October 2019 Goals

Even though we’re already a week into October, it seems like the perfect time to talk about my September goals and set new ones for this month, right?

Here were my September goals :

1. Clean off our dining room table : Nope. It’s worse than it was before. Sigh…

2. Clean off our entryway dresser : Finished!! Look at the difference :

3. Get on track with daily routines : Not even close. I’m on fall break this week, so I’m taking some time to list out things that need to be done daily, times that I need to get up, be ready to leave, etc. I’m not a very organized person, so I need all of the help I can get with keeping myself on track!

4. Make consignment appointments : I’m taking Charlotte’s stuff tomorrow or Thursday. I haven’t made my own appointment, but I did make an appointment for a donation pickup, so I may just forget about consigning my stuff and donate everything!

5. Trade in old car seat : Done! I read that they were going to end the program early, so we traded in two old ones the day before they ended it. Phew!

Charlotte tells her old car seat goodbye!

6. Make an eye doctor appointment : Nope. Onto the October list you go…

7. Make a dentist appointment : See above…

8. Take Koopa to the vet : See item 6…sheesh…

9. Decorate for Fall : I’ve started doing this, so partial credit?

10. Start meal planning and prepping : No to this one too

11. Start walking again : Nope, but the joke was on me. Last month I said it was “starting to cool down,” then we had 90+ degree weather here all the way into the first week of October! Now it’s FINALLY fall around here, so let’s revisit this one for October!

12. Start posting at least once a week again : No for this one also.

So, I completely accomplished 2 and partially completed things out of my 12 for September. That’s not a ton, but I’m proud of myself for any progress!

October Goals :

1. Clean off our dining room table : Month 2 of trying to get this done!

2. Create/implement daily routines : Giving this one another go.

3. Make an eye doctor appointment : I NEED new glasses. Come on, Amber!

4. Make a dentist appointment : I think I’ve been procrastinating on this because I don’t know if I’m going to go back to my old one or pick a new one. Such tough decisions…

5. Take Koopa to the vet : We may not be able to get all of his shots and teeth cleaning this month, but we can at least take him to the new vet we’re going to try and let them do his pre teeth cleaning blood work.

6. Start meal planning and prepping : One of our PE teachers told me a little bit about what she does every Sunday, so I have some ideas to try!

7. Start walking again : Unless the weather goes back up to the 90s. Then I’m just going to hibernate. Haha!

8. Start posting at least once a week again : I’ve still got to post my dang fall bucket list and summer wrap up…if I can even find my summer list post!

9. Decorate for Halloween and/or Fall : I mean, it’s already October 8, so I don’t have much more time for Halloween, so I may just skip those decorations this year in favor of fall stuff until the day after Thanksgiving.

10. Work ahead on lesson planning and homework : This is kind of part of the routines thing, but I need to get into the habit of working ahead on these things instead of scrambling to do them at the last minute. Story of my life, right?

I’m going to stop my October goals at 10, especially since I had so many that I carried over from September. Do you have any goals for October? Let me know in the comments!

September Goals

Well, hello there. It’s been a little bit since I’ve posted, hasn’t it? The world of being a school librarian has been extremely busy, plus I just started two of the classes I need to get my teaching certification/licensure, so I have been just a little frazzled for the last few weeks!

I’ve missed writing though! I’ve also missed reading blogs. I pulled up my feed reader yesterday, and I had over 700 unread posts! Sheesh! I wanted to ease back into writing, so I thought I would do a goals post to stretch out my writing muscles again and to motivate me to get some things done!

September Goals :

