Bucket List Update #1 |Mid-July
My annual summer bucket list isn't a list of things I want to do before I die; rather, it's a list of things I want to do before summer kicks the bucket.
It's only been about two weeks since I made my list, so I haven't made super great progress yet.
Plan/Sign Up for 2016-2017 school.
Current status: Joshua and I met with an advisor, we got him signed up for classes, and they're paid for. We just need to wait for the bookstore sale to start so we can buy him his books, and then he'll be good to go. And I think I'm good to go for his home curriculum in the fall too.
My next big step is to figure out tutorial options for Lisey, as that's uncharted territory for me.
Joshua: I've got to sign him up for college classes and also get curriculum for some subjects he'll still be doing at home.
Lisey: I think I'm going to have her take a few classes at a tutorial, so I need to figure all of that out. And then I'll need to sort out what books/resources she needs for her at-home classes.
Sonia and Zoe: They're easy! Nothing much is going to change for them this year, so I mainly need to buy some consumables and then we'll be good to go.
Declutter my house.
I did my linen closet and coat closet already, plus the kids' bathroom, so here's what's left:
- my room
the living room(was very easy because I don't have a lot of storage in the living room)- the kitchen
- Sonia and Zoe's room
- the office
- the laundry room
- my bathroom (should be quick and easy because it's tiny. Not much stuff can go in there!)
- the under-stairs closet
Make photo books.
Nothing done here.
Make new chore lists.
Not yet.
Teach my kids to do their own laundry.
Done! They're still learning the ins and outs of this, and we haven't quite got things down to a pat routine, but we are well on our way.
Power-wash and restain the deck.
Nope.
Paint my front door. And the trim above it.
Nope.
Paint my mailbox and post, and buy new numbers for it.
Nope.
Paint my laundry room.
Nope.
Do you see the tan paint there on the back wall? I'm going to cover it all!
Get my kids to the pool at least once a week.
We're averaging more like twice a week, so, I am doing awesome at this thus far.
Keep my kids supplied with books.
I have a full library basket for Sonia and Zoe. I'm needing to come up with some more good books for Lisey and Joshua, though.
Go see three movies.
We've been to two so far, which means I'm quite on track for the summer: We saw the BFG at a matinee, and Alice Through The Looking Glass at the cheap theater.
I am kind of dying to see The Secret Life of Pets, but I might be able to be patient enough to wait for it to hit the cheap theater. 😉
Write to my grandpa three times.
My dad told me that my grandpa is really having trouble reading these days, so I think instead of writing three times, I'm going to send a letter and some photos with my dad when he visits my grandpa.
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If you have a summer bucket list, feel free to share your progress here each month too (and link us up to your bucket list if you blog!)
My book purchases at the college bookstore were outrageous. I would buy them online or rent them, There are many sites available . I am sorry I don't remember the site I used, but I do remember all I Googled was text book comparison sites. My one 300.00 nursing book was purchased at Amazon for 22.00 . I saved 500.00 my second semester . Sadly it appeared these books are created solely for each school. They had little value any where else. My school changes editions every other semester so the students cant resell them. My best guess is this is a cruel money making scheme. Luckily I could afford to pay out of pocket beforehand and save my financial aid for classes.
Yes, that's a problem here too...a lot of the books are ending up to be college-specific, which really limits the places you can find them used!
Chegg is the way to go for renting college textbooks. My 21 year old is starting her junior year at NIU and is paying for her own education. She found them her freshman year. If she wants to keep the book she can just buy it outright from them too. She says she saves so much by doing this.
I agree with Brook. When I was in college, I was able to get books on the cheap from half.com. Sometimes the difference between editions of textbooks is very minimal; you might email the professor and ask about the differences. My profs were pretty frank about it, and I was happy!
Some of the tips related to college textbooks:
1) Agree with above about half.com, and about asking the professor about older editions.
