Weight Loss Accountability

Over the past two years or so, I have (halfheartedly) tried to drop a few pounds.  Sadly, all I seemed to manage was the proverbial five-pound waffle, those same five pounds that experts say are gained and lost repeatedly by most dieters. Read more.

Accountability Update JANUARY 2007

Wow! I can hardly believe the first month of 2007 is already history. My father was right; time really does speed up as I age.

I had no stated goal for January in either accountability area as I was scrambling just to finish an evaluation of November and December 2006. However, that doesn’t mean I am absent a standard by which to judge my performance. I will use the two overall goals of reducing the amount of time it takes to complete organizational/remodeling projects in my home and reducing the amount of money spent on restaurant food.

Remember, my rating scale is as follows:

1: Failed miserably. No progress whatsoever.
2: Tried, but couldn’t do it. No significant progress.
3: Making progress. Halfway there.
4: Came close. More effort needed.
5: Did it! All goals met.

HOME ORGANIZATION
Overall rating: 2

In order to reduce the amount of time it takes to finish organizational/remodeling projects in my home (which implies completion of such a project), work on a project must actually occur. The only activity that qualified here was the ordering of a four-drawer cabinet unit for my bedroom closet. Since the trip to Home Depot to accomplish this task was something more than nothing, I chose to award myself a “2.” I tried, but I didn’t make any significant progress.

February goal: sort and clean the master bedroom closet & the armoire

RESTAURANT EXPENDITURES
Overall rating: 1

Since the December restaurant total fell to an unheard-of level below $1000, I have a new benchmark low to inspire my efforts. Unfortunately, January must have been a very uninspired month, as my restaurant expenditures once again soared beyond that magic $1000 mark. January total: $1202.26. One positive in this area: I am beginning to equate dollar amounts of restaurant visits to home improvement items. Example: $40.00 spent on Sunday lunch (tip included) would purchase 20% of the aforementioned four-drawer closet cabinet.

February goal: $600.00

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB

Accountability Update NOV/DEC 2006

If you are new to Gooseberry Lane, Accountability Updates track my progress in achieving two goals in my life: reducing the amount of time it takes to finish organizational/remodeling projects in my home and reducing the amount of money my household spends on restaurant expenditures (see Restaurant Addiction). The rating scale for these updates is as follows:

1: Failed miserably. No progress whatsoever.
2: Tried, but couldn’t do it. No significant progress.
3: Making progress. Halfway there.
4: Came close. More effort needed.
5: Did it! All goals met.

Today, I look back at November and December 2006 to evaluate my progress. In the months where I marked the first anniversaries of my father’s passing and the death of my daughter’s Sunday School classmate, the return of my darling husband from eight weeks of work travel, and the craziness of the holiday season, I had some challenging “mood days” to overcome. Unfortunately, those days usually meant less progress around the house and greater restaurant temptations. November was worse than December but, thankfully, I made it through both. God is surely faithful.

HOME ORGANIZATION
Overall rating: 1

Rather than working on any home organization projects, November and December were focused on preparing for the holidays. I managed to have most of the gift shopping finished before Thanksgiving. Good thing, too, as I fell ill with a nasty upper respiratory infection that zapped every ounce of physical and mental energy I had. With the help of others, I managed to get the tree decorated, the gifts purchased, and Christmas dinner on the table, though. It wasn’t fancy, but it got done.

Seeing as my plan for November included clearing the kitchen table, devising a maintenance plan to keep the table clear, and refinishing the chalkboard, I must say I failed miserably. Maybe I shouldn’t have planned anything since Christmas preparations around here begin in earnest around Halloween. Lesson learned for next year.

RESTAURANT EXPENDITURES
Overall rating: 2

Both November and December saw travel expenses from King Richard. He jaunted off to Virginia and Washington, the former for a few months, the latter for a few days. Of course, when that happens, I am always tempted to eat out. It provides social time, it reduces my workload, and it keeps me from eating leftover tuna casserole for eight days straight. December was lower, not because of discipline and self-control on my part, but because the entire household was ill the aforementioned upper respiratory infection and was couldn’t go out. Anyway, the final numbers for the latter half of 2006 are as follows:

November 2006: $1041.81
December 2006: $776.56

Amazingly enough, even with these ridiculous statistics, my household paid for Christmas out of cash flow alone. No credit cards needed.

