Monthly Review July

Planning With Kids Monthly Review

Do you know what I like about the end of July? It means that there is only one more month of winter left! By mid August I start to go a little stir crazy, craving warm weather and more sunshine. Well at least with a busy month for August planned, I should see the end of winter in no time. 🙂

Review of Key Tasks For July

  1. School Craft Group
  2. This has been a bit of work, but a lot of fun. Our first meeting had 12 lovely and creative women attend. We shared ideas and came up with a list of 25 craft projects that collectively we will complete for the Christmas stall at the end of November.

    Many people have already made gorgeous items like table runners, cushions, knights costumes, tutus, tiaras, girl’s bags and of course the Christmas Cards and Christmas Tags. The group now will roll on with regular meetings and we are even having some workshops, so people like me can learn to make some new things, which I am really looking forward to.

  3. Use the massage voucher that I have.
  4. When I came to this write about this item, I had to go and get the phone and make an appointment to have the massage. The great thing about blogging my key tasks is the greater level of accountability it gives me. I have now booked the massage for the end of August. 🙂

  5. Begin my Christmas in July preparations.
  6. I have made the first of the handmade Christmas Gifts – fancy dress tiaras. My partner in craft and I are meeting again next week to start our second project. This lovely lady is due to have her third child in December, so we want to do as much as we can before the busy and baby end of the year.

  7. Rest and have fun in the school holidays.
  8. We had a great time over the school holidays. It had a big family flavour to it, with my brother in laws wedding on the middle weekend and then my sister and her family coming stay for a few days in the last week of the school holidays.

    We did a number of the at home activities that I posted, but the highlight for the two older boys was taking them to see Collingwood train and obtaining the signatures of some of their favourite players.

Key Tasks For August

  1. Blog Post Plan
  2. I have three blogs that I write on now and I find the most efficient way to manage them it to create a post plan for each. Two don’t have any posts left on the plan and the plan for this blog will run out in about two weeks, so I need to spend time planning.

  3. 10.30pm Bedtime.
  4. If you follow my friendfeed stream at all, you will see that I have crept back to regularly being on the computer after 10.30pm. Given that I have a baby that wakes for a feed from 5am onwards, this is really not a great idea. I have to assert some will power and just shut down at 10pm so that I can prepare for bed.

  5. Early Christmas Preparations.
  6. Need to continue on with these, so at the end of the year it is not too frantic.

  7. Photos In Albums.
  8. We have over 12 months worth of photos printed and waiting to find their way into albums. I want to make this a family tasks over this month, where we spend time doing this together.

  9. Key Dates Timeline.
  10. We have a number of things happening from now until the end of the year (new babies in the family, sister moving to Sydney, school commitments etc). I like visuals to be able to quickly scan ahead and see what is happening. If I don’t have this, I find it very easy to overload myself. I need to make sure that we have quiet times, in between the hectic bursts that occur. I think it will help if I create a one page time line with all the key dates for the family until the end of the year.

What sort of month was July for you?