15 in 2015 Update

It's been a while since I did an update on my 15 in 2015 goals for the year. I feel pretty good about my progress so far, especially considering that I forgot about these goals for a few months...oops! :)

1. Write at least 2 blog posts per month. 

Not exactly. BUT this is post #16 in 8 months, so it averages out, right?

2. Read 5 books.

Check!

1. American Sniper by Chris Kyle
2. So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Jake Colsen
3. His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
4. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
5. Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker

3. Eat more whole foods.

We've done better than last year overall. My motivation comes in waves and largely depends on my energy and motivation to cook.

4. Spend less time on my phone.

This really depends on the day. Lately, I've made a "rule" that I can only be on my phone (specifically, social media) first thing in the morning when I wake up and then at night after Peter is in bed. It's going pretty well, but it's hard to break the habit of picking up my phone when I'm bored or avoiding work.


5. Find creative ways to save and/or earn money for our family.

A few months ago, I started watching a little girl one day a week while her mom (a dear friend) works at our church. She's 11 months older than Peter and it's given me a glimpse into how fun and completely exhausting it is to have two babies close together.

6. Keep up with my One Line A Day journal.

Success. I'm up-to-date on this one.

7. Purge our home of 300 unnecessary items. 

I quit counting at 500 items, but I've donated/sold 5 trash bags full of stuff since then. I'm on a purging binge right now and am getting rid of SO much unnecessary junk in our house. It's kind of addicting actually.

8. Spend time outside.

Well, we've had the hottest summer on record this year, so that hasn't helped much. I was running in the Spring/early Summer so that helped. We've definitely spent some time outside swimming, picking fruit, laying in the hammock, and going for walks, but we still spent more time indoors than I would like. Once I'm outside, I always enjoy it, but sometimes I have a hard time motivating myself to actually get out the door.

9. Learn how to use our new camera. 

I would say this is mostly a fail. I still haven't read the manual and I am not that much better than I was in January. I have practiced taking photos a fair amount this year, but I don't know much more about technique or lighting or anything to help me take better pictures. Thankfully I have a cute subject, so that makes up for my lack of knowledge/skill.

10. Run a 5k.

Check! I did the Run for Ohm in June. I haven't really run at all since then, but that's beside the point. I don't remember what my time was (slow! 38 minutes maybe?), but my goal was still met.

11. Complete 6 crafty/house/Pinterest projects.

I've made four projects so far. The first two were for my niece, Lucy.

I sewed a set of tea bags to use at a (pretend) tea party. This was, of course, a find on Pinterest that I made my own.

The Merenesses are really into drawing (and good at it! let's hope Peter got Kory's artistic skills and not mine). I made this little drawing pad/crayon roll for Lucy to use at church or in the car (or anywhere else she wants).

The next item I made was for my dad for Father's Day. He loved it and the message couldn't be more true!  

These twine-wrapped jars were pretty simple to make. I also wrapped a few in burlap. I'm using most of them to grew herbs in and the others are currently holding flowers left over from a baby shower I hosted a couple weeks ago.

12. Try 12 new recipes.

I should have kept track of this better. I know I've tried several new recipes, but I can't remember what they were. One that I do remember was Pork Carnitas from Alisa at Family Meal Blog. They are SO delicious and seriously easy. I'm talking "put salt on the meat and put it in the oven and then eat it" easy. You've gotta try it!

13. Lose 20 pounds.

So it would help if I actually remembered what I weighed when I made this goal. haha I'm pretty sure I am down 10 pounds since then, which means I have about 10 pounds left until I'm at my pre-baby weight.

14. Organize and file our stacks of paperwork.

Winning! This is one area where I'm succeeding big time. I've actually combined this goal and the one to get rid of 300 items and am organizing our entire house...and I do mean EVERYthing. The only paperwork I have left is keepsakes/greeting cards and that's going to take a while to sort through.

http://koryandmandymereness.blogspot.com/2015/03/junk-drawer.html

The bags on the right are papers I'm getting rid of and the file box contains the only papers we're keeping.