I had no plans for January in either category, but watch for the update sometime next week. I will try to be prompt with it this year.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB

Dining Out in November

As part of a plan to reduce our restaurant expenditures, my family and I have established the following schedule for dining out in November:

11/3/2006: Pizza night
11/5/2006: Sunday lunch
11/10/2006: Dinner after homeschool field trip to MA
11/12/2006: Sunday lunch
11/13/2006: Dinner with friends
11/17/2006: Pizza night
11/19/2006: Dinner after Fiddler on the Roof
11/24/2006: Tree tagging lunch
11/25/2006: Lunch while on homeschool field trip to CT shoreline
11/26/2006: Sunday lunch

If we spend $30-$40/meal, our November total for restaurant dining should be $300-$400, an amount well below that of recent months.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB

Accountability Update OCTOBER 2006

October was not as successful in the accountability department as I would have hoped, but I did make some progress. For those who aren’t familiar with this activity, my assessment scale is as follows:

1: Failed miserably. No progress whatsoever.
2: Tried, but couldn’t do it. No significant progress.
3: Making progress. Halfway there.
4: Came close. More effort needed.
5: Did it! All goals met.

HOME ORGANIZATION
Overall rating: 1

My plan for October was really a repeat of September: to focus on decluttering the kitchen table area. The implementation of this plan was to include clearing the table and establishing a routine to keep it clear. I was also supposed to refinish the chalkboard.

I have discovered that keeping this table clear is REALLY tough. It is the hub of just about every activity that occurs in my home: schoolwork, food preparation, dining, arts and crafts projects, you name it. Paper, books, and craft supplies seem to magically appear and reproduce at an alarming rate. In the words of FLYLady, it is a “hot spot,” an area that needs a quick spruce-up multiple times during the day.

As for refinishing the chalkboard, taking the key teaching tool for school and the general memo board for the house out of commission for even a few days is just as tough as keeping the kitchen table is order. I suppose this procrastination is due in part to the inconvenient upheaval it would cause. I like to think it has more to do with the antics of a five-month-old kitten that is transfixed by the chalk ledge of late. All I need is a paint-covered cat running through my house! Then again, he is mostly black so, maybe, the paint wouldn’t show.

Final assessment: given that no progress was made on this effort, I must lower my rating from 2 to 1. Ugh! Oh well, one step forward, two steps back. Right?! November plan: clear the kitchen table, develop and keep a table maintenance plan, and refinish the chalkboard. Maybe I can get my hubby to help with this.

RESTAURANT EXPENDITURES
Overall rating: 4

My goal for October restaurant expenditures was $650.00, admittedly ambitious and a bit too low, given that I took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg and my husband was traveling for work. The total for October was $1051.64. However, if I remove the vacation and work travel expenditures, I actually come in at $577.08, well below the goal of $650! Admittedly, this smacks of manipulating the data a bit, but it is one way of looking at the numbers. Of course, I like this perspective because it allows me to meet my goal; hence, the overall rating of “came close, more effort needed.” Plan for November: meet the goal without fudging the numbers! All targets and methodologies remain the same --- $650.00 through the use of menu plans and a restaurant visitation schedule.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB

Unfortunate Changes to Accountability Update

Much to my chagrin, I must report that my September 2006 restaurant expenditures were exactly $1000.00 (don’t ask me how that happened), not the previously reported $991.09. The reason for this adjustment: some previously unreported restaurant visits made by my husband. Granted, it is only a difference of about $9.00, but it put me at that four-digit figure that I was so hoping to avoid. This after he thanked me for keeping costs in the three-digit range! Humpf.

Our restaurant addiction totals, thus far, for October are ~$240.00, putting us on a trajectory to spend $829.00 for the month, the exact amount predicted by my friend in Florida (I really hate it when she’s right). My October projection was $650.00. Looks like some behavior modification is in order. The question is: can I modify my husband’s behavior, too? We shall see.

