How can 2019 already be half over? The year is passing quickly, but I’m pleased with the progress I’m making on several of my goals. First, we recently completed our goal of decluttering 1,000 things from our home. It was a family effort and it feels so good to have sold, donated, and trashed things that were no longer needed in our home to make space and reduce visual clutter. The children are also pleased that it makes cleaning up so much easier when there is less stuff. We had promised them the chance to go out to eat at a restaurant of their choice when we finished our goal. They debated on several fancier restaurants in town but ended up deciding on sushi and pizza. We even decided to give it a go again and work towards another 1,000 things but this time including items from our storage room.
I have been keeping up with my reading goals this summer and I am looking forward to reading even more as we have a little vacation coming up later this month. Since my last goals update, I have finished five more books and I am currently reading three others. I have shared a list of those books below but want to take a minute to highly encourage you to check out A Homeschool Experiment if you are looking for a fun but encouraging summer read. This is a novel about a mom’s experiment in homeschooling that will have you laughing, crying, and nodding your head and she goes through the process of figuring out what works best for her kids while showing the real-life side of things.
Books Read
- Caught Up in A Story by Sarah Clarkson
- Journey That Saved Curious George
- Introverted Mom
- The Heart Changer
- A Homeschool Experiment
Currently Reading:
Upcoming:
We have not done as much hiking in other places as I would have liked but I have been enjoying walking and biking with my youngest two children several times a week right in our own neighborhood. This has been a great way to get some miles in towards my 100-mile goal and we have plans for more hikes when the weather cools off a bit in the fall.
I have been a little slack over the summer at getting our foot print art posted so I wanted to take a minute and catch that up as well. In June we did a family hand print art project for my husband for Father’s Day. I convinced him to let me get his hand print four times on the canvas and then I put the hand print of each child into one of his hand prints. I thought it turned out well and he has it hanging up in his home office. I even managed to get the baby’s hand print.
For July we wanted to celebrate summer a bit and so we have feet in the sand foot print art! I first brushed the baby’s foot with paint and then placed it into the sand before making the prints on the paper. We used sand from our sand box because I forgot to do it when we were at the beach a couple weeks ago. You could use any kind of sand that was available. I do recommend dry sand so it doesn’t clump as badly.
We are making progress on our goals, enjoying a little down time this month as our summer winds down, and getting ready to jump back into our ‘school’ schedule in September. I would love to hear more from you about your goals and the progress you are making. Also, don’t forget to check back every day this week for our blog hop!
Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure
When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.
This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.
Deals and Freebies
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.
Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.
Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)
Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)
Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!
Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!
The Schoolin' Swag Blog 
Congratulations on achieving the decluttering goal! We have been working on that too, although not keeping count. Maybe we should! Thanks for sharing your handprint and footprint art – those projects are great keepsakes!
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Thank you, we found that keeping count was very motivational!
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