Thursday, August 29, 2013

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?




20 comments:

  1. Again I am queen of procrastination and I am glad to have you as my loyal subject :)

    If you leave it long enlighten it will get done... Never...

    Get to work Dyanne...

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    Replies
    1. I just wish I could paint over the glue and not have to scrape it off. And I seriously hate the people who hung that wallpaper in the first place.

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  2. Great Job with the chalk paint. I hope you had lots of fun and friend and family time this summer. It is so much better to look back on memories than to look back on chores completed.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! The chalk paint took for-evah, but it was worth it. And it HAS been a fun summer. Pretty laid back, except for the sending-the-son-off-to-college stuff.

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  3. Hang on, lemme just figure something out.

    This summer (ONE summer) you thought you were going to:

    Strip your bathroom walls of a substance harder than diamond
    Reorganise the contents of a shop
    Tidy your basement
    Clean your basement
    Put up window treatments in your daughter's room
    Hang pictures in her room
    Clean her closet
    Work on the kids scrapbooks
    Plan your lessons for the forthcoming academic year
    Recover an ottoman
    Reorganise, strip and paint your own bedroom
    Keep your house clean
    Keep your house tidy
    Stay on top of things like laundry and cooking
    Spend time with your husband
    Spend time with your kids
    (maybe?) Spend some time to yourself
    Stage-manage getting your boy away to college
    See to your treatments
    Fulfil the other million requirements of being a mom
    Reorganise your pre-K room ready for the start of term
    Keep blogging
    Take on a new weekend commitment as co-host for TToT

    and you had, what, a coupla months?

    Yeah, no, I can't see how you failed to keep up, either. Clearly a slacker of the first class.

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  4. Yes, I tend to agree with Considerer there - that was a fairly, ahem, aggressive list. But that vanity? AH-MAZ-ING! It reminded me that I had one of those in my room when I was a kid and I used to complain about it all the time until my Mama finally replaced it for me with - get this - a brass and glass one. I was thrilled. Oh, the folly of youth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My great aunt had one of those vanities, too. We sold it in an auction after she passed away 35 years ago. Who knew they would come back to vogue? Meh, I only paid $70 for it.

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  5. Sounds about like my summer. And my house. We were meant to be friends.

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  6. Oh, good, so I'm not the only one who has a summer-do list with things still sitting there waiting to be done.

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  7. Goodness! It's like we're related!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We should get together and talk about not doing the stuff on our to-do list!

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  8. I was going to reply to your post when I read and laughed my way through it 4 days ago. But I, too, am an underachieving procrastinator!

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  9. The war paint - haha, that's hilarious!

    I, too, have many unfinished projects around the house that may - or may not - include a few picture frames up on the walls with the factory photos they came with!

    ...There's really no excuse for that. Woh, woh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was given a tote bag one time as a gift that had clear pockets in it so you could insert pictures. I never did that; instead, I just carried it with the factory photos in it. My children were greatly disturbed by this and called the people in them "Mommy's other family."

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  10. I have been offline for a few weeks and just caught up on your posts. a) The post about your son going to college made me want to cry. I hope you are both doing well! I'm going to go climb into bed with my baby now and never let her go. ;) b) I love the paint job on your daughter's dresser! c) Your butt crack obsession reaffirms why I like you.

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    Replies
    1. a) He's loving it, so it makes it easier to have him gone. If he were miserable, I don't know how I could take it. b) Thank you! Daughter picked out the color and it's SO PRETTYFUL. c) Your Scary Baby reaffirms why I like YOU.

      Now get busy and post something! I've missed you!

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