Summer Fun

If a picture says 1000 words then I'm just going to let these pics say it. Actually they might lead you to believe that we're having much more fun than we actually are because going outside is rare these days. I don't remember having a summer this hot for this long since we've lived here and I really don't like it that much. I'm sure that a nice cool down will be here in about a month but with the thermometer hovering around 100 degrees most days we just haven't wanted to get out much. But the girls did have a lot of fun on the slip-n-slide that they got from Grandma. And we figured out that the "snow wedge" that we bought for the snow this past winter works wonderfully for going down the slip-n-slide and it tends to spin so it's even more fun. Well, I guess we might be having some fun these days. But did I mention the mosquitoes? Definitely consider mosquitoes if you buy a house that backs up to a wooded area. It's nice for privacy but our tiki torches aren't fazing these mosquitoes a bit. I guess it's a good thing that winter lasts so long here.

So onto the next thing. Remodeling here is going slowly. I love the way the living room turned out and it's very relaxing but my attention is now turning to the bathroom and kitchen/hallway. I bought a very soothing light green for the bathroom a while back and we have a great light fixture to replace the old icky one. We actually bought that shortly after we moved in for $6 at Costco or maybe $12 but either way it didn't cost very much and it's beautiful. I think Amanda and I are going to try to install that today and I need to get the rest of the wallpaper down, sand it all because it seems like it was possibly wallpapered from the beginning so it wasn't primed or maybe the paint or primer is just peeling off but at any rate I'm going to have to do a lot of sanding by hand. And then it's on to the kitchen and hallway. I still have wallpaper to strip although not a lot and then spackling and more hand sanding to do to get the walls ready for the beautiful new buttery shade of paint I bought a couple of days ago!

When we first moved in I decided that I'd paint the kitchen yellow because it seems like a neutral to me- only with more character. Since I like so many different colors I thought I could use turquoise, fuchsia, red, orange, black, lime green, blue or anything else I wanted (just not all at the same time) and the room wouldn't be beige. I love bright, tropical colors in the spring and summer but a more subdued palette in the fall and winter as I'm sure most people do. But I have pretty much resigned myself to buying only what I find in the oops bins at Lowes and Home Depot. Well, I dropped Travis off at work on Sunday (he's working a second job at Home Depot in case I hadn't told everyone that) and stopped in to buy some potting soil. It is my habit lately to drop by the oops bins every time I go in and as luck would have it I found 4 gallons of a beautiful yellow in semi-gloss which will be perfect for the kitchen and hallway. I'm excited to get it on the walls I just wish it didn't take so much work to get to that point. So there is much work to do but I know it will be all worth it when I'm able to just enjoy everything rather than having a never ending mental checklist of things to do around the house.