Clean off our dining room table : Somehow our dining room table can go from being completely clear to a disaster in the blink of an eye! It tends to be the place where we just drop things when we don’t really know where to put them, and then it just gets out of control. Now that Will and I have similar work schedules, we can eat dinner together as a family at night, so we really need to get the table cleared off to make this happen.
Clean off our entryway dresser : This is another spot where we just drop things, especially mail. It’s not quite as cluttered as the table, but it still needs to be cleaned off.
Get on track with daily routines : I spent most of August in survival mode with my new job, classes starting, Will’s schedule changing, etc, but now that we’re into September and getting into a groove, it’s time to work on daily routines. I want to get back to doing small daily housekeeping tasks like laundry and unloading the dishwasher. I also need to get back into the habit of choosing my work clothes the night before, making sure lunches and snacks are packed, getting my work bag together, and doing a quick tidy around the house.
Make consignment appointments : Charlotte and I both have a ton of clothes that we aren’t wearing. I want to make consignment appointments and start cleaning those items out since both of our closets are way too cluttered!
Trade in old car seat : I saw a post on Facebook about Walmart’s upcoming car seat trade in event. From September 16-30, you can get a $30 Walmart gift card for trading in car seats that your kids have outgrown! We just bought Charlotte a new, bigger car seat last month, so the old one is just sitting by the couch. This will help us declutter a little and give us a little extra money for groceries!
Make an eye doctor appointment : For some reason, this is a recurring goal for me. I have no idea why I don’t go ahead and schedule the next appointment each time I go for a visit, but here we are yet again!
Make a dentist appointment : Somehow I’ve gotten off track with my twice a year cleanings, and I can’t even remember when I last went! Plus, it’s really weird, but I had a wisdom tooth pop through a few months ago! It’s not hurting or bothering me, but I think it would be a good idea to get a pro to look at it!
Take Koopa to the vet : He’s a couple of months overdue for some shots, plus he needs a tooth cleaning also. We are just falling apart in this house, aren’t we?
Decorate for Fall : I just got a couple of fall decorations at Target yesterday, plus I’ve got a lot of things that I didn’t get out at all last year. I want to get those things out this year and make our house fall ready!
Start meal planning and prepping : I suppose this could go with creating daily routines, but I wanted to separate it out to make sure it got extra attention in my world. We have been so bad about eating fast food lately, and it’s hurting all of the weight loss progress I made early in the summer! I need to take time during the weekend to meal plan and prep to get ready for the week.
Start walking again : My mom, Charlotte, and I were walking the neighborhood pretty consistently earlier in the summer, but we missed a couple of days, and then we just ended up dropping that habit. I know that part of it was the super hot weather, so now that it’s starting to cool down, I want to resume this habit. Plus, this paired with dining out less often will help with that whole weight loss thing!
Start posting at least once a week again : My last goal is to post at least once a week on here. I’ve got a lot of posts I want to do, including creating a Fall Bucket List, so I just need to sit down and take the time to write them. This will be a good outlet when I’m tired of reading about collection development or want to stay off social media! I also need to fix the wonky site design that happened when I let my paid WordPress subscription lapse, but one thing at a time, right?

Anyone have any great September goals they want to share? Let me know in the comments!

The Daily Dime : June 2019

Time for another Daily Dime post where I share 10 pictures from a day in my life! I haven’t done one of these since March 2018(!), so Charlotte looks just a little different than she did then!

These pictures are from Saturday, June 15.

One//Around 10:00 AM

Charlotte has an ABC mat on the floor of our screen room, so we go out there at least once a week so she can play with them. She’s started putting some of the empty parts on her head, which always makes me laugh!

Two//Around 10:00 AM

Poor Koopa always thinks that he gets to go in the back yard every time we go in the screen room, but until he gets his new flea/tick collar, he can’t. The ticks are so bad this year!

Three//Around 11:00 AM

Time for a late breakfast with Ariel and her inside ABCs. She is obsessed with ABCs and spelling right now!!

Four//Around 1:45 PM

My mom, Charlotte, and I have been taking daily walks around the neighborhood. We usually do it after I get home from work, so it’s not too hot, but today we had to go earlier, so it was blazing outside! Please note Charlotte’s snacks in the cup holder!

Five//Around 2:30 PM

After our walk, Charlotte and I played in the back yard for a few minutes. Unfortunately, our play time ended when Charlotte got super mad at me for not letting her go near the neighbor’s fence because I didn’t want her to get too close to their dogs. I’m such a mean mom!

Six//Around 6:00 PM

My brother bought two tickets to the My Brother, My Brother, and Me podcast’s live show, and he invited me to come along. This is the face I make when I get to go out and do something adultish!

Seven//Around 7:00 PM

My brother made fun of me and called me a tourist because I kept taking pictures downtown, but I don’t care! I just like taking pictures in Nashville, and I thought this one was a cool one!

Eight//Around 7:00 PM

Me and Little Jimmy Dickens. Enough said…

Nine//Around 9:00 PM

It’s the brothers McElroy! Let’s get this show started!

Ten//Around 10:15 PM

Okay, this is a mean picture, but it highly entertained me. These scooters are all over Nashville, but this is the first time I’ve seen two people trying to ride the same one! Right before I took this, the girl was standing there yelling at the boy. I imagine it was about their technique because when they got back on, they were booking it up the hill! Don’t ever change, Nashville.

So this doesn’t seem to be a linkup anymore, but I want to start doing these again more regularly because I think they’re a cool way to get a glimpse into people’s lives! My next one will be on July 17, so if you’re interested in joining in, leave me a comment, and maybe we can start a new linkup (maybe with a new name too because I don’t know if Daily Dime belongs to someone…).

Changes all around

Hello friends!

