Lazy days of Summer?

School has been out for two weeks and the summer days, while considerably less structured, have been quite busy.Jacks and I have been the last to shed the early wake vibes and most days start by 7:30 at the latest for us...a huge change from waking up at 5:15 for me to get the four rug-rats out the door for school.And with the early start to the day, I find myself immersed in cleaning and organizing.  The Twins have already attended a week of Rookie camp for marching band and those 7 am wake up calls were tough after a week of staying up late with no alarms to force us up in the mornings. (Amazing how quickly you adapt to new sleep schedules!)  Jacks has a week long ecology camp quickly approaching, and Haybug is attending art classes. As the summer days stretch out before us (with 2 extra weeks thanks to the Alabama law makers, but  that's another rant), we are looking at anything but lazy days. 

It became quite apparent as we were moving last August/September that we are borderline hoarders and we need an intervention. Granted, you won't find decomposed animals at the bottom of a box, but it is amazing what we've held onto in almost 20 years of marriage!  Raise your hand if you still have textbooks and notes from college even though you graduated from said college 19 years ago...oh come on, I know I am not the only one!! And while I really enjoyed my classes, I  doubt I will pick up my Herd Health or Organic Chemistry notes for a bit of fluff reading anytime soon. *sigh* As much as I hate to toss all that hard work, at this point it is outdated, unneeded, and wasting valuable space. And while we dealt with a lot of the frivolous stuff in the move from the Oak House, there are  still boxes in the garage that need to be unpacked and sorted......although after 8 months of not missing whatever is in those boxes, I am thinking a lot of donations are about to be made to the local Goodwill.

With  full days ahead of me due to early (yes 7-7:30 is early around here) rising, I have been busy catching up on neglected chores around the house and most importantly, I am finally able to focus on the "honey-do/need" list that we started almost a year ago when we purchased the new house. With the crazy demands of the school year, things have just been shifted to the bottom of the pile as we have noticed more and more things that need to be repaired/improved/replaced around here.Whoever labeled them the lazy days of summer evidently never bought a house in need of some serious TLC! 

The staff at the local Home Depot are happy to see us picking up the frequency of our visits, which slowed considerably once we finished all the improvements for the Oak House. I am excited to be able to finally focus on our forever home and put our stamp of  personality on this place!

This past weekend we started one of the first major improvement projects of the summer: The much neglected front porch.


BEFORE:

 

After becoming quite intimate with the porch this with over 16 hours devoted to scrapping, sanding and painting, I would swear that was the original paint from 17 years ago! We also found some rotted wood (not unexpected) and ended up doing some minor carpentry repair.  We still have work left to do ( I estimate at least 5  more hours), but what a huge difference!!

AFTER:

 

Now the porch is the perfect showcase for the sign my sweet husband made for me as a surprise...complete in the colors of blue and white for AHS, my Alma Mater. :0) 

 I am loving sitting on the porch in the mornings, planning my day and enjoying the view and my plants....can you believe except for the ferns everything on the porch was bought on clearance? My newest addition is this Peace Lilly... for which I paid only $9! I love a good deal. :0)

After all the work put into the porch this past weekend, it was a sweet surprise to walk into the living room at the end of the day and realize that the house is starting too look more like an old painting that belonged to Wayne's Grandmother. We are so blessed to have some pieces of hers around the house, and thrilled that in this case our life is imitating a favorite piece of her art.....