The Holiday Grand Plan – Week 1

I’m a little behind in posting my Week 1 accomplishments because of the weekend’s camping trip. Week 1 of the HGP is Lists and Front Porch. I’m making great progess on my Christmas lists. I set them up in a MS Excel spreadsheet on my laptop, so that I can add ideas as I think of them, along with links to tutorials, patterns or recipes when I find something that I’d like to make for a gift or a meal.

With our month-long trip in June followed by two months of morning sickness, my front porch had definitely seen some days of neglect.  Note the flag left over from the 4th of July.  It was nice to get out there and do a little work.

Before:

After:

The kids and I bought some nice fall plants and then repotted them so they’ll hopefully keep blooming for a few months. (We do live in Dallas, so it’ll be warm enough here for flowers for some time.) We also swept down the porch and the walls to clear off the dirt and cobwebs. Painting that bench red to match the front door is on my list–we just ran out of time to get it done last week.

This week is Questions and Livingroom. There’s not much to be done in my livingroom, so I may add another space . . . maybe my messy backporch.

I also got my IBOL packages shipped off yesterday right on the deadline.

That third box is for IBOL Guy’s Super Secret Project 3: Operation Old Mother Hubbard. I can’t tell you what’s in it yet . . . it’s super secret!