Accountability Update SEPTEMBER 2006

I can’t believe a month has passed already since my last accountability update. Let’s see how I did this time. Remember, the assessment scale looks like this:

1: Failed miserably. No progress whatsoever.
2: Tried, but couldn’t do it. No significant progress.
3: Making progress. Halfway there.
4: Came close. More effort needed.
5: Did it! All goals met.

HOME ORGANIZATION
Overall rating: 2

My plan for September was to focus on decluttering only one area of the house: the kitchen table. The implementation of this plan was to include clearing the table and establishing a routine to keep it clear. I was also supposed to refinish the chalkboard.

Wow, either I was incredibly ambitious in setting my goal or incredibly bad at time management because I didn’t even come close to that mark! I cleared about half the kitchen table at the beginning of September, but managed to fill it back up with “stuff” because I didn’t follow through with developing a plan to keep it clear. Mostly, I need to be more consistent with periodic pickup, both during the day and before bed. I also need to get other household members onboard with this effort.

As for refinishing the chalkboard, I found the leftover chalkboard paint in the basement, but it was too old to use. I never did get around to purchasing replacement paint as my husband and I began discussing whether to use standard brush-on paint or the spray-on variety that he found at Home Depot. I’m really not too keen on the idea of spray-painting anything inside the house for fear of the overspray disaster that (I’m convinced) would surely follow. I need to visit Home Depot for myself to examine this alternative chalkboard paint and make my own assessment.

Given that an attempt was made to complete the September plan, but little or no progress was seen, I (once again) earned a low rating in this department. Due to this lack of progress, the October plan remains unchanged: kitchen table, maintenance plan, and chalkboard.

RESTAURANT EXPENDITURES
Overall rating: 3

The amount of money that found it’s way to our local restaurants during September totaled $991.09, still a ridiculously high number, but less than the individual monthly totals for the last three months, and a $314.17 reduction over August. Of the September total, my daughter and I spent $834.68 and my husband spent $156.41. Not perfect, but indicative of some progress. Our plan --- to create menu plans and a restaurant visitation schedule --- was not implemented; therefore, it will remain the same for October, with the addition of a monthly target total: $650.00. Let’s hope we can hit the mark.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB

Blogging for Accountability

One of my reasons for starting this online journal was to create some external accountability for my two biggest challenges: reducing the amount of money I spend on restaurant meals (hence, the addition of “Restaurants on Our Road”) and finishing the remodeling projects in my home. The latter is the focus of this entry.

A little background on my cardboard box: we chose our home because, at the insistence of my husband, it wasn’t “decorated” for sale. He couldn’t abide purchasing an abode that was spruced up for the purpose of curb appeal. He wanted a sturdy house with great traffic flow, good architectural lines, and eye-catching placement. He got all that, and “undecorated” to boot. Fast forward sixteen years, through military deployments, coping with cancer, and raising a child. When we had time, we had little money to fund home improvement projects; when we had money, we had little time to do the work. Unfinished projects led to lack of storage, lack of storage led to lack of motivation to pickup, and clutter was born.

Over the years, I purchased a ton of books on getting organized and, shockingly, became less so, at least as far as the house was concerned. I spent more time studying the problem of clutter and organization than actually solving the problem of clutter and organization. I even went so far as to write a mission statement for my role as home manager, ala The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. That was at least eight years ago and I can safely say that the philosophical approach to clutter reduction is definitely NOT working in my universe. The time has come (and long gone!) for a new, more practical strategy.

FLYLady recommends spending 15 minutes per day decluttering in a chosen zone. Organizedhome.com concurs, but recommends actually scheduling a “decluttering date” with yourself, a time to focus on the specific room you are determined to clear. Because I am a homeschooling parent and schooltime is rapidly approaching, I plan to begin with areas essential to education: the living room desk, the kitchen table, the family computer desk, and the family room bookshelves. Allotting one week per area, and assuming no financial challenges for supplies and improvements, my target date for completion of this project is Friday, September 1, 2006, the first day of school. I will keep you updated.

Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. --- Proverbs 16:3 NASB