November had a few challenges, including the fact that I had a good part of another post done when I remembered I didn’t do a progress report for last month! It’s rare for me to be sick-in-bed sick, but I was, and lost a lot of momentum. I had to allot several hours to unplanned lice zapping. And I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner, without giving anyone food poisoning. It was fun, but it definitely consumed a lot of attention for a while!

So here’s my report.

Objective 1: To create a home which contains only things we need and love.

What I accomplished: I feel like I go around in circles, from the attic to my bedroom and closet, through every other room in the house, to the garage and back to the attic. Each time I’m able to let go of more stuff which I don’t need, use or want. Ideally, I’d like to have unloaded all the excess items in one swoop, but it’s a process. And I didn’t have a donation pickup in November, but there’s one coming tomorrow and I hope to put out a lot. My neighbor inspired me to try and toss three things a day, but I fell behind when I was sick and never got back to it, but I did toss things into boxes at random. Today I was in the garage and found a box I filled a while ago. And I was very excited, which is a little pitiful.

Here’s a photo of the garage from the spring.

Today I noticed a significant difference. It’s been really mild here, though I’ve been lugging stuff into the house to sort. Even if I don’t get rid of anything else, I’ll share updated photos next week. I’m still skeptical about the car-readiness, but I’m pleased.

Grade: B+

Next Steps: I’m hoping to go through the coat closet later and find a few more things before tomorrow. I was able to get my hands on a lot of boxes, and my goal is to fill them by the end of my project if not sooner. After this round, I think I’m going to take a break from purging until after Christmas, because having to make room for new things always motivates me to donate and I have a lot of other things to do. Even though this will be a scaled-back holiday, I know we’ll still have new things which will need homes.

Objective 2: To implement routines and habits to help us manage our time, our house and our health.

What I accomplished: I started spending a little time each Friday dusting and reorganizing my desk. And most mornings, other than when I was sick, I did my usual quick morning routine (empty the dishwasher, make the beds, quickly clean the bathrooms) minus the laundry. I’m slowly getting better at putting all junk mail immediately into the recycling box. Rearranging the refrigerator shelves, for some weird reason, has made me more inclined to go through it every week and toss any funky food. I’m trying very hard to hold onto the recollection of how unpleasant my last fridge clean-out was, though the way the shelves are now makes it less likely that things will shoved unseen to the back.

Grade: B

Next Steps: To keep doing the things I’ve been doing, and think about what other routines I can add.

Objective 3: To improve the quality of family mealtimes through better planning and organization.

What I accomplished: I made a menu plan for the third month in a row! It was good to have for obvious reasons. But I also found myself deviating a little because I had lots of frozen leftovers from October I didn’t want to throw out. I also had pantry items which I wanted to eat before too much time passed, so as the month went along I made some modifications. Ideally I would have inventoried stuff first, but menu planning is still a little overwhelming and sitting in front of the computer and just knocking it out is the best way to approach it for now. When I cook now, I try to be more mindful about leftovers, so we eat them the next night.

Grade: B+

Next Steps: I made a menu for the month, which so far I’ve stuck to. December will pose similar challenges to October, which was tough because we were away and out for a couple celebrations, and I didn’t really get into a good cooking groove. I’ve learned it gets way easier to plan and execute meals the more often I do it. Because of the holidays we’ll be away a couple times visiting family and I learned the best thing is to plan something simple for the days we return. The holiday craziness has a good grip on me but I am hoping it eases up soon because when I’m stressed I’m way more likely to suggest we go out or get takeout.

Objective 4: To utilize free time more mindfully, individually and as a family.

What I accomplished: We enjoyed a really nice, quiet Thanksgiving weekend. And we spent a slightly chilly but excellent day taking advantage of our Bronx Zoo membership. Emma and I also had a fun night out at the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, which ended with a visit to Friendly’s.

I love the things the three of us do as a family, but I really treasure our “girl time” especially since she’s getting to the age where she’ll choose her friends over me as she did on Black Friday. (One of the rare occasions when I was ok with being thrown over!)

Grade: A

Next Steps: Adequate family time is tough to quantify. And December has already been a really crazy month. We had a nice morning Sunday- we went out for breakfast and then got our tree from the same nursery we’ve gone to for a few years, and later in the evening we had cookies and decorated the tree. I’m off the week after Christmas, which I’m thrilled about since Emma and Bob are off too.