July Summer Bucket List Update
Every summer I make a list of fun things and productive things I want to do before summer "kicks the bucket". I post updates every few weeks to let you guys know how I'm doing (and to hold me accountable!)
Ok, one month of summer is gone already.
I didn't make huge progress on my list, but in my defense, we were out of town at the beach for a week in June. So I didn't exactly have a whole month to work with.
I should have more things to cross off next report!
Productive Goals
1. Paint Sonia and Zoe's beds white.
Done! It was a big job, but it's finished and the beds are put back together in the girls' rooms.
2. Paint Zoe's room.
Not yet. But that bed is now white, so her room has improved a bit already.
We did get some paint chips, though, so we are on our way to picking a light gray wall color that she likes.
3. Paint Sonia's dresser and (maybe) the bookshelf.
I got this dresser all painted white, and I'll show you the before and afters tomorrow. 😉
And I think we are just going to leave the craigslist Pottery Barn bookshelf as-is. It's not EXACTLY the same color as the other furniture, but it's close enough.
4. Paint my bedroom.
Not yet! Might I be putting this off by picking easier painting projects first?
Possibly.
5. Paint the replaced board on the deck.
I got this one knocked out! Unfortunately, once I painted the new board, all the old ones looked terrible.
So I went ahead and did a clean coat on the whole deck floor.
Luckily, I had just enough left in the bucket to cover the whole floor, so this project cost exactly $0 in supplies.
6. Sand and paint under the bumpout in front of our house.
Not yet; hopefully I will get some good weather for this soon.
7. Do a top-to-bottom declutter of my house.
I've started on this.
8. Make three photo books.
Nothing done here yet.
Non-Productive (Fun!) Items
I did so much painting the last few weeks, the fun items have taken a bit of a back seat. I better get on it.
1. Make a random donut run.
2. Go see a movie in the theater.
We plan to do this today.
3. Go visit our friends in Ohio.
4. Swim at least once a week.
(this is ongoing, obviously!)
5. Eat a meal at a park.
6. Eat a meal at the pool.
This might happen today.
7. Go camping so Sonia can star-gaze.
8. Buy slushies.
9. Bike to the snow cone shop.
10. Roast marshmallows.
11. Go night swimming.
12. Go mini-golfing.
13. Host lots of sleepovers.
(this one is ongoing, but we are off to a good start!)
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How's your summer bucket list coming along?
Donut runs are the best! Good luck of finishing up the rest of your summer bucket list!
I think you're being a bit hard on yourself on the productivity front. Seems that you're thinking of it in terms of items completed. If you think about it in terms of time spent, you're roaring away. But since you picked time consuming items, there are only a few checked off.
I'm not surprised you ended up painting the whole deck (which I imagine may have included cleaning it as well?). One freshly cleaned/painted item makes everything else look lousy.
Yep, I washed the other boards, but even once they were washed, they still looked dingy next to the new board.
It's true that perhaps my other three painting projects (my room, Zoe's room, and the soffit outside) might be slightly less time consuming. At least with walls, you don't have to sand them down first!
I've been good on the productivity things but not so good on the "fun" things. I definitely need a reset.
I have done the opposite. Maybe we should switch lives! Lol. ♀️
Hey, I heard on the radio this morning that Saturn and its rings are supposed to be visible tonight in the southeast sky... with binoculars that magnify up to 20x... you might not be able to camp tonight but you could probably find a good dark place to see it??
I have a tiny list which I am diligently working on - keeping it on a large post it note near my computer helps remind me to get it done! I think mine is rather light on the spiff ups around the house, but once youngest goes off to college (6 weeks but who is counting) I will have to stay busy to keep the sads at bay.
I don't make lists for anything, really, but I did tell my older sons they could make a summer list of things they wanted to do. My middle son, true to form, told me he didn't like telling other people what he wants to do, but my older son made a long list in no time flat. We've actually done most of them--things like swimming and painting (pictures, not furniture :-)) and camping--but we still haven't had any friends over to play. Being gone for a month in the middle of the summer break makes it kind of tricky, but we will have about three weeks at home before school starts again, so maybe we'll get to everything.
He also had "get a new dog" on his summer list. That one might not happen this summer. I love dogs, but being here with my mother-in-law's puppy reminded me why I was not too anxious to jump right back into dog ownership after our old dog died last summer. Puppies+little kids is kind of crazy-making for me. Soon, though. We really do need a dog.
Kristin, does it have to be a puppy? You could get an adult dog, one that is house-trained and no longer crazy-active.
Yeah, pretty much a puppy. There are lots of older dogs that are great with kids, but we want a very protective breed, and those do best when they form bonds with a family early in life. Also, we need a young dog that is still energetic and will hunt and kill rabbits and gophers for us. 🙂 I was sort of hoping for a year-old dog maybe, but we'll have to see about that.
Free Slurpee day is soon. That can count for slushies, right? On Thursday, 7-11-19 from 11 AM -7 PM you can get a free slurpee.
