Spring To Do List

Spring sprung more than a month ago and I just began to check items off my “Spring to Do List”.  In recent years I have become such a procrastinator that it’s almost embarrassing.  Maybe you don’t realize it, but I have noticed that most days I am uninspired to accomplish the tasks gathered on my ever changing list.  This has got to change.  Below are 5 things I hope to accomplish by June 20th.

#1- New Job (Search)

Not only is work sucking the life out of me at an alarming rate it I am sure it is also the reason my urgency to complete my Spring list has diminished.  A majority of my work is completed before lunch, which leaves me the afternoon to sit and stare at the most awful, dirty beige wallpaper I have ever seen.  I know what you’re thinking.  I should just ask for more work to do.  I have in the past.  But honestly, I am completely uninterested in anything pertaining to my current job.  I am never content.  My plan, my hope, my wish is to have a new job that I LOVE by Spring's end.  Cross your fingers.

#2 – Take More Pictures

When I was young my Mother would take pictures of my sister and me like it was going out of style; in the woods, on the deck, in front of the wheat field next to our house.  She took so many pictures in fact that we called her Delmar after a photography studio in Southern Illinois (which doesn't seem to exist anymore; for the life of me I cannot find a website for them).  I sadly have the Delmar gene.  My first digital camera was a Cannon.  It looks ancient when I look at it now.  Two years ago Matt gave me a Sony digital camera just in time for the birth of my niece Aubrey.  It was (still is) a good camera and takes great photos.  But it didn't take photos like the ones I saw on Etsy; the photos that made me green with envy.  After months of hinting, I am envious no more!  For Christmas I received a Nikon D3100.  Since then I have taken hundreds of pictures (most of my niece Aubrey; love the double chin in this one!); only a handful of which are good enough for me to admit I took them.  So maybe goal #2 should really be to learn how to better use my camera.  I’ve got the quantity down pat; its quality I am in search of now.

#3 – Organize Photos

After my Mom passed away and my dad moved out of my childhood home I more than gladly inherited our family photos; more than 25 years worth of completely unorganized, but extremely sentimental shoes boxes upon shoe boxes of memories.  Eight years later when my Grandma passed away I took over her photo collection as well.  Hers was more orderly; most in albums and some even labeled.  And I of course, have my own heaping pile of pictures I accumulated since 2nd grade (when I got my first camera).  Several times I have had the greatest intention of sorting, organizing, and finally putting these (I'm sure thousands of) pictures in albums for me and whoever else to enjoy.  Other than time my only excuse is that I am very emotional when it comes to the past.  It is terribly difficult for me to look though old photos without crying.  Family I have lost and friends that have grown apart weigh heavy on my heart.  But, I am determined to dry my eyes and after all this time give those pictures and my fondest memories a place to call home.

#4 - Crafts

As always my to do lists include crafting.  1)  Make a dry erase board from one of the old windows from the house.  2)  Summer wreath.  It's too late to start on a Spring one; they are very time consuming.  3)  Cork board for the office.  My plan is to buy a generic one somewhere, paint it (green?), and frame it.  4)  Make a corner shelf out of an old door.  This was somewhat started awhile ago.  So far, the door has been spilt in two.  5) Make a button tree; something like the pic on the left, but more colorful. Canvas - check.  Buttons, paint, and everything else needed for this project - fail.  Who makes a list within a list?  This girl!

#5 - Home Improvements

When you buy an 86 year old house it is inevitable that there will need to be improvements.  It is never ending.  Again...another list within a list. 

1)  Power wash and paint the (as Matt calls it) the smoke house.  I call it the shed.  And it is despicable.  It did not look like this 3 years ago when we bought the house.  It was clean and white. Disgusting.  How did that happen?  Honestly, I would just like it gone completely.

2)  Downstairs bathroom remodel.  See pic below.  Yes, that is a 1950's-ish baby blue bathtub you can kinda see on the left.  The floor sucks.  It's cold and, and..well, I don't have the right word for it.  Just know this...I hate that floor more than I have never hated anything before.  I will forfeit an anniversary trip this summer just to have this bathroom gutted.  I'm thinking nautical theme.  Or maybe gray and yellow.  I am really into the color peach lately.  See my Pinboard aptly named Downstairs Bathroom Remodel for my ideas.  Need I say more.

3)  Finish the backyard landscaping.  When we purchased the house this is what the yard looked like; overgrown weeds, in-ground pool full of dirt, trees where there shouldn't be trees.  Since then (with lots of help from Matt's parents) we have worked our butts off clearing the brush, planting grass, taking out the old fence, and unfortunately burying the pool completely.  Now that the trailer in the lot next to us (you can kind of see it on the left of the pic) is gone and our neighbor is extending his fence (so glad that we don't have to spend money on that) it's time that we make this a backyard that we can actually enjoy.  I am ready for a fire-pit and beating Matt to a game of Cornhole every weekend this summer!  


There are only 2 months left until summer.  That’s only 8 weeks for me to find my dream job while continuing to make better the house Matt and I call home.  Only 56 days for me to become a professional photographer (in my eyes), sort and catalog more than a decades worth of family photos, and craft until I am so burned out that I will swear of creating for good.  I’d better get started.