June 2009 Recap

I can't believe the first month of summer is over! June absolutely flew by, but we had a blast. We went to graduation parties, a baseball game, threw a party for my brother and sister-in-law, worked on the house and Lover spent a week in NYC. Very, very busy! Here's how we did on our goals this month:

• Increase emergency savings by $500 As of today, we have reached our goal! 100%!
• Have one month's worth of expenses saved up (besides the savings we already have) We're up to about 27% of this goal
• Have garage sale-ing fund up to >$100 I'm all set for the garage saleing season. Unfortunately I've been too busy to hit up a lot of sales.
• Have stocked food supply We have a month's plus worth of meat in the freezer, I am working on having a backup for our pantry items.
• Go camping Barring a torrential rain, we'll be going camping next weekend. Yay!
• Throw 2-3 good parties The invites for Culoare Zi 2009 will be going out this week, and Lover has his yellow shirt. I'm still searching for the right outfit
• Plant a vegetable garden We ate our first peas this week. They were so yummy! The tomatoes are growing nice and big, as are the cucumbers. The blackberries are ripening up quickly. Parsley was a dud, and the sunflowers got eaten by bunnies. :-(
• Learn canning My sisters and I tried to make strawberry jam, it was a bust. We're going to try again when peaches are ripe. :-)
• Go to California to visit Paul and Mandy I may actually be going out twice this year, once when baby Danko is born, then again around Christmas time, with Lover.
• Get together with family more often Still seeing Lover's family once a week or so, and seeing my brothers one or twice a week as well. They are so much fun and so crazy!
• Continue learning piano I have set myself the goal of being able to play every song in the beginner's piano book that I have. Then I'll move on to the minuets.

In addition to these goals, here's what we accomplished around the house:

• We began the basement demolition, tearing out some of the headers, paneling, carpet on walls, mirrors on walls, and we tore up all of the carpet on the floor. It took us three weeks to get rid of that garbage, and now we're ready to do round two.
• We came up with a floorplan for the basement, where we will be moving some things around, installing a shower in the bathroom, and opening up the glass block windows to let in more light.
• We tore out the yucky bushes in front and replaced with fresh boxwood shrubs and daylilies. Still waiting on the elegantissima boxwoods to arrive, then I'll post pics.

Looks like we are making progress!