It's Thursday (7/11)
We painted my 13-year-old daughter's room gray a year ago (and she also has white furniture). We ended up with Lowe's Valspar Pelican as the color. A year later, we both still LOVE it. It has that quality of kind of changing throughout the day in a lovely way. (As a side note, I've found Valspar Signature to be easy to go on and good coverage.) Good luck in your search!
Agreed on the Valspar Signature. Good coverage and washes well even when it gets a bit older. Also Lowes has a rebate going on. We got three rebates back in the form of three $45 dollar gift cards on the 5 gallon paint. Took 5 weeks to receive and it's easy to fill out the online form.
I don't really keep a formal list since I don't feel like I can ever plan anything. I haven't worked on any of my projects either. I guess I should get on that.
I did get to see Whisper of the Heart in the theater and that made me pretty darn happy.
Ooh, did you see it as part of Ghibli Fest? My kids love that!
Yup. It's my favorite Ghibli film.
Oh, I just reviewed my bucket list and I've done NONE of it. Summer is well under way, oh dear.
Okay, but I did do some things not on this list. I hung all my new spice racks on my pantry door and organized my spices in them, leaving me with more space in my cabinet drawers. I finally got two lovely signed prints framed and then I hung them up. The potted flowers and herbs on my porch had gotten neglected with all of my husband's health issues, so I am carefully trimming back the legginess and giving them some loving care so that they are starting to look nice again. I think I already mentioned that I sanded and painted an outdoor metal table. I really need to start on my list, though, and it needs to include fun stuff! I could really, really use fun.
I am in awe of all of Kristen's painting. I fully understand the deck painting. It's just too hard to have one nice board and the rest not-so-nice. It's all got to be painted. I'm the exact same way, and will laugh at myself while I'm doing it.
me too! I just wrote (below) about being in awe about all of the painting!
Well, my dear, you have had quite the summer so far! I think you should give yourself lots of grace.
Can you believe school starts here August 12th? I had to put a new front yard in ugh and have spent a lot of time watering it. I have an irrigation system but it misses spots. I used to do all my painting but the ole’ knees can’t take it any more. No vacation this summer either boohoo .
It starts here August 5th here in the South. Where did summer go?!?
Hello-
Maybe I'm a slacker, but I am always astonished about how much PAINTING you do. We've lived in our home for 16 years and have never painted a wall or furniture! I DO repaint the deck every few years but that's the extent of my decorating-- and it usually takes me the whole summer to do it since I do a little at a time. I cannot imagine/comprehend repainting a room like you do? I mean it looks really nice and all that.. . .maybe I don't have a "decorator" gene or enough vision? Our furniture is mostly antique wood so I wouldn't paint over that-- but the rooms and the decorating and the colors. It exhausts me thinking about it LOL I'm in awe of your vision and energy.
Timely post, as my daughter just said to me this afternoon "I feel like summer is almost gone, and I haven't done anything." Are you kidding me?!! We've done a ton of stuff, but it doesn't seem to stick with this particular child! We took a weekend trip with close friends, which included pool time and lots of fun at a great tourist attraction; she's had camp, and summer school, and pool time, and time with friends, and using her new sewing machine, and working with a local artist, and she's teaching a younger child art this week, and her other volunteer job which she loves, and a sleepunder next week, and a trip to the beach coming up, and a recent day trip to a museum and our state capitol which she enjoyed, and plays and concerts and movies. Oh, and a surprise ice cream Blizzard today. I'm exhausted just listing this, and that's just for *one* of my kids! I try not to overschedule during the school year, but I clearly overschedule the fun during the summer!
Hmm. Maybe she needs a summer bucket list just of all the things she's done already. 😉 It could help those things stick in her brain a little better!
I am tired just thinking about you trying to cover that bright bedroom paint. My girls have a deep watermelon wallcolor in the bathroom they share upstairs. I really want it painted but it's just so daunting. At least bedrooms tend to have bigger, easier to paint, expanses of wall surface with less fiddly little curves and crevices than a bathroom.
That is true. I painted my kitchen walls a few years back and oh my word, what a pain that was! There's so so little wall space, so you have to tape and cut in almost every bit of it!
My bucket list only had two items:
1) Finish a chapter of my dissertation in May, June, and July.
2) Keep up with life.
I am very happy with my progress. I finished chapters 1 and 2 in May and June and have already gotten my advisor's okay on those two. I have been catching up on other things so far in July, but I should dive deep into that third chapter in the coming days.
Keeping up with life is happening too. This is more than the four little words imply as my husband and I run a business, and we have four kids, ages 8, 5, 3, and 3 months. We've even had some fun this summer too, and will continue to do so. Our vacation is happening in August, which is why I don't have a chapter scheduled that month.
Nice job on the furniture. If I saw that dresser listed for $500 at Restoration Hardware I would think it was a fair price for a solid wood dresser.