The Month Ahead: June Goals and Plans

I don't feel the month of May has flown but this past week sure seems to have been put on hyper-speed.  I mean, wasn't it just Thursday and me planning our anniversary day out?  Whoosh!  Here we are a week later with just one day left in May!



So what's ahead for June?  Typically I plan a study session for the first hot month of the year.  I don't have even an inkling of an idea of what I might like to study.  In years past I've had home economics course, charm school, etiquette,  frugal boot camp, cooling summer food ideas, nostalgic old fashioned summer posts...This year I have absolutely no inspiration for any such thing at all.  That doesn't mean I haven't any plans just that blog inspiration is lacking at present. I think it's because I have so many projects on my mind.

Before I do these goal setting posts, I always go back to look over what I'd planned to do.  I don't always complete my list, but it is helpful to remember to also scan through all the posts from the month because I often do so much more than I'd planned.  The truth is I can get off track or ahead of myself in certain areas because I will see a job that needs to be done and I jump right on it, even if it's not on my list.

Let's start to plan for June:

Outdoors:  Wow.  Just to look at the outside of my house from the start of May to now shows the amount of work that's been done.  I'm not where I want to be, but I'm so much nearer my end goal that I feel rather impatient to keep at it.  It's hot though...and it's going to be hot from now until along about end of October or even start of November.  It's the way life is if you live in the deep South as I do.  Summer is a lasting season, lol.


I'm going to break down my goals for these outdoor areas.

Front Porch:  Look for a café set to go in the space by the living room window of the front porch.  Also look for a new welcome mat for the front door.(found.  I just need to place the order). 

I'd like to repot my orchids when they stop blooming.  I have orchid bark.  I think I need two more orchid pots but they are a little pricey. I might make do with what I have until I can get the ones I think are prettiest.  I'd love a couple of hanging baskets.  I've sort of got my heart set on Bougainvillea which can stand our high temperatures.  

Patio:  First of all, I need to remove those concrete blocks.  I do have a planned use for them, just need to get them from patio to the area where I mean to use them.    I'd like planters to go either side

of the porch steps.  I need shade plants for that space.  And I want to fill the other two planters at the end of the patio.  I have the Aldi rose which is doing beautifully well in the big pot but I think it could use some underplanting.  I need heat tolerant sun loving plants for that end of the patio. I'd like to have a plumbago.   It occurs to me I might plant my little avocado tree in one of those pots.  Perfect.  

Back Porch:  I need to buy a can of coral paint to paint the orange table.  I'd like to buy a fern to go in the old iron wash pot.  

I want to move my American flag to the back porch post.  It's always getting tangled with plants or clothesline on the front porch.  I have the hardware in the shed.  I just need to find it.   I need to redo my Welcome sign on the bedsprings by the back door.  I have an old wooden drawer front that might work better for this than the composite wood I'd  used last time. I am pretty sure I can make do with what paint I have on hand for this project. 

I'm really tired of the star by the crib springs but it does serve an important function: it hides a badly repaired hole in our siding.  I'd need to find something that would cover that if I were to remove the it.  That's a thrift store list item for sure.

My other jobs on this porch are pretty much free things, too: take the excess stuff to the shed.  Finish cleaning the rafters and railings and get them painted with the special paint we bought for the task.  Shame to have to do it now that the porch floor is painted but I've decided to just put down a drop cloth to avoid drips and do a little at a time so it's not an overwhelming task.  This is one job I don't mind taking all summer to do!

Yard:  I think I'm going to be about maxed out with the tasks I've set for outdoors and my budget is going to be screeching, too.  But I'm going to try and buy a few of the pavers to continue to put around the trees at the end of the house and  down the south end of the house itself. I  will not get  mulch at this time.  

I would love to add color to my existing flower beds most especially to the bed in front of the back porch.  I'll keep my eye out for discounted perennials and plants that need to be resuscitated.  I'm pretty good at nursing them back to full life and it would help with the budget.  

I've also promised John I'd paint the two entry doors to the underside of the house.  We have a half gallon of a pale gray paint that should be a fair match to our stucco foundation.

House:  The dining room chairs need to be redone.  I'm undecided if I want to sand and repaint them or price having them done at the auto body shop in town.  Frankly my last paint job didn't last at all well and I'm thinking they need a heavier duty sort of paint.   I don't really know what color I'd paint them but I'm leaning towards oil rubbed bronze.  I have fabric to recover the seats, the same as I used on the backs of my bookcase.  I need to buy a new staple gun to use to do that job.  I loaned mine out last year and I'm pretty sure it's lost.  I'm putting this on my goals list but we'll see how it goes on this job.  I can do the seats whether or not the chairs get painted.

I have a lamp in the living room that I'm ready to change.  I painted it silver a couple of years ago and I'm over it.  I do love the lamp.  I'd like something different but definitely want color.  Otherwise that spot will read as dark and I don't need anymore dark items in that area.

I need to replace one of my lampshades in the living room.  I need to measure the lamp so I can buy shades that fit properly.  I did a poor job the last time I bought them.  It's far too skimpy and short for the lamp it's on.

