What I Didn't Do This Summer

Here's what I didn't do this summer.

Paint my bathroom. Because I can't paint it until I get all the wallpaper glue scrubbed off. When I peeled the wallpaper off the walls, a thick layer of glue was left behind. Thick and cement-like. I have sprayed it with commercial wallpaper remover, with hot water mixed with Dawn dishwashing detergent, and with hot water mixed with fabric softener, then scraped and scraped and scraped.  And it still. won't. come. off. I've only been working on it, off and on (mostly off) for four years, since I got bored during the Great Swine Flu Quarantine at our house and pulled my first loose corner of wall paper....

My cats should only be this talented.

Clean the basement. (For the record, it's just a basement. It's not finished, so before you read this, don't think we have totally trashed usable living space.) It wasn't in too bad of shape pre-tornado (our personal timelines are usually defined as either before the tornado or after the tornado). Then it got filled up, temporarily, with other people's salvaged items, some of which were spread around to dry. Then when we needed to add something of our own to the basement, we just set it down anywhere. Just as we were returning the salvaged items and might be able to see the floor in the foreseeable future, my dad closed his hardware store, and we added a bunch of crap that we might need someday. End result is, we can't walk through the place. And I'm not exaggerating.

Fletcher on the basement stairs. Did you
really think I was going to show you what
a disaster it is down there?! Psshhh!

Finish decorating my daughter's room. For her 14th birthday, which was in February, we promised to paint her room and fix it up (it hadn't been painted since it was her nursery, and she CONSTANTLY COMPLAINED about the pale lavender walls). Found an old chest of drawers in March that had been completely redone with Annie Sloan paint. Brought it home and put it in the living room until we painted the room. Then I found an old 1920s style vanity in March that we brought home and put in the living room, where I painted it with chalk paint (and it looks AWESOME, if I do say so myself). And there both pieces sat until my daughter finally decided on a color to paint the room. That was accomplished in June, and she and I painted the room and arranged the furniture, but we've never put up window treatments. Or hung pictures on the wall. Or cleaned out her closet.  Maybe for her 15th birthday....

Before:
If you look in the lower right corner of the mirror,
you can see a corner of the chest of drawers.

During:
This took many, many coats of chalk paint and
many, many, many coats of paste wax.
Where's the "After" you may ask?
Forgot to take one.

The war paint was hilarious until she had to scrub it off.

I was also going to work on the kids' scrapbooks this summer. Write lesson plans for the school year ahead of time. Recover an ottoman. Paint my bedroom.

Well, this was a fun little writing exercise. Rather confirms something I have long suspected.

My name is Dyanne, and I'm an underachiever.

I'm a procrastinator.

I'm an underachieving procrastinator.



Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop prompt #2 What did you not get accomplished this summer that you wish you had time for?