15. Plant a garden.

Check! This year I've grown zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers (lemon and regular), jalapeños, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Junk Drawer

As a part of my 15 in 2015 goals for this year, I'm organizing all the cluttered drawers, cabinets, and other spaces in our home. I just completed one of the worst offenders: our kitchen junk drawer. Here's the before picture:

Not surprisingly, I found many items you might expect to be in a junk drawer: paper clips, tape, rubber bands, a flashlight, thank you cards, etc. However, since this drawer has been collecting treasures for the past three years, I also found many more interesting items, which included the following:

• 1 popsicle stick
• 2 expired airline vouchers
• 1 pocket knife
• 1 digital camera
• 2 garage door openers (that do not operate our garage door)
• 4 handmade soap samples
• 1 DVD remote (to a player that we haven't owned since we moved in this house)
• 1 pack of Greek flash cards
• 19 writing pens (which is appalling because we NEVER have any pens around this house...or so I thought)
• 1 iPhone 3GS
• 6 Sharpies
• 1 Canadian flag patch
• 3 Christmas light bulbs
• 1 tube vampire blood Halloween make-up
• 1 tool to break out a car window or cut a seatbelt (which is supposed to be used when you get trapped inside the car...not helping much to store it in our house)

And the MOST unbelievable find of all...

• a grand total of 87 NEW batteries! Again, I feel like we never have batteries around here. Apparently, we buy a pack every time we go to the store thinking we are out. If our power goes out and we need to live by battery-operated devices only, we should be set for about 5 years. 

Most of the items in this drawer belonged in a different room (thank you cards, hand sanitizer, safety pins) or in the trash, so I ended up without very much left in the drawer. Don't you just love seeing organized spaces like this? I keep opening the drawer just to look inside.  

February 13 in 2013 Update

February was a difficult month for working on my goals. We spent the first 11 days in Texas/New Mexico and then immediately came home and began working full-speed on our 30 Hour Famine for the youth group. That being said, I'm still pleased with how much I did accomplish in the month.

1.) Try 2 new recipes each month. 

I successfully made two new recipes in February. The first was a spinach, sausage and tortilini soup. I thought it was REALLY yummy and I'll definitely be making it again. I bought the wrong kind of Italian sausage though (should have been links), so I'll correct that next time. 

I also made Italian stuffed zucchini boats. They turned out pretty well, but didn't have as much flavor as we would have liked. I used ground turkey and thought I seasoned it a lot, but obviously it needed some more. Here's the progression so you can see the basic idea of how to make them. 

2.) Memorize the book of James.

I am really struggling with this one. I even set aside some time to work on this and am just stuck in the first chapter still. There is this one verse that I can't seem to get down, but I am bound and determined to get into chapter 2 in March!

3.) Pay off the Camry. 

I made our regular and extra payment on the Camry and I love watching that balance drop so quickly. I am getting really excited to have that extra money when the car is paid off to go towards other things.

4.) Give away produce from my garden. 

I did a little bit of research and planning for my garden this month and have just about nailed down what I'm going to plant. I'm trying to stick with vegetables and fruits that we really love and will eat in abundance. I'm looking forward to starting some seeds indoors next month!

5.) Complete 12 crafty projects. 

I finished the craft I alluded to in January that was a gift for my friend, Kecia. I crocheted this baby blanket for her little girl, Harleigh, and love the way it turned out! It was really fun to be able to give this to Kecia in person while we were in Texas. Mailing gifts just doesn't have the same effect.

I also made another craft in February, but I'll talk more about it on goal #13.

6.) Make our house feel more like a home. 

This was particularly difficult since we spent half the month away from home and only had one weekend at home. (We spent that weekend doing laundry and recovering from our trip too, so we didn't get anything house-related done.) It was good to have a break though because we were able to save a chunk of money for some bigger projects we have planned for March. The curtain rods are still sitting in the guest bedroom because we need to know the length of our curtains before hanging them. We learned that lesson the hard way in our bedroom.

