January Goals

I don't plan to have any New Year Resolutions in the traditional sense as, knowing myself so well, they will be doomed to failure as soon as I type the words out! So I'm going for the approach that's been working well for the last few years, which is to set myself short and medium term goals of things I want to achieve and activities I'd like to do.

So far I've only really thought of my goals for January, some of which have already been organised and will be completed on time, assuming that the workmen turn up on the agreed dates.

The first is to have the decking removed.  After a disappointing year trying to get the entire garden landscaped as one big job, I've decided to break it down into smaller tasks and arrange for each task to be completed before I move on to the next one. I'm also hoping that this will work out cheaper for me as I plan to buy all the materials myself to avoid the huge mark-ups I've seen on some of the quotes.  Anyway, the decking is scheduled to be removed on Jan 12th and then I plan to live with it for a month or so to see if, when I move onto stage 2, I want the new stone patio to be raised to the current level of the decking or to have a step down onto a lower level patio.

The second job is to have the integrated fridge replaced. N, who did the refurbishment of the kitchen, is coming to sort it for me (and also to quote for my bedroom and en-suite revamp); it will hopefully be completed by Jan 14th but may be delayed if his wife goes into labour - a pretty good excuse! Whatever happens, I think it will be completed by the end of the month. I debated on changing the fridge when I had the kitchen done but decided against it, which now turns out to have been to wrong decision but not the end of the world in the big scheme of things.

The final goal is to sort the smallest bedroom, currently looking like this ...

All of the boxes are already sorted so I know what has to be kept and what has to be sold or disposed of. My aim is, that by the end of January, the room will be arranged as a spare bedroom and all of the boxes will either have been emptied and put away, or moved to the end of the living room ready to be sold on. At the moment it is 'out of sight, out of mind' so I'm moving it downstairs to be visible and make me get on with it!  

That's the plan anyway ... watch this space for the progress!