My 14 Goals For 2024 – Week 30 of 52

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

It was another great week in the fruits and vegetable department and hey, guess what!? 

We had our first harvest of the season – Sun Gold tomatoes. Hooray! Since we moved into our new place mid summer, we weren’t really able to get a {vegetable} garden in. But I’ll take what I can get. 😉

Visit 24 {new} Bakeries / Coffee Shops

We didn’t visit any new bakeries this past week but we were in Portland so we stopped by Standard Baking and loaded up on morning pastries. 

Standard Baking is  by far the best pastry shop we have tried here in Maine. If we lived closer I’d probably try and get a part time job there so I could learn to bake all the delicious treats they offer.

New Bakeries / Coffee Shops I’ve Been To This Year {That I liked}

• The Cookie Jar Pastry Shop
• Ritual Bakehouse and Patisserie
• Caramel Patisserie
• Standard Baking Co. 
• Saltwater Farm Cafe
• Coffee Roasters of the Kennebunks
• Farine Bakery and Cafe
• Night Moves Bread
• Cape Porpoise Kitchen

Go On An Adventure

I didn’t get a chance to do any more planning for our upcoming trip to the UK, but hopefully I will this week. I LOVE having plans and a solid schedule in place when I travel. 

If something better comes up it’s easy to pivot, but at least we have a good idea what we’ll be doing on any specific day so we’re not wasting time wondering what to see or do.

Contribute to 12 Free Little Libraries. {6 town down, 6 to go}

While I haven’t contributed to any new Free Little Libraries lately, the library was having a book sale {with free donuts!} so I picked up a few cookbooks. 

Dorie Greenspan’s Baking book has been on my “buy” list for some time now so I was thrilled to be able to pick it up for only $2.

Towns I’ve donated books to:

• Gardiner, Maine
• Nobleboro, Maine
• Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine
• Cape Elizabeth, Maine
• Raymond, Maine
• Bellevue, Washington

Spend More Time At The Beach

It was a great week for walking at the beach. The puggle princess and I found some treasures too!

My favorite find of the week was this striped beach towel. Someone had set it next to the dumpster and I scooped it up, took it home, washed it and added it to my collection of found beach towels.

Read or Listen to 24 Books {7 down, 17 to go}

I didn’t read or listen to any new audiobooks this past week but I thumbed through the book; Hydrangeas, beautiful varieties for home and garden at a local shop. 

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE hydrangeas!

Books I’ve Read or Listened To This Year: 

• Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service by Gary Sinise. 10/10
• Elizabeth The Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith 9/10
• Wait Till Next Year by Dorris Kearns Goodwin 8/10
• George VI and Elizabet:by Sally Bedell Smith 9/10
• Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson 9/10
• These Precious Days by Ann Pachett 9.5/10
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Paint 

The painting has begun! I kept telling myself I was going to wait until winter to start painting, but our new bedroom furniture arrived and I couldn’t resist. 

Plus, because I am planning to hang all the peel and stick wallpaper that I ordered on our back wall, I need to have the walls “cured” for 30 days before I can put it up. Chop chop. I want this room finished as soon as possible.

So far I’ve finished:

• Portrait of Joseph Roulin 
• Red Boats at Argenteuil
• Regattas at Argenteuil
• Vase with Cornflowers and Poppies 
• Sunflowers
• Garden Path with Chickens
• Goldfish

Hook 6 “Big” Rugs.

No hooking this past week. But I did box up some hooks.

Large Rugs I’ve Hooked This Year

• Three Roosters
• Hidden In The Garden 
• Yankee Doodle
• Double Nantucket Whale Runner with the American flag

Visit 6 Greenhouses {1 down 5 to go}

There was no time to visit any greenhouses this past week… I kept my driver busy replacing outlets, doing yard work and helping me go through {and organize} the contents of our moving boxes. 

I’d say we’ve down to the last 15% of boxes. Yee-Haw! Hopefully by mid-August we’ll be all moved in.

Grow Baby Grow

I planted pansies and white coneflowers in flats yesterday. The white coneflowers won’t be ready to plant in the garden until next spring but the purple pansies might be ready to set out this fall.

Then again, I might be too late on the pansies, we’ll see.

Donate to 12 Different Organizations in Maine

So Far This Year I’ve Donated To:

• Cleaning Up My Local Beach
• New Hope MidCoast {50 pairs of new socks}
• Humane Society {180 trays of cat food}
• Travis Mills Foundation
• Camp Sunshine
• Honor Flight Maine

So how are YOUR goals for 2024 coming along? I’d love to hear about them. 

~Mavis

Goals I’ve Already Completed This Year

In Stock and Ready to Ship by March 15th/ March 30th Now April 15th DONE!

I finally finished up all the major wool dyeing and pattern/kit making I had hoped too. All the “extra” wool is tucked away in bins so if I run out of wool in my Etsy shop I can whip up some more bundles in a jiffy. A summer off from dyeing wool… It’s going to be pretty rad.

Tidy Up / Clean Out / Purge DONE

We cleaned the whole house, inside and out. And then we sold it. Yee-Haw!

• Barn
• Garage
• Closets 
• Dresser drawers
• Kitchen 
• Sideboard
• DVD collection