Career Development #10 Monthly Menu

For the past week I have been working on this goal.  I have tried to make a menu that I will be able to use much of the food that we already have, which will also save us money.  It's good for me to have a menu to follow so I'm not sitting around at 4 in the afternoon thinking of what I can throw in the oven.  If I follow this menu for the month, then I will also be able to cross off my goal for College of Culinary Arts #13.  This will help me be more organized and effective.

Here is the spreadsheet that I put together to track my menu.  As you can see I also added an additional column to keep track of the items from my menu that I need to buy at the store.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Grocery List
	Take out		work	Beef, green bean, tomato casserole.    Cheese quellsidias	Artichoke Chicken, Suddenly Salad pasta, broccoli      recipe on Tastebuds	WORK                        Chicken Nuggets, mashed potatoes, canned corn
Golden Mushroom Pork Chops, Potatoes, carrots                  all in a crockpot	Easy for girls.  Take out for Shane and me.	Ham potato soup, cheesy biscuits (bisquick website)	Baked Salmon (healthy recipes folder),                rice pilaf, fresh veggies	Cucumber Tomato Salad, deli sandwiches, chips	Sloppy Joes, Coleslaw, chips	White Chicken Chili (Tastebuds), cornbread	great northern beans, grands biscuits, hamburger buns, cole slaw mix & dressing, chips, ground turkey
Fish sticks, sweet potato fries, green beans	Shepherd's Pie, green beans	Baked Chicken Parmesean (Simply Recipes), Herb Cheese Biscuits (bisquick), steamed carrots	Actually delicious turkey burger, regular burger for Shane.  Veggie chips.	Boboli homemade pizza, sauce (allrecipes), salad	Breaded pork chops (Tastebuds),  frozen green beans, rice,	Baked Spaghetti, green salad,	Boboli crust, pepperoni, olives, pineapple, mushrooms, green onions, salad, tomato, cucumber, chickpeas
Hawiian Haystacks	lemon pepper salmon, broccoli and cauliflower, yummy bread	Beef Stew and dumplings	Sweet and Sour pork chops, rice	chicken rice casserole, salad	Beef stroganoff, egg noodles, green beans	creamy chicken  soup, crescent rolls	Stew meat, potatoes, carrots, sour cream, green pepper, red pepper, fresh broccoli, onion, crescent rolls (3)
Meatloaf, potatoes, peas	Chicken broccoli braid, fresh veggies	Beans with Keilbasa (crockpot recipes)	salmon, rice, carrots, corn	Deli sandwiches, fresh veggies	Lentil Tacos (crockpot recipes), spanish rice	Crunchy chicken tenders (sneaky chef recipes), peas, carrots, penne	Keilbasa, great northern beans, lentils, tortillas, deli meat,

Spreadsheet Arts & Technology #22

While setting up the Celestial University program, I organized college sheets, goal sheets, and a spreadsheet to keep track of the goals that the participants have accomplished.  I hadn't used Microsoft Excell for almost 5 years, so it was a good refresher.  As I was making it, I would ask my husband different questions about the set-up and short cuts I could use.  This has proven useful already at my new job as I set up three different spreadsheets there today.

New Goal Submission - College of Arts & Technology

Thanks for letting me join your ranks! I have a goal to submit for approval under the College of Arts and Technology:

Learn how to effectively use a camera. Read the manual. Use a new/unfamiliar setting.

Theology #20

Dear Advisor,

Will you please accept this as a Theology goal:

Thanks,
Jen

SCRIPTURE POWER!
Last year, my kids and I read through the entire Book of Mormon under the direction of our Br. Pres. We were excited to accomplish our goal. This year, the Primary is focusing on the truth of the scriptures, so the Primary Presidency has renewed that goal.  I am encouraging my daughter who can read, to do it on her own, but I wanted a different focus for our Family Scripture Study.  I thought that it would be beneficial to study the scriptures by topic. I've never spent a year doing this, so I am excited. I used the Topical Guide & Bible Dictionary to find scriptures about certain topics--Baptism, Faith & Hope, Love & Charity, etc.  I copied, pasted & printed out our first month (baptism as my daughter is preparing to be baptized soon) and I'll see how it goes. I plan to study each topic for 3-4 weeks. I haven't printed out the entire year in case I want to make adjustments after we start reading.  (ie, focusing on the messages given in the Bible Dictionary rather than just looking up scriptures with particular words in them or adding Conference references in as well)  I put two or three scriptures on each slip of paper in the jar. Each night we'll pull a slip and read the scriptures, discuss, and do any cross referencing that is needed.  Although I love to read the Book of Mormon chronologically, I do believe that reading it by topic will give us deeper roots and a stronger testimony of these principles of the gospel.