I want to paint the bed for the guest room.  I have the bed and I have the paint. I'm going to paint the footboard to  use it in my little herb bed as a color accent. No cost to do this task.  I need to buy two frames and paint another to hang above the bed in that room as well.  The frames can easily come from thrift store.

I need to haul a bunch of stuff from the guest room out to the shed.

Our closet is a bit of a mess at present.  I moved all the linens, curtains and blankets etc. from the pantry closet and made that into a proper pantry earlier this year.  I had plenty of room in my closet for it all but it just looks messy.  I want to find a way to organize it more neatly and not have the closet look so cluttered.  Again, not a task that should cost me anything except time.

Try to clean the ivory rocker.  And if I can't get it looking decent I'll just start looking for fabric to make a fitted slipcover for it but I won't tackle sewing that this month.

I mean to look for a toaster oven to ease summer cooking.  I think the point was really driven home today how handy it would be when I heated the big gas oven so I could heat six little taco shells for our lunch.  Seriously.  It's just such as that that makes me more and more certain I'd love having a toaster oven.

Finances:  The big credit card bill is due in a couple of weeks.  I have saved and scrimped and I'm not even going  to bump that balance enough to make it feel it.  I've decided to just go ahead and take it from my personal savings account and call it DONE.  I'd rather start with a clean slate and have nothing in my account than carry a balance and pay a finance charge.   I've thought about this all month long and it just goes against my grain to carry a debt.

I did make a substantial deposit to the new savings account last month.  I can't make as big a one this month but I have set aside money each pay period in May and will do the same for June.

John wants to repay our accounts for the money used to do the foundations of the house.  Again, I'm setting money aside to do this.  I plan to use holiday and overtime pay to help boost the repayment plan for June.

Last, I borrowed from a sub-account to help cover our AC repair bill in May.  This month I want to repay that amount.  LOVE having sub accounts paid ahead for just this reason.  When I've paid that amount back, I plan to focus on getting a year's worth of car insurance money set aside.  That will mean I've got those annual and semi annual fees covered for 2020.  That's halfway to my goal before retirement.

To that end, I cut my grocery budget back to $300/month.  We'd been hanging in closer to $350 - $425 a month  the past two years despite my best efforts but this month I really pushed hard and managed to do well on $300.  I'm going to keep doing that and any extra I save from our usual is going to be pushed to be split between sub account balances and repaying the savings we borrowed from ourselves.  I won't try to go lower than $300 however, because I want to keep restocking what I use from my pantry and I found I was able to do it this month with ease.

Pantry/Freezer/Menus:  In my busyness this past month the once a week meal prep bit the dust.  And in biting the dust the menus sort of fell by the wayside, as well.  No more!  I'm going to make Sunday my meal prep day from here on since I don't do outdoor work over the weekends.  Even just thawing meat is a HUGE help in staying on track.   I also want to prepare supper items (salad or sandwich fillings) ahead.   If I can do a bit of vegetable/fruit prep, too, I'll be set each week for a productive week.

In May, I made bagels for the first time ever and boy were they good!  I'll keep making them now I know how, just as I do yogurt.  Why buy when you can make it cheaper and it taste so much better?
For June, I'm going to try and grill at least once a week.  I'd like to try to do a roast the way Daddy did even though I haven't got a rotisserie.  I'm pretty sure I can do it in a foil pan on the grill.  (Wait...do I have a roast in the freezer? Need to check.)  I thought I'd do shish kebab, and chicken breasts and John would be over the moon about hamburgers and hot dogs.

I'm finding that baking is best done in the very early morning hours so I'll plan to bake on those mornings when John is going off to work.  I'd like to get some cookie doughs made up for the freezer.  I'd like to have a pound cake or plain cake layers wrapped and in the freezer, too.  I can always frost later but just to have the baking done would be a bonus.

Personal:  I visited a Cato in an area where I don't go often in May and bought a kimono, a cami/tank to go under it and another couple of blouses.  I don't need any more clothes.  What I could use: shoes/sandals, lightweight scarves.  Mostly what I need is to take time to play with what I have in my closet and see what I can do with it all.

I'm going to be very busy this month and some of what I mean to accomplish is going to be physically tiring.  I often overdo  and pay the price with inactivity for a day or two following a day of hyperactivity.  I'd much rather spread out my zeal for getting things done into doing a little every day rather than doing it halfway and then being sidelined for a week.

I haven't read anything except short stories this whole month.  I've been ashamed to even look at the two books that have been by my chair now for three months and we won't discuss the new ones on the shelf I haven't touched.  I mean to read something this month.

And there's crochet.  I lost my dishcloth I started in the bottom of my magazine basket. I will dig it out and work on that once more.  I am trying to direct less attention to just idling time away on the internet which is usually not very satisfying and enjoying other things.

I did a minor bit of work on genealogy this month and realized yet again that a lot of what I do is repeat work.  I want to be better focused when I'm online and that means preparing ahead by writing myself out a list of things to look for.  I finished the post I had in the works for May on my Roots and Rabbit Trails blog.  I'd really meant to do more than one post a month but there's just so much time in a day and so much I can do with my mind in a day's time, lol.  I want to start and finish a new post, but I'm only planning on the one.  Realizing I do have limits is part of my personal goals this month.

Wow...I feel like I've set myself some heavy goals for June.  We'll see how well I do with them!