National Get Crap Done Month

Do to an overwhelming lack of forward momentum in the decorating, diy, crafting, cooking and general housework departments the last two months, I've declared July as Get Crap Done Month. I will attempt to start and FINISH (oh my) a project in each catagory this month. My thinking is if I declare them out loud (or in writing as the case may be) that I'll be too embarrassed not to complete them. Feel free to ask me about their progress throughout the month if you don't hear any reports coming from me.

Decorating: Paint my son's room. There are 60 year old plaster walls in fairly bad shape so it requires some major prep work prior to actual painting. Sad that we have lived here almost 3 years and he goes to college in 2 months and its just now getting done. Bad mother, bad mother. On a positive note, I get more say in its decorating since it will be my craft room while he's away.

DIY: Tile the backsplash behind the pedestal sink and replace the faucet (both require my brother's help and are subject to his availability) in my bathroom. My backup project is to caulk all the windowsill cracks where the lovely carpenter ants were emerging from. Actually this project should be done even if the bathroom project is done.

Crafting: Make and hang drapes (only after painting is done) for my son's bedroom so that the TOWEL he has hanging in his window can be removed. Yes, we look like trailer trash. It's embarrassing for somebody with a decorating/lifestyle blog to have such an abomination in her home. I have no excuse. OK, I have a little excuse. We have no drapes in our condo due to being on the 3rd floor (private with plenty of mature trees) and our love of sunlight and openness. We moved furniture around in my son's room and now the sunlight is hitting his computer monitor causing a glare and impairing the 2700 hours of video game playing daily. His immediate solution - hang a towel. My immediate reaction: ACK!

Cooking: Get back to my recipe Monday posts. Make two new to you and two new to me recipes for the month: cilantro slaw, cherries in the snow, lemon sour cream pie (ummm.... pie) and, and, and, zucchini bread yeah zucchini bread or maybe homemade pizza crust or a great corn and black bean salad. Hard to decide, they all sound good.

Housework: ugh, housework. Well as a general must do better, I have to keep up with the dishes on a daily basis. I hate washing dishes by hand and we have no dishwasher (except moi). Currently I let them go until my son is using a sugar spoon to scoop peanut butter for a sandwich since every other spoon is dirty. As a specific task (there are so many to choose from) I'll pick putting away my son's art work brought home from high school and organizing his body of work to protect/preserve it. As a bonus, this will free up some closet space in my new, temporary "craft room". This requires my son's help and separating him from the computer which is attached permanently, like an electronics umbilical cord.

This is all in addition to some volunteer work I want to start. And our staycation plans of museums and free concerts. Oh and blueberry picking and jam making. And plant repotting. And some bloggy crafts and more posts than the last month (which were a little sparse I'll agree).  I've also had an elderly Uncle pass just a few days ago. There will be many relatives I haven't seen in years at the memorial. I would like to take my genealogy information with me and try to fill in some holes. I need to do this before the older generation is completely gone. Of course I have to organize it better first. Oh, and I'd love to go to a summer flea market or street festival. And the weekly farmers market. And ...

I'm tired already and haven't even started. I'll have to plan out specific tasks on my calendar or otherwise nothing will get done and on July 27 I'll be in a panic looking for a reasonable excuses why I was so lazy, oh I mean busy with other important things.