2) Some institutions have rules that require course textbooks to be permanently reserved at the campus library, available for 1 or 2-hour checkouts at a time. YMMV on that!
3) If you are familiar with any classmates, you can ask to share.
The hot books at our library for young adults are Monument 14 (this is a series), and The Screaming Staircase (also a series). They're both continually checked out, and Stroud's is even a summer reading book prize! I checked them both out, so they're next on my list to read! (With Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See).
I haven't made as much progress as I'd like on my list, but I've made some. I finally finished that embarrassingly tall stack of clothes to go through and have my "keep, donate, toss" figured out. Since Goodwill and the Catholic church's clothes closet both have drop boxes now, the donate part got easier to do, too.
I sewed a project for a grandchild's room, done.
The closet I want to clean out, not done, but I did clean out another closet that wasn't on my list.
I finally read a book and am finishing a second one, this one a short one.
About teaching the kids to do laundry and cook-- I taught my kids to do their own laundry, help me with housecleaning, handle some cooking, etc. When they became drivers, they also picked up stuff for me from the store, dropped animals at the vet, drove each other places I used to take them, ran errands for me, all was good. Then they got old enough to leave home, they left, and suddenly -- it was back to ME to do all of it again! Boy, was that a shock! I suddenly realized how much help I'd had. That was quite an adjustment, let me tell you.
When our children were learning how to do laundry, I posted laminated cards in the laundry area with instructions on how to do what kind of laundry (towels, darks/jeans, etc.). Which wash setting/how long and which dryer setting. Worked beautifully and nobody ever had an excuse that they "didn't know how" to do laundry!
This is what I did for our cloth diapers because they are the most complicated thing we have to wash. The instructions hang on the cupboard door above the washer.
I too am dying to see the Secret Life of Pets! Since I don't have kids, I may offer to take a friend's son on a babysitting outing, or I may make a girls' night out of it 🙂
I have a question about decluttering. How do you encourage your spouse, who's practical with a side of "we might need this someday", to declutter? We're moving for the sixth time in as many years, and I'm weary of packing/unpacking stuff we have never used. But I also want to be respectful of my husband. How do you encourage someone to think about "does this item bring me joy?" Do I just buy him a copy of Marie Kondo's book? 😛
Hmmm...I think there's only so much you can do about that without doing damage to the relationship. You can try communicating how much how hate moving items that you've never used, you can try talking about how nice it would be to have more space, you can point out that you've never used item x, y, or z, but I think there's a limit to how far that will take you.
Personalities just differ, and if people are going to change, it usually works better if THEY decide something needs to be different.
Mr. FG isn't a big packrat, but he doesn't love decluttering either. So, I usually focus on the areas that are more my domain, where I can declutter without needing to talk to him about it (he doesn't have an opinion on the kids schoolbooks or clothes, or my clothes or my kitchen equipment, for example).
When it comes to something like his clothes, if his tshirt drawer is getting stuffed, I pull out 5-10 shirts I know I haven't seen him wear in the last year. Then I ask him if he loves any of them, or if he cares if I get rid of them to make more room for the ones he wears all the time. That usually works better for him, because then he just has to give a quick yes or no....the decluttering is less painful then.
Hey Frugal Girl and GirlFriday,
We were also dying to see "The Secret Life of Pets" - was on the summer bucket list for both my nieces (9 and 11) and my nephews (8 and 10). Sadly, we (the kids plus five adults who are all animal/pet lovers) were all very disappointed. We had expected it to be all about what pets do at home all day when you're out, but it was not. When we asked the kids if they'd buy it (with their own money) all but the 8 year old quickly said "NO!". Definitely wait for it to come to the cheap theatre...or Netflix.
Too bad, as we were all expecting it to be really good!
I agree about the movie. Definitely worth a watch but unfortunately the adorable clips of what pets do at home all day is only the first few minutes and the rest is the standard script of most animation movies. We enjoyed it but it just wasn't as completely awesome as we had hoped! 🙂
My 12- and 10-year old kids went with their grown-up cousins on Sunday to see The Secret Life of Pets. They enjoyed it, but from the description, I think it's worth waiting for the cheap tickets. Kristen, what are your thoughts on The BFG? I was told that Finding Dory wasn't worth the time or money.
My summer bucket list has included a family vacation to Gatlinburg (done!) and moving my mom close to us (done, but working out the details ...). I'm hoping for 2 camping experiences before the summer is over. Kudos to you for getting through so much!
We enjoyed The BFG, but we all agreed that the book was far better. For comparison, we thought Zootopia was a bit more enjoyable.
I am with you on the review of the movie. I and a friend went to a fundraiser for our Humane Society that was an early showing. I'm glad I got to help the Humane Society, because had I paid full price just to see it, I would have been even more disappointed.
I'd feel better about trying to get my husband to declutter the garage if nine times out of 10 when something breaks down he can't find a replacement or way to fix it from his boxes in the garage. He has saved us a lot of money over the years, with his pack-ratty ways. We finally made the agreement that I will learn to close my eyes and keep my mouth shut about the garage if he will be responsible for boxing it and moving it each time we move. We've moved six times since our marriage and he has kept his word (better than I have kept my mouth shut, truth be told). Sometimes you just have to let people be who they are if the issue is not that they are a danger or disrespectful but only that they have a different value about some things than you do.
Right, and this is the same story with Mr. FG's collection of random computer parts/cables/etc. A lot of times that stuff DOES come in handy, so it's not without its upsides.
It sounds like you're in charge of packing and unpacking. Have you considered not unpacking the things you consider to be "just in case"? It won't help with this move but it will help any future moves. And if they're not unpacked for several years, you can use that as support for your argument that you don't really need them.
You could also try to counter the "we might need this" argument. Start with how much work it is ~for you~ that he wants to keep these things. However you care to put it to him, what it comes down to is that it puts a burden on you and could be considered disrespectful of you.
Another argument is that, because of the costs of moving (your time and effort has value, plus moving costs (movers charge by weight, or gas and vehicle costs), packing materials), you're spending more money on keeping them than you would replacing them. For this one, be wary of the Sunk Costs Fallacy.
Another possible, a less gentle one, is to say that he must pack the things that haven't been used in several years, while you do the rest.
Good luck, with the persuasion and the move.
I like the idea of putting the responsibility for packing/moving the stuff he wants to keep on his shoulders. That might make him want to get rid of it, and at the very least, it'll be a load off of you.
Thanks, everyone, for the advice! I really appreciate all the good ideas and the positive tone to it 🙂 I'm going to try some of these strategies and let you know how it goes!
Sounds like you're doing great! Bravo for getting your son a head start on college. 🙂 It really makes a big difference! I took some college credit classes in high school and I went into college with 12 credits. Not too shabby!
Agh, I need to start decluttering my own home. We're hopefully getting a house this summer, and less stuff to move means more sanity!
I'm not sure how tech savvy your grandpa is but my favorite memory of my granddaddy is the recorded letters he used to send me! Of course back then he used a tape recorder and mailed them to me, and unless you both have that equipment you'd have to do something more electronic. But you could make some recordings on your phone, send them to your dad, and have your dad play them for him...Just a thought. It's nice to hear someone's voice and be able to replay it whenever you feel like it.
Could you somehow record your letters to your grandfather? Does he have an old tape player that you could record something on and let him listen to you letters? Maybe the kids could read something to him too.
We found Dory so/so. We loved Jungle Book. (kids 8, 14)
I agree-Dory was kind of disappointing. And Pets, although cute, was not at all what the advertisements portrayed.
What is a tutorial? Online learning? Just curious! I like hearing about homeschooling. Those of us in traditional schools also have decisions like college enrollment in HS, etc, so it is interesting!