3 in 30 - February Check-in - Week 4

This year, I'm participating in the 3 in 30 Challenge. During January I had three goals and worked towards them each week. During February, I'm continuing to work on my January goals:

- Finish taking photos out of the scrapbooks that aren't photo-safe, and put them in boxes that are archival-safe.

I took photographs out of five more photo albums - only five left to go. This will be a huge sense of accomplishment (and relief) to have this done by the end of February.

- Finish the master bedroom by washing all the walls and windows; and then painting the accent areas dark green (behind the bed and over the window on the west side of the room) and the walls white.  I also want to go through the books on each side of the bed, and determine if they can be donated or I want to keep them.

I did not do anything on this goal this week. It looks like washing the walls and windows; and painting will have to wait until next month. At least I got the sides of the bed cleaned and items donated last week...so there was some progress in February.

- Continue going outside each day for 15 minutes.

Some days I did go outside for 15 minutes...others I didn't. The cold weather makes it less appealing to spend extended periods of time outside. Every day I'm outside, though, because of the horses and/or taking the girls to activities.

In addition, my three goals for February are:

1. Do a one-week fiscal fast.

For some reason, the February fiscal fast was more challenging than the January one. It seemed like there was some problem almost every day that needed a financial solution - running out of cat food; drains backed up in the bathroom and needing Drano; needing a new prescription after an appointment with a specialist; and getting gasoline so that we could visit grandparents (100 mile round trip) and make donations to a variety of organizations. (The last item relates to the 12 in 12 challenge that Sophia, Olivia, and I are doing during 2012. The link is to what we did during February.)

Hopefully the fiscal fast during March will be like January where I could refrain from spending. The good thing about this round - despite the spending during the fiscal fast - is that I am much more conscious and careful with spending, and only am getting what is absolutely necessary.

2. Reduce diet-pop consumption and increase water consumption. I'm doing fine with this goal. There was only one day that I drank three cans of diet coke instead of two cans. Every day I'm able to drink 2-3 large glasses of water.

3. File everything so I can begin working on taxes. Last week I got everything in file folders and put in alphabetical order. I did not begin working on taxes this week. However, this weekend I want to get everything done so it is ready for my accountant early next week.

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Seems like there was one discouraging thing happening after another (and that definitely affected how motivated I was to really push myself to do more than what I normally do).

All in all...it was not a terribly productive week in terms of these goals.  It was kind of a "down" week...not feeling particularly happy with the lack of progress during the past seven days. But, it is what it is.