stuff and well... there was nowhere to put anything! I'm a little embarrassed to even show this picture but Nora said we are supposed to be vulnerable right? Here is what my cabinet looked like at the first of the year...

Instead of filing things I was just piling them on top for "when I got to them someday". It was getting out of hand for sure. My main goal for the month was to get the top cleaned off and organized so that my husband could use it for his work stuff instead of dumping out his pockets on the kitchen counter or table. Here is my cabinet now...

The only thing I purchased was the basket from IKEA for $8. I have a spot for lose change, a canister for latex gloves (my husband is a nurse and keeps a pair in his pockets all times at work. I'd rather use them then trash them), and the basket is for all his other stuff. It's been working BEAUTIFULLY and I have my counter space back!

The top drawer is used for papers that I want to file, and the other three are holding office supplies and lots of fabric ;). So I only tackled the top drawer this month. I had to totally re-do most of the files because a lot has happened in the last two years. We've moved to a different state, changed jobs, changed all our utilities, added a new member to our family... so there was a lot of purging and re-labeling.

The shred pile...

 

I kept things really simple. I recycled the obsolete manila folders by just turning them around and writing on the other side of the tab. I pulled out the old label maker and re-labeled the main heading tabs so that they all look the same. One thing I added was a "shred" folder and a "file" folder in the front of the drawer so that there will be no more pile on the top! If I can't get to filing or shredding items right then, I can put them in the folders for when I have a minute to take care of it.

 



 

In all honesty I like being organized, but I don't love organizing. It took me all month to do this because I kept putting it off. There were lots of times when I wanted to move ahead and start working on one of my projects for another month but I kept stopping myself because I knew I was going to have to be accountable on this blog here (thanks Nora!). Some days I would just tell myself I would only have to work on it for 15 minutes so I could just make some progress. But it feels SO GOOD to have this done!

 

How does that scripture go... mine house is a house of order... and not a house of confusion (D&C 132:8). Baby steps, but this one was a big one in the right direction. 

Meg Lingard's Goals & Projects for 2014

January -  Organize my filing cabinet and shred old files to prep for the new year.

February - Eat a low glycemic diet all month. I need to be doing this all the time due to some health problems I have. But I need a jumping off point so this is the month to get used to it and find some good recipes I can rely on.

March - Read all the talks from the last general conference before the next conference. With little kids I've been really bad at "paying attention" to conference. Hoping to get through the last set before the next one starts.

April - Catch up with my family blog and get at least two years worth of books printed.

May - Make a quilt that matches my living room. We need a new cuddle blanket in there to use when watching movies.

June - Go camping twice with my family.

July - Run in a race. I've wanted to run in a race at the Farmington Festival Days for a few years now but it hasn't worked out. This year it will work out!

August - Learn to crochet. I've always wanted to do this. I'm planning on asking one of my awesome neighbors to help teach me how. It will be a good opportunity to learn a skill from one of these sweet ladies around me.

September - Get our 72 hour kits started... yes started ;).

October - Collect hats to donate to the cancer center. This is something near and dear to my heart and I've wanted to do this for several years. I'm hoping rally my friends to help me and collect as many cute hats as I can to help these ladies out.

November - Finish Christmas before the end of the month. I'm a great procrastinator ;). I'd like to be completely ready before the month is over so I can better enjoy December and spend that month focusing on my family and what Christmas is really about.

December - Do 10 random acts of service with my kids.