7.) Take a break from my iPhone.


I feel like I'm making good baby steps in this area. However, that has meant that I left my phone at work 3 times this past week alone! Thankfully I have remembered fairly quickly and been able to go back in and get it each time. Putting it on the iHome when I am at home has been really helpful. I've also made it a point to put it in my purse and put my purse out of reach when I'm out to dinner or hanging out with a group of people.

8.) Keep in touch with our Compassion-sponsored children. 

I didn't do anything for this goal in February. It did kind of feel like I just wrote to our kids and didn't have much else to say, so I think writing every other month might be better/more realistic.

9.) Develop a deeper prayer relationship. 

I finished reading Too Busy Not to Pray this month and I really enjoyed it! I highly recommend it if you're looking for a helpful guide with some really practical advice on praying.

10.) Play with Sky every day. 

I'd give myself a 7/10 on this one. There is more sunlight in the evenings now which is really nice, but there were a lot of nights where we had events in the evening (prep work for 30 Hour Famine, high school swimming awards banquet, Small Groups, art event at the high school, etc.) so I didn't play with Sky on some of those nights where I just came home and went to bed. Ideally, I'd like for him to get some exercise with us every day, but I know there is not enough hours in the day to do everything I'd like, so I'll just continue to do my best to make it happen as often as possible.

11.) Clean, organize and purge one drawer, closet, or cabinet each month. 

I cleaned out the cabinet under my bathroom sink and went through of all of our medicines. A lot of the medicine expired back when I was still in college, so I ended up getting rid of quite a bit of it. It was also a time I could be really grateful for our good health, because we really don't have to take very much medicine at this point in our life. Thank you, God!

12.) Spend time with and learn about people different than me. 

I'm still working on Not Quite Adults and plan to finish reading it in March. The one night the Warming Center was open in February was during our 30 Hour Famine, so we didn't get to help there this month No, the irony is not lost on me that we slept outside in cardboard boxes while the homeless shelters were opening up because it was so cold outside. It was an authentic experience for sure! 30HF was a great opportunity to learn about people whose lives look SO very different than mine. It was humbling and challenging and encouraging all at the same time.

13.) Plan quality, creative time for Kory and I to be together.

For Valentine's Day, I made a Date Jar for Kory and I. You've probably seen them all over Pinterest, but just in case you haven't, it's a mason jar with date ideas written on popsicle sticks. You pull a stick out to see what date you'll be going on that night. They are color-coded so you can decide if you're staying in (no $), going out ($$), or spending a significant amount of money ($$$).

(Mine isn't very creative because I had 2 days to work on it and had to throw it together, but it still does the job.)

You definitely have to be spontaneous to enjoy a gift like this (which I don't think I am!) so we're still trying to put it to use. We were supposed to use it for Valentine's Day but Kory already had a specific movie and dinner place in mind, so we went with that. I'm hoping we'll give it a go in March and really do the idea we draw out.

Pantry Organization

I was perusing one of my favorite blogs yesterday evening and read a post about organizing the pantry. Before we continue, I must first give you a short back story.

When we moved into our house, we had incredible help...we're talking like 20-25 people who washed dishes, set up beds, hung clothes in the closet and put food in the pantry. The problem (and blessing) was that I didn't put anything away in my kitchen and therefore, didn't know where anything was located.

We are still in the process of finding what drawer or cabinet works best to hold everything, but the pantry remained untouched. Compounding the problem was the fact that the pantry is very tall and deep. I realize that doesn't sound like a problem, unless you are a short gal like me who also has short arms.

We do have a step stool that used to be kept in the pantry for such reasons...but it has temporarily disappeared. Anyhow, looking at this blog finally motivated me to do something about it and I stayed up way too late getting everything in the right spot.