Resume

College of Career Development goal #1

When my husband and I were deciding to move back here to the western United States, we realized that I would have to work part time for a while.  It's been 6 years since I have had a job, so that was a bit daunting to think about.  My first choice would be a part time receptionist position.  I've spent the past few weeks working on my resume.  I find that each time I send my resume to another company, I tweak it a bit in favor of what the job position requires.  Thankfully my husband has been helping me describe things a bit better than I would. 

Introductions

College of Psychology #12

Most people would list this goal as an easy one to mark off.  As for me, I'm a shy person and tend to wait for other people to reach out to me first.  I've realized lately that being that way tends to make life a little more lonely.  We have recently moved all the way across the country so this provided me a perfect setting to introduce myself to a new person.  So last week at church I moved out of my comfort zone and introduced myself to two different people.  One was a visitor to the ward and another was a sister that had moved in the week after we did.  Both of them were very nice to me and we chatted for a few moments.  It isn't a goal listed in any of the colleges, but I'm going to strive to be a bit more confident in social situations.  I suppose that could be an "additional" goal in the psychology college.

Funny...

My husband just walked in the room, peered over my shoulder and with a questioning look asked, "Celestial University?"

Me; Yeah, do you want to join a goal tracking group?
M: Nah, I'm doing good.
Me: Oh, what goals are you working on?
M: None.

We then laughed about how you can't break a goal, if you never set one!! Too funny!

Financial Organization (CoAT 24)

Three motivating factors.

My first motivation came last week when I spent about 8 hours downloading transactions from my credit cards, reconciling bank statements into my Money program, and sorting my filing cabinet. Why so long?  Well, this is embarrassing, but I hadn't reconciled my bank statements or credit cards since September (2009--can you believe that this is the smallest font they offer? not cool.), so I had a million transactions to post.  After that trauma, I've decided that I need to be a bit more regular about downloading and reconciling. 

The second motivation came from my husband.  We've been all across the board on trying to curb spending and save for a house.  Well, we started a budget (way back in 9/09.. which was why I was reconciling then) and we never once looked at it. So, we've decided we'll try again...

And... I realized that I put off large tasks. I generally pay bills all at the end of the month because all the credit card statements, mortgage, and bills are due then.  Well, I don't have trouble paying the bills, but I don't have the energy (or is it will power) to download all the transactions, reconcile the statement and then schedule the payment, so I don't. I just make the payment and put the rest off (obviously.) Well, my third motivation was the realization that I can do it!  I am a bookkeeper for a mechanic and I convinced him to pay his bills online about a year ago.  In order to be able to remember which bills needed be paid, I made a simple little spreadsheet where I could check off which credit cards had been paid. Simple. It's worked great for work, so I just made one for myself. I always worried that I'd forget to pay one card if I paid them throughout the month, so I wouldn't pay anything until I did them all because I was sure I'd be spending more time checking and rechecking to see if they'd been paid.  Which leads me to my goal/plan:

This is similar to my spreadsheet:
 (mine shows the grid)

Payee

2011

Jan

Feb

March

April

May

June

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Amex

Citibank

Chase

Capitol One

Sprint

Mortgage

PUD

And, I've printed a copy. Now, when my bills start arriving, I can get to work immediately. I'm excited to do a bit at a time and not feel overloaded when the end of the month (or the end of the 15 months come...). I'll just download the transactions, reconcile and schedule the payment.... and check it off. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

Backup:  I use Outlook at my reminder calendar.  I've scheduled a "Are your bills all paid" recurring appt for the 28th of every month. When that pops up, I'll pull out my handy-dandy spreadsheet and make sure that they are all checked off!!

First Thoughts

Okay,I have to admit the first thought that went through my head when I  thought about starting Celestial University was, "what have I done lately that could count???"  Horrified? Of course you aren't!  But.. I've had a bit of a change of heart. Lately, I have felt so overwhelmed with all the piddly-little things that I have to do that I realized that I NEED Celestial University to keep me grounded and on track.  I am the Activity Day leader in my Branch and I spent last week preparing for our lesson about making goals. It reminded how important goals can be--for those time when I feel like I'm in a rut and need a push... and for the times when I feel so overloaded and am lost because I can't remember where I put my to do list!