I’m popping in with a quick note today about a couple of changes that are happening on here and in my real life.

As of June 28, the name of this website will change back to amberiam.wordpress.com. Update whatever you need to accordingly. 😉 I will also be deleting my Facebook blog page at that point.

When I bought a “business plan” for the blog, I intended to start writing more, doing things on social media, and making money from this little Internet space. I justified my annual cost by saying that I would make it back, plus more, as I grew my following, posted consistently, etc. Two years later, this has not happened, and honestly, it’s not a financial expense that we can continue to justify. I’ve got access to approximately 17,000 “grow your blog” courses and eBooks, so until I go through those, I’m scaling back to a free plan here.

I’m dropping the Facebook page because I hardly do anything on it beyond automatically publishing blog posts, and that’s just something else to keep up with! I’ll make the posts publish to my personal Facebook feed since most of my Facebook readers are people I know in real life anyway!

Besides the financial aspect, there is another reason that I’m scaling back here – I got a new job!! Starting on July 24, I will be a librarian at a local elementary school! It’s a huge change for me since I’ve only been in public and academic libraries, and I’m pretty nervous! I will also have to go back to school to take a few classes so I can get a job-embedded teaching license and state certification. It’s exciting and overwhelming! With those changes, I might be even less active around here for a while, so it didn’t make sense for me to try to keep growing here (I mean, not that I’ve tried a lot lately, but A for effort, right?).

I hope that in the future, I’ll be able to get back on track here, but until then, I’ll let the $1.74 in ad revenue that I’ve made keep sitting in the WordPress account. Never hurts to have some money for a rainy day!

Amber Can Read : June 2019

It’s time to talk books again!

I’m trying something a little bit different this month. If you click on the title of the book, it will take you to the book’s Goodreads page, and if you click on the picture, it will take you to the book’s Amazon listing. Amazon links are affiliate links (click the link at the top of the post to find out more about affiliate links).

1. What Do You Do With A Problem? by Kobi Yamada

I read this one while I was at the bookstore and Charlotte was playing with the toy displays. It started out cute, but I didn’t love how it ended. I know there are some other related titles, so I want to read those and see if I like them better than I did this one.

2. What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe Tuma

I read this one while we were at Target and Charlotte was playing in a little playhouse they had set up. Sensing a theme here? This is from the people who started Dinovember, so it was pretty cute and creative!

3. Simply Clean by Becky Rapinchuk

I’m not going to talk about how long I’ve owned this book before finally reading it! I enjoy the Clean Mama blog, so I knew this would be a helpful book for getting me started in creating housecleaning routines. She has a lot of good, practical advice from setting up routines to making your own household cleaners. Although i haven’t fully implemented her routines and methods, I’ve seen a difference just from what I have done so far!

4. The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman

My lone audiobook for the month, but this one was definitely the one to listen to on audio! It was read by the authors, which made it more enjoyable, especially in the sections where they talked about how they met and started dating. She is a little more crass than he is, and he is more of a softie than I expected!

5. How Hard Can It Be? by Allison Pearson

I absolutely hated this one. I don’t know what it was about it, but I just slogged through it hoping that something, anything, would happen to catch my attention and make the main character more likable. Spoiler alert – nothing did.

6. My Oxford Year by Julia Whalen

This one started out a little slow for me, but I got into it more after the “big twist” was revealed. I even found myself crying during one part (I say “even” like I’m not over-emotional and set off by the slightest little thing on a regular basis…). I wanted to revisit my dreams from my teen years after reading this one!

7. Daisy Jones and The Six

I enjoyed this one, but I wanted to love it like I did The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I thought the format of this one was interesting, and I liked how it wrapped up, but it was one of those that may have been a little too hyped for me to fully enjoy it.

8. Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

I found this one when I was browsing through my public library’s eBook app, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I still have a couple of years until Charlotte is in kindergarten, but I hope I have a class mom like this one when she is in school!

9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

I somehow made it through high school and an undergraduate English degree without reading this one. It was okay. I didn’t realize that it was a few unrelated short stories, so I felt like the title story was a little unresolved. I want to watch the movie eventually and compare and contrast. Wow, what a nerd thing to say. Ha!I st

10. One Day in December by Josie Silver

I started listening to this a couple of months ago and couldn’t get into it. I put the eBook on hold back then and just got it recently. This was a little bit different than a traditional romance, but I enjoyed it and how it wrapped up.

Total for the month : 10

Total for 2019 : 59 (I’ve now surpassed my 2018 reading total, and I still have 6 months to go!!)

Have you read anything good lately? What’s something that you made it through high school and/or college without reading? Leave a comment and let me know!

Linking up with Steph and Jana!