Now, I hesitate to link the original blog here because it will make mine look bad in comparison...so I will not show you her makeover until you have seen mine first :)

If I were a really good blogger, I would have taken before pictures, but I am not...so just imagine a messy pantry with all my baking items on the top shelf well out of my reach.

Here was the plan:
1) Place frequently used items on the shelves I can easily reach.
2) Arrange like items together so I can find them quickly (baking, canned goods, breakfast foods, etc.)
3) Make use of containers we already own. AKA, spend no $$.
4) Keep it simple so it will be easy for Kory and I both to use it and keep it organized. (No alphabetized canned veggies)

I am really pleased with the way it turned out. You will notice the pantry isn't super full. Part of that is because we have been trying to buy less groceries recently and eat more of what we already have stored away. It is also because I tossed several bags of chip crumbs and a couple containers past their expiration date.

I was thrilled to find the perfect containers around our house for this project. This bowl contains snacks and was a garage sale find from our church in Myrtle Creek.

I bought these mason jars off Craigslist a couple weeks ago for crazy cheap. I am planning to use them everywhere I can..so far in the garden and pantry.

This basket was part of a gift basket I won at a friend's baby shower. It was a Starbucks basket, which was funny since I don't like coffee at all. I ended up re-gifting the coffee and mug for a friend's birthday, but held onto the basket because I knew it would come in handy someday.

This bottom shelf is usually home to the step stool. I guess I better go find that now while I am thinking about it.

Finally, as promised, the original blog that inspired me. I don't really have any desire to be as organized as Jen as I think it is a little over the top personally, but it motivated me enough to get off my bum and do something, so I call that a success.

Menu Planning

I am attempting to become more organized in several ways this month. The first is that I have started meal planning for the first time in my life. I am on week #2 now where I plan the entire week's meals ahead of time and buy all the groceries in one trip. Here are what the last two menus have looked like:

Week 1

Sunday: Youth Group Super Bowl Party

Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Lemon Garlic Chicken with Roasted Green Beans and Potatoes

Wednesday: Pizza and Salad (We host the High School Boys Small Group at our place every Wed. so this is a constant each week for a while)

Thursday: Creamy Pork Chops with Roasted Veggies

Friday: Ginger Strip Steak, Rice and Vegetables

Saturday: Date Night/Eat Out

Week 2

Sunday: Roast, Carrots and Potatoes

Monday: Creamy Pork Chops with Roasted Veggies (Kory ended up hanging out with high schoolers last Thursday and I ate a PB sandwich, so we still had these ingredients left over)

Tuesday: Stuffed Pasta Shells, Garlic Bread, Salad, Cheesecake filled Strawberries

Wednesday: Pizza and Salad

Thursday: Fajitas, Chips and Guacamole

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Broccoli and Cheese Soup, French Bread

This has been great for several reasons: 1) We have not eaten out (except when planned) because we've already had the groceries at home. 2) I've tried several new recipes and am learning to be a better cook. 3) I don't have to stop by the grocery store or come up with a meal after work when I'm already tired. 4) We only have to cook 4-5 nights a week, and since I have a husband who loves to cook (Thank you, Jesus!), he does at least half the cooking.

It hasn't been perfect though: 1) I haven't really picked super healthy meals for us, though there are a lot of salads and more vegetables than I've ever eaten in my life.  2) The second week was pretty expensive because almost every dish was meat-based and that made it pretty pricey.

I am taking baby steps. Eventually, I'd like to base this around what food is on sale that week or what I have coupons for, but I'm not quite that advanced yet. I'd also like to add some recipes that are healthier (maybe even some vegetarian meals?), but that will also come with time. So far, I'm just excited to be taking this big step.

My plan is to keep better track of these recipes by printing them out (almost all were found online), attaching a picture of the meal, and then making notes about what we liked or what we would change the next time we made it. I'll do a blog soon with some of the new recipes I've tried…and some advice on how to make them not turn out like mine did! :)