But Craig and I have been having a pretty productive summer thus far. We've made a concerted effort to get up and do something either around the house or out in the community every single day. Craig has been focused on getting the yard taken care of - we recently had St. Augustine sod put in our front yard and he is concentrating on watering, edging and mowing to make sure that our grass firmly takes hold in our yard and doesn't die under the sweltering sun and heat.
My main goal for this summer vacation is to get our house organized and with a few visits to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target, it's amazing what a difference I've been able to make already. We have GREAT built in shelving in our laundry room above our washer and dryer but over the course of the year and a half that we have lived in this house, they've gotten increasingly messier and more cluttered. I bought six cream fabric covered baskets and with my label maker in hand, I was able to sort everything out according to category (laundry materials, lightbulbs, cleaning rags etc.) and now there is a place for everything...and everything is in it's place which is a neatly labeled basket. Sigh. And now that I've seen the video evidence of Craig graduating high school, I know that he can read and therefore return all above mentioned objects to their proper organized spot. I did the same thing in our pantry by filling up all my wonderful storage jars with different items such as pasta, rice and pistachios thus opening up so much more room to see everything that I have in the pantry. I'm the type of person that if I can't see it, I forget about and therefore when things are cluttered in the pantry, there is a very good chance that there is a loaf of bread that is molding way in the back. My next goal is to devise a system of organizing the sheets in our linen closet upstairs in the hallway. Two out of three beds in our house use plain white sheets but one bed is a King and the other is a Queen which, I assume, leads to confusion for our wonderful twice a month housekeeper Martha when she is trying to change the sheets on our beds. I'm also going to tackle our trophy room where we have a big hutch full of our table linens and such but also has accumulated lots of crap that we had no other place to store. Don't even get me started on the wedding presents that are still congregating on the table in there.
Something VERY exciting is happening tomorrow! Our bathrooms are getting painted!!! Hurray! We had a company come last week and make a quote for all those rooms that mentioned in a previous post (House Tour I and II) and after some discussion, Craig and I decided that we're going to do the painting in two parts: the bathrooms first and the foyer second. So tomorrow our house will be invaded by the Carnival painting company who will be stripping the downstairs half bath of the terrible brick red wallpaper which will be replaced with a coat of "Serene Sky" by Behr paints. Or a light icy blue in lamens terms. Upstairs our maroon bathroom will be coated in "Marina Isle" also from Behr paints, but if you wanted to picture it...think of the sagey, calm and light aqua that you might find in the lobby of an upscale spa. Yesterday for Father's Day, our present for my dad was to have him help take down our movie star light fixtures in the bathroom and replace them with something softer and more modern.
Don't worry, he also was fed a delicious lunch of hamburgers, beans and mango salsa as well as gifted with an organizational system for his art supplies.
I can't wait to have it all done...I'm excited but also a little nervous because I am hoping that the picture that I have in my head as to how things will turn out...will actually be how they turn out!
But summer vacation hasn't been all work and no play of course. We have also been filling up the long summer days with...
...lots and lots of sunshine lying in and and around the pool. So far, I've finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett, gotten a few chapters into Wicked by Gregory Maguire and I'm halfway through My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster. Quite an eclectic group of summer reading thus far. Having a pool on a 100+ degree weather day is a hot commodity (pun intended) here in Texas so each day I've been having different people come over and either swim or lay out with me. Buying a house with a pool was probably one of Craig's better ideas.
But as I mentioned, we have been having excruciatingly hot days lately and therefore I can't possibly spend the ENTIRE day outside so I try to come in around 1:30 so that I can catch the latest games of the...
I hate soccer (too much running) but I LOVE the World Cup. I think it's kind of in line with why I love the Olympics - people competing for their country. Emotions tend to run a bit higher when your national pride is on the line and plus...the guys take their jerseys off after the game. Can't get much better than that. Although I've enjoyed watching the matches and seeing all the upsets that have occurred (Switzerland...I'm looking at you) but unfortunately my teams (Italy and the US) are not faring as well as I would prefer. As a general belief...I don't like to be even or "draw" as the soccer world might say. I like to win. Period. There are always losers and winner and although people keep telling me that all the draws that are occurring during Group Play are just adding to the drama of the event, I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that not having a loser or winner is acceptable.
We tried that with the Koreas and look how well THAT turned out.
