Sweet Summertime

Hello Friends! I have no excuse for letting two weeks go by without a blog post, but I promise I've been thinking about doing a blog post. I just didn't feel like it.

I am into my seventh week of summer vacation and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Not to brag, but I actually have a headache today because I got too much sleep last night. How often does that happen?

The very attractive picture you see above is from the 4th of July when we rode our bikes down to the river. We were all sweaty and we had hat head from our helmets, but it was an awesome day.

This is my gratuitous Zoe Bug picture. I don't want her complaining that all my posts are about Annie and never her or her horses. By the way, Gunny is one of her horses. Neigh.

As you may have noticed, Stinky got a haircut. She is very much against all things girly and this is a haircut that she can wash and wear, no combing necessary. As you might guess, she is frequently mistaken for a boy which, believe it or not, doesn't bother her a bit.

Shortly after getting her short hair cut, we were at Texas Roadhouse and a boy followed her into the women's restroom. After looking around he became immediately alarmed and turned to her and exclaimed "We're not supposed to be in here!" 

I didn't have the pleasure of witnessing her response, but I'm almost certain she turned to him and gave him her "Ya think?" look and embarrassed him further. She's thoughtful like that.

Even though Stinky is not bothered by people assuming she's a boy, it kind of bothers me, so I made this shirt for her to wear on the first day of school. It will be her first day of middle school and I think it's important to just get it out there on day one.

See. She's fine with it.

Gratuitous Zoe Bug picture.

So, I made up this rule for summer that the girls can't have any screen time whatsoever until 5:00 p.m. every day. I, of course, am exempt from this ridiculous rule, but it is working out quite nicely for me. They have been reading, doing puzzles, cooking, playing with the dog, and playing with their friends.

Lately, however, Zoe has been spending most days right here on the couch, then at 4:59 she shoots up and runs downstairs, where she is in the process of working her way through every episode of the eight seasons of "Horses in Love," or something horsey like that, on Netflix.

Since I've spent most of the summer with the assumption that I could be going to work at any moment, I've been chipping away pretty steadily at my list and getting lots done.

First up, check out my new roof! It's pretty sexy isn't it? Really, I can't take any credit for this. All I did for this one was make a phone call and write a couple checks. I'm claiming it though, because I made it happen.

I've done some decrapifying, but not nearly on the scale that I need to. It's my least favorite thing to do. I know it's super satisfying and all that, but it's mentally exhausting making so many decisions about every little thing. Yawn.

Towards my efforts at going paperless, I made a good start on scanning. It's another one of those things that I can't just sit and power through because there's just so much of it. And it's B-O-R-I-N-G. I've decided that it's going to be a work in progress, and I'm okay with it.

I'm proud to say that I've been working out like a maniac, although I have not lost one ounce. I'm not going to lie, it makes me cranky, but I have yet to commit to a big enough change in my eating habits to make a difference. I'll get there.

As I always do in the summer, I'm reading a lot more and I love that. I also recently discovered Audible and I've been listening to audio books while tackling unpleasant chores. It has made such a big difference in how much I get done.

I've been wanting to rip the carpet off our stairs for literally years. I'm sure it was the original carpet which means that it was 21 years old. Isn't that nasty? Trust me, it was.

It was an unpleasant, sweaty job that I tackled during the hottest part of the summer. It took me a few days because I could only commit to a couple hours at a time because it sucked so much, but man did it ever feel good to have it done.

They will remain bare like this until I repaint the walls on either side.

And finish refinishing this railing.

And repainting up above, including the ceiling and that scary wall. Can I just tell you how much I am not looking forward to that?

So much that I tackled another project in order to avoid starting this one.

This was my kitchen table a couple weeks ago. We've only had the table about seven years, but the finish started cracking and peeling. Plus there was that time when Gunny was a puppy and he gnawed on one of the legs.

I spent most of last week stripping, sanding, staining, and sealing it with fifteen or so coats of polycrylic. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I still have six chairs to do, but I'm not going to tackle those just yet. Plus, I want to paint those in funky colors.

As you can see, I've been keeping myself busy. I want to leave you today with a little video of Zoe Bug (gratuitous) jumping Gunny as if he were a horse. Peanut Head got tired of her dragging the wood pile and all of the patio furniture out into the yard to create jumps for Gunny to leap over, so he taught her how to make her own set of adjustable jumps. Poor Gunny Bun Bun. Thankfully he's too dumb to know any better. He just loves any attention he can get.

I don't know how to make it so that my video is the only one connected to this post, so just be sure that if you want to watch it a second time, you press the replay button, which is the arrow going in a circular motion. Otherwise if you just click on the video it will pull up some other random video. For me it was pulling up Eddie Murphy, and although I quite like him, he has a potty mouth. You especially don't want to be watching that business at work.