Getting things done around our place {Our two week challange}

  We have two weeks (this and next) left before we officially start school for the year and we also have quite a few various home/homestead improvement projects that we would like to get done. An extra good house cleaning would be rather nice too. So since we have two weeks before we buckle down to getting schoolwork done, and since our garden isn't really overflowing with produce right now (we are getting stuff but not enough to do a lot of canning), and since we don't have to much extra scheduled we decided to see just how much we could get done around the place in these two weeks.

   I thought it might be fun to blog about my goals and what we get done on here to help me be a little more motivated and to possibly encourage some of you to do some fixing up around your place as well. If you do join us in using this next couple of weeks to concentrate on fixing things up around your place I love if you would tell about it or leave a link to a blog post about it - in the comment section.

 Yesterday was our first day of working on this. Monday is always a busy cleaning and laundry day for us but we also found time to paint some doors - two of them needed touching up and one we had never done before at all- and sand down and varnish an outside bench.

In the picture above Jonathan is sanding down the bench and Aaron is washing off the front door and frame to be ready for painting. Jonathan did the bench project all by himself other than me finding him things and giving some instructions.

 Aaron and I did the door painting while the girls worked on cleaning inside. It was pretty fun finally getting those projects crossed off of my to-do list. They really didn't take that long.

 I did also spend some time in the garden picking produce and weeding. At our homemakers group this morning we were doing some canning so I had hoped to have enough stuff to pressure can beans and also to make salsa. Because of gophers we aren't having as good of bean crop as I hoped but we do still have quite a few and I was able to can but I didn't have a whole canner full of green beans so I didn't a couple of jars of cooked pinto beans instead. I think it worked well (I had never done that before). I also didn't have enough salsa stuff for a whole batch and so I ended up making fresh salsa instead. We might not have quite as much produce as I hoped but I am very thankful to God for what we do have!

  This afternoon we are hoping to get the deck and front porch stained as it isn't looking very good. We have some stuff leftover from last time we did it. We are trying to do all our projects using things that we already have on hand.

  Other projects that I am hoping we can possibly tackle in the next two weeks are:

• Replace some trim in our bathroom that was taken out when other things had to be fixed.
• Fix the light fixture in the laundry room.
• Insulate the chicken coop.
• Make nest boxes and better put up roosts in the chicken coop.
• Fix up the walls on our former tree fort.
• Put a door in our former tree fort.
• See if I can fix the seal on our oven door.
• Weed the flower beds.
• Get mulch (I am hoping to find a free source - I have heard of that) to put around trees and bushes.
• Clean and organize laundry room.
• Clean garage and move freezer.
• Do a pallet board project(s) that I think I will keep a secret until the grand finale - just for fun.
• Fix a loose tile in entryway.
• Fix a loose flooring piece in hallway.
• Scrub spots out of carpet in living room.
• Make a new wreath for our door.

I am sure I will come up with many more as well but I am guessing that might keep us busy! :-)

What